TLDR

“Product Marketing is about driving growth by delivering the right product, to the right audience, using the right message.” - Jason Oakley

This means Product Marketers should (ideally) be focused on four key things: 

• Helping the company grow (Likely in form of revenue or product adoption). 

• Transforming industry trends, market dynamics and competitor activities into practical + actionable insights for Product, Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success.

• Deeply understanding customers including buyers, end users and influencers.

• Figuring out what to say so buyers will buy what you selling.

The Whole Lesson

Whenever I speak to someone about Product Marketing, it kinda feels like I’m back in my early Consulting days as a 23 year old talking to CEOs about leadership.

Blank stares, confused faces and placating “oh… I get it. That’s cool (walks away).”

Side note: That exact interaction actually happened once in a session I was co-facilitating back in the day. I’ll probably tell you more about it later at some point.

Anyway, I’m not sure when the first Product Marketing job was posted but it’s safe to say Product Marketing is still evolving and most people have no idea what the hell it is. 

When I was trying to get into Product Marketing, I sure didn’t. I had ZERO formal PMM experience (even though I had been doing a lot of PMM related stuff). Somehow though, I tricked my boss into taking a chance on me.

Boss…If you are reading this, thank you for falling for it. You changed my life in ways you couldn’t possibility imagine and I really owe you.

Defining Product Marketing

According to the Product Marketing Alliance (PMA), Product Marketing is the driving force behind getting products to market - and keeping them there. To them, Product Marketers are the overarching voices of the customer, masterminds of messaging, enablers of sales, and accelerators of adoption.

April Dunford, the OG Product Marketer (in my opinion) describes it a bit differently: 

“Product Marketers are the people responsible for being able to deeply understand and therefore articulate what is different, better and remarkable about your offering.”

Those definitions are helpful, but me two years ago would likely still have a hard time understanding what a PMM is and why it exists. I’ve developed a bit of an allergic reaction or gag reflex towards business jargon as of late so let’s try to simplify things?

After spending the last two years of my life trying to figure out what Product Marketing actually is in practice for myself, I finally came across a definition that makes the most sense to me: 

Enter Product Marketing oracle Jason Oakley: 

"Product Marketing is about driving growth by delivering the right product, to the right audience, using the right message."

Nailed it!

Jason’s definition of PMM is my fav for the following reasons: 

• It defines the high level boundaries of PMM and leaves room for adaptation based on the organization’s needs. 

• It hits on the core things PMMs are most commonly responsible for. 

• It’s simple, easy to communicate and catchy. You can tell Jason is really good at his job.

If you follow the school of Jason, it means PMM should ideally be focused on the following: 

• Helping the company grow (Likely in form of revenue or product adoption).

• Figuring out what to build and why it’s different.

• Deeply understanding customers including buyers, end users and decision influencers.

• Figuring out what to say so buyers will buy what you selling.

But What Does Product Marketing Actually Do?

In an IDEAL world, Jason’s definition of PMM and the above articulation of focus areas should result in the below set of activities in real life. 

Note that IDEAL is in ALL CAPS.

One of the things you will learn about PMM is that it can be outrageously different everywhere you go. PMMs do different things depending on if you work at a B2B / B2C company, how big the company is and whether or not you are Sales led, PLG (Product Led Growth) or SLG (Sales led Growth). It also depends on if you report to Marketing, Product or a GTM head.

I’ll get into that in another post.

Until then, see below for the “textbook” view of a Product Marketer that you can use to transform those confused faces into…

The Textbook PMM

1) Helping the company grow =

• Building and executing product / release launches 

• Helping salespeople close deals (if they let you)

2) Figuring out what to build and how to differentiate it = 

• Industry research

• Competitive intelligence

• Customer research

• Positioning

• Pricing

• Product / solution packaging / bundling

• Talking to industry analysts

3) Deeply understanding customers including buyers, end users and decision influencers =

• Customer research

• Segmentation

• Win / Loss 

• Buyer personas

• Customer advisory board

4) Figuring out what to say so buyers will buy what you selling =

• Messaging

• Sales enablement and training

• Marketing collateral

As you can see, that’s a lot of stuff.

There is NO WAY the average (or elite) PMM can do all of that successfully at once. That’s why you need to figure out what is important to your business and your boss (and their boss) to prioritize effectively. It’s really hard TBH but you can do it with practice.

Hopefully, this gives you a clearer sense of what PMMs do in case you are trying to become one or are having trouble articulating it to your friends.

You’ll be a real hit at parties now.

Wrapping Up

I wrote this article for myself two years ago.

At the time, I was lost and frustrated with where my career was going and needed a new path. While I stumbled upon Product Marketing following a random discussion with a PMM at Microsoft, if I had this article back then, I would have had a MUCH better understanding of PMM and could have done MUCH more to prepare myself for becoming one. 

Hope you enjoyed.

Tune in next week when I discuss my irrational interest in Rolex (Even though it’s impossible to get one…sigh).

Until next time,

Ginger P.

Oh BTW, I used to be so confused why people called Product Marketing PMM until I realized that PMM = Product Marketing Management.

I really should have taken more Marketing courses in my MBA.

The Ginger Professor explicitly represents the personal thoughts and views of the author only. It does not reflect the thoughts or views of any current or former employer or client of the author. All information referenced and contained in the article enclosed is for informational purposes only and does not represent advice of any kind.