Product marketing is NOT product management.

Product marketing is NOT growth hacking.

Product marketing is NOT inbound marketing, or demand gen, or content marketing.

Product marketing is the strategy, science and art of bringing a product to market.

What do we do as product marketers?

Product marketers function as CEO’s of their products, product lines, or entire product portfolios. We are responsible for (feel free to steal this for your job description writing):

Operating with extreme empathy for our target audience(s);
Understanding the pain points and problems of our target buyers and users;
Partnering with product management and engineering to develop products and solutions that acutely address those issues;
Developing pricing that our target buyers are willing to pay and that conveys the value they will receive after a purchase;
Designing and delivering sales enablement and materials that will lead to pipeline development and closed business;
Knowing everything about our competitors and how to position our products/company in a unique way;
Identifying and engaging with appropriate sales/distribution channels and marketing partners to exponentially scale reach and business growth;
Leading cross-functional teams across integrated marketing, PR/Media, product, engineering, finance, sales, sales operations, sales enablement, HR, business development, and support to launch new products;
Understanding every aspect of a buyer’s journey and experiences with our company from awareness, to interest and consideration, to purchase, support, and ultimately advocacy;
Cultivating relationships with customers to drive retention and advocacy, and to develop case studies and reference materials for marketing execution;
Assisting sales teams as a subject matter expert in sales cycles;
Partnering with sales to incorporate feedback from the frontline into product marketing strategies and initiatives;
Partnering with product management and engineering to assess product usage and engagement patterns to develop more personalized and relevant customer retention strategies based on actual behavior;
Reporting success and failures to company senior leadership;
Briefing media, market analysts and investors on our product(s), go to market strategies and unique point of view on the market, our company’s positioning and roadmap;
Writing, presenting and publicly advocating for the company at events, in trade publications and press, and in the world in general;
Leveraging data and embracing an agile mindset in every aspect of the above responsibilities to make smarter, sounder decisions to grow our product business and the overall business of the company.

Who are we really, product marketers?

We’re the kids who started lemonade stands, traded and bartered in the elementary school lunch room, and were the first to sign up to help.
We’re insatiably curious and always ask why.
We’re students of business and business models.
We’re relatively obsessed with technology. Our less tech-savvy friends generally turn to us first for “tech” help.
Our parents have no idea what we do for a living.
We eventually want to start our own companies, we just haven’t figured out the perfect idea yet.
We love to see and use data to drive our initiatives.
We’re scientists. And artists. We were either engineers or English majors. Or maybe both.
We’re generally pretty tired of marketing buzz words and wish things like “synergy” would evaporate into the ether.
We’re happiest working in a group of super scrappy, smart, ambitious and fun people who like to get sh*t done. We work hard and don’t have time for a$$holes.
We’re not into short-term “growth hacking.” Sure, we work in sprints, but we’re in it for the long haul. We’re looking to build sustainable businesses.

What value do we bring to organizations and why are we “must haves” to drive business growth?

You’re itching to get product market fit as quickly as possible because your investors are pressuring you, or you’re pressuring yourself to get revenue so you can raise your Series A; you know that funding for dreams doesn’t really happen anymore. But without a product marketing strategy — how exactly are you going to market? Who needs your product and how can you convince him that he does? — you’re entering the Appalachian Trail without a map, or boots, or socks. All the money that you’re about to spend on copywriters, or your nephew who knows a bit of HTML, or paid search or Facebook ads, you might as well light on fire. Even if you do get a response, how will you know if they’re really the customers you want and can retain (e.g. drive more value to your business)?

Someone with product marketing skills is a key executive hire for your team as you think about taking anything to market. Ideally, this person is on staff BEFORE you finish building anything so you can assess the market and develop a product or service that will solve a problem that someone will actually pay for — otherwise, you have a shiny new thing, but not a business.

According to a CB Insights report that analyzed 101 essays from founders who had failed startups,

“The number-one reason for failure, cited by 42% of polled startups, is the lack of a market need for their product.

That should be self-evident. If no one wants your product, your company isn’t going to succeed. But many startups build things people don’t want with the irrational hope that they’ll convince them otherwise.”

PRODUCT MARKETERS ARE THE ONES WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR DETERMINING MARKET NEEDS FOR PRODUCTS AND WILLINGNESS TO PAY.

Friends, 90% of startups fail. By following the logic above….let’s say 40% or even 30% of startups fail because they didn’t understand the market they were trying to enter and built a product no one wanted. Guess who could have helped them with that? Yes, a product marketer.

Now think about how much more economic value we could create for our communities by employing product marketers early in the development of our businesses. Could we keep 5, 10 or even 15% more startups in business? How many more jobs could we create? According to the latest data from the Small Business Administration, small businesses account for about 45% of total GDP in the US. If we were able to affect that by 1% we would make a significant impact in the economic health of our local communities.

Where are my product marketing kin?

So why is it so hard to find product marketers in Chicago? I know there are a bunch of you out there, maybe you just haven’t had the words to describe who you are, what you do and the value you bring to organizations. I want to help. I’m starting a guild in Chicago to share war stories and help each other bring more awareness to our craft. If you’re game, leave a comment here with your contact info or hit me up on my website — www.loquipartners.com.

Together we can build more successful businesses and drive real economic change in our communities — #productmarketers should be your first hire.

Also published on Medium

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak at a General Assembly event in Chicago focused on predictions for 2017 in Digital Marketing. Based on the title, it seemed rather narrow and somewhat tactical, but nonetheless important; there are many shiny things that catch our attention these days. But what struck me was the opportunity to step back and focus on strategy, rather than the latest social platform we all “need” to be on. After all, if your target audience isn’t there, why are you?

Employing the Scientific Method to drive marketing success

Close your eyes for a moment and transport yourself back to your grade or middle school class where you were first introduced to the scientific method. I’ll wait….

As I remember it, Mrs. Cain taught us about making observations, hypotheses, dependent and independent variables, putting together a lab plan, observing what happened, taking copious notes and then drawing conclusions relative to what our hypotheses were. Were we correct? Incorrect? If incorrect, why? How can we reconstruct the experiment in a different way to test our hypothesis further? If correct, what are the proof points? What data do we have to support our conclusions?

This is the framework that we should all embrace as marketing leaders, but too often, we get caught up with the shiny pennies and funny names — growth hacking, content marketing, inbound marketing, social marketing, influencer marketing — that we don’t stop to think about actually developing a strategy and testing it. These channels and tactics are NOT a marketing strategy. They’re ways in which you execute and test a hypothesis based on careful understanding of your target market, pain points and the product or services you’re trying to sell.

The Marketing Scientific Method

1) Observe:

“You never know a man until you’ve walked around in his skin”

Ideally, before you build ANYTHING, you have already identified a group of people who share a problem. Perhaps this arose from a very personal issue you experienced and haven’t been able to find a solution. Once you started talking to others like you — maybe other moms, students, engineers, marketers, whatever the segment — you realize that you all share this problem and collectively haven’t found a solution. Aha! Invention, or perhaps just innovation on an existing tool or service that isn’t cutting it, begins!

“Get Curious. Talk to People…”

Your observations continue now at scale. How many other people have the same problem I do?

Note: they may not look, talk or live like you do (this is the issue with relying too much on demographics to segment a market), but they must have the same problem you do without a viable solution.

When you find people with the same problem, talk to them, ask questions that will draw out why they have this problem, what they’ve tried in the past to solve it and why it’s not working. Take notes. Tons of notes. Code them in some way where you can start to identify patterns that will inform a more quantitative way of surveying a larger group in the near future.

Note: I’m not suggesting you have to hire a big fancy research firm to do this; indeed, this isn’t in the budget for most startups. Generally, this is where that network you’ve been building your entire life comes in and where social media is particularly helpful. Crowdsource with friends and family. Walk the streets in your neighborhood. Eschew that advice to never talk to strangers. I’m particularly a fan of talking to @lyft drivers, but that’s another story for another time.

When you think you have enough qualitative information to begin crafting your hypothesis at statistically significant scale, start codifying and prioritizing your questions. Then sign up for free or free-ish tools like Google Surveys, Survey Monkey, etc. Be respectful of your audience’s time, however, and think about small rewards that you can provide them in exchange. Yes, here’s where money can come into play, but you’d be surprised at how responsive people are when you offer them a free cup of coffee. You don’t necessarily need to give them $100 in exchange for 30 min of their time.

2) Develop your Hypothesis

For marketers, developing a hypothesis rooted in audience observation, should include the following:

Audience definition (aka “persona” development; for B2B marketers, you may also include definitions of target organizations/companies) — For me, this needs to be human and comprehensive. Stating “males 25–35 years old who live in San Francisco” is insufficient. I need to know everything about this guy — his name is George; he grew up in Portland going to the Oregon coast with his family every summer. He’s 32 and is a civil engineer working for the San Francisco city government building and repairing bridges. In his spare time, he enjoys extreme sports and hiking with his girlfriend of two years. He just rescued a greyhound. He volunteers at a soup kitchen once a month and his favorite place to visit is Paris at Christmas-time. That level of detail. I want this person to come to life because then I can find this person and others that look/act/think like him and that most likely have the same problems for which I have a solution.
Product and Service definition — what is it that I’m attempting to sell to this audience and how will I support him/her as a customer? This is not just about the product. This is inherently about the experience — all along the buyers journey and throughout his or her time with you as a customer. I’m talking EVERY touch point. Map out what the ideal experience will look like across all those interaction points and see where you can improve.
A compelling reason to buy (aka why are my product/service AND company uniquely qualified to solve his/her problem?) — If you listened carefully and crafted the right questions in your observation phase, this should be a summary of what you heard coupled with why you believe you’re special. Yes, we’re all special snowflakes, but you need to make a compelling argument here. This is the crux of the hypothesis you’re going to test. It’s your positioning….which should NOT change over the course of this experiment. Your messaging for this audience may change, but the fundamental value you’re providing should not change until you have data that lead you to conclude your hypothesis was incorrect….enter testing mode.
Quantitative and qualitative goals to measure success — here’s where I’ve seen many marketers fall down. They don’t begin this process with a quantitative and qualitative benchmark in mind. If you’re starting from scratch, I believe the most logical place to focus is on quantity and quality of leads. For example, if I have 1 sales person on staff, I know he can process say 50 leads a week. I’m thus going to set my target for week 1 at driving 50 leads. At the end of the week (or maybe even daily), I will sit with this sales person to assess the quality of each of these leads — did we hit the right target based on the characteristics we laid out? were they qualified? were they in the right spot in their buyer’s journey? What questions or objections did you hear on your calls?

3) Experiment and Collect Data

This is your marketing execution plan. Ideally, it contains the following:

Messaging Map — A set of statements/messages that are tailored to the needs/wants/desires/perspectives of each of the personae you identified above. In this testing phase, you’ll want to develop a few sets of variants for each of these messages, maybe changing a few words or how you contextualize things across different channels.
Prioritized channels and spend — based on your understanding of the audience, where do they hangout and would be most receptive to your messaging? For example, if you’re offering a consumer product or service, is it more appropriate to reach them on Facebook? If you’re offering a business product, should you reach them in trade journals or at events? The good thing about channels like social and paid search is that you can test your messaging across audience segments and messaging variants for relatively low spend (I’m talking hundreds of dollars or even less depending on your target audience). Armed with a few weeks of data from these tests, then you can look to scale or increase spend on the channels and with the messaging you have proven to work.
Partnership with sales — the sales team needs to be your best friend. They hold the golden nuggets of information because they’re talking to your audience daily. As I mentioned above, I’d recommend at least a weekly session with your entire marketing and key sales teammates to review analytics and qualitative insights from sales calls. Now, no one wants another meeting on the books. This needs to be a session where everyone brings their recommendations based on what they’ve observed and where you take action for the following week. In effect, this is sprint planning (see more on Agile methodology here).
Monitor the market — we marketers can’t operate in a vacuum. It’s important to keep tabs on your competitors — what they’re saying, doing and maybe not saying to the market. Are they changing pricing? Have they announced partnerships with others? Are they acquiring other customers? Whom are they hiring? To me, this is one person’s (or at least someone’s half-time) job depending on how competitive and established your market is. If you’re creating a new category or market, good for you for getting your first-mover advantage on, but beware of new entrants. Don’t get complacent.
Pricing and Packaging — these topics can be separate experiments unto themselves, but should always be included in your overall plan. Pricing and packaging can severely affect — in good and bad ways — your success. There’s a lot on the interwebs and in thousands of books about pricing and packaging, so I won’t attempt to summarize it all here. However, note that while all of your other variables — messaging, channels, sales execution, etc — may be spot on, the reason why you’re not seeing traction may ultimately be due to a disconnect between pricing, packaging and the target customer’s perceived value of your offering. Please take heed and pay attention to this piece. If you need help, seek assistance from the smart people in your finance team wherein they can help you put together scenarios based on costs, margins that need to be preserved, audience willingness to pay and competition.

4) Making Conclusions and Taking Action

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” — a lot of people ask me how long is the ideal length of a marketing campaign or plan and therein lies the problem. Many marketers see “campaigns” as a finite activity with a binary outcome, much like political campaigns — there’s a prescribed length of time and at the end you have a winner and loser. Becoming marketing scientists forces us to think differently — our work is never complete as it can always improve.

As outlined above, I like to work in weekly sprints with a defined goal, hypothesis, execution plan, data collection with a defined infrastructure and time set aside to assess the success or failure of the experiment. You might say, ok, then the campaign is a week. Not really, as there are an infinite number of variables I could test, most of which don’t have a binary outcome. Breaking up the experiments into smaller plans helps us to quickly test and learn; however, we need to always root these weekly tests in our overall strategy. I’m NOT advocating for Willy-Nilly throwing money at different channels. Follow your plan and make tweaks to the entire offering and experience — product, service, marketing messaging, pricing, packaging, etc — not just to your spend on social media.

I believe that marketing is business building. If you believe that your business has the capacity for infinite growth, provided you’re willing to explore new markets and new products based on your unique competence, data and experience with your customers, then a campaign structure will never be appropriate.

Let’s change our mindsets to be marketing scientists. Embrace the power of experimentation, data and action to build better businesses and drive growth in our global economy.

What is Product Marketing?

How to Become a Marketing Scientist