6 Top Resources Of Inspiration For Product Marketers [+3 Crazy Ones]
A quick Google search for the best product marketing resources will leave you a bit confused, if not disappointed. There are too many lists to choose from, the majority being way too promotional, outdated, or not even subject related (for the millionth time, it’s product marketing not product management!!).
To cut through the clutter and get the much needed inspiration , I recommend reading the following resources who’ve been checked in terms of their content frequency, quality, and focus — product marketing. Plus a bonus: my own crazy fountains of inspiration. Yes, they’re crazy. Let’s go!
Top product marketing resources
Again, by top I mean up-to-date publications whose content has been regular and relevant enough to be counted as a trusted resource.
1. Product Marketing Alliance
Product Marketing Alliance dubs themselves as a community of passionate product marketers who help each other drive demand and adoption for their own products, and this is nothing but the truth. The platform offers a well-networked Slack channel that covers topics such as go-to-market launches, pricing, and positioning frameworks, as well as recorded keynotes from various product marketing events.
Just recently, they’ve published the first ever State of Product Marketing report (here’s my thoughts on it), as well as the first Salary Survey on salaries across the globe in product marketing. A big step towards cementing this position as one of the top vital ones, right next to product management.
Must read: The Secret To Becoming a Product Marketing & Management Dynamic Duo
2. Sharebird
Sharebird admits up front that product marketing is hard. So you might as well learn it from the best. This community of product marketers is organized much like a Q&A forum, where you ask for advice from much more experienced marketers at the wheel of top companies like Adobe, Mixpanel, Zuora— to name a few.
What’s great is that you can follow specific product marketing topics (market research, product launches, video marketing, etc.), look for product marketing job openings, plus attend upcoming AMA’s.
Must read: Because this is a Q&A forum, there are no blog posts to refer to. Albeit, you’ll still get a lot more value by engaging and staying in touch with real people rather than just reading their posts 😉
3. Crayon’s Blog
Crayon’s Blog is all about arming product marketers with the right strategies, KPIs, and templates — primarily because their product (competitive intelligence software) is intended for product marketers. Hence the accent on competitive analysis and sales enablement assets in general. But even so, the blog is riddled with valuable insights from experts working at big tech names like Google, Monster, and HubSpot.
Must read: 8 Best Practices For Effective Sales Battlecards
4. We Are Product Marketing
We Are Product Marketing, a rather young crowdsourced Medium publication, represents a good starting point to learn about what it takes to become a product marketing manager from the people already doing the job. The best part about it is that it doesn’t only analyze tactics that work for software companies, but also those that made consumer ones successful.
Must read: How Starbucks Nailed Product Marketing with the “Reserve Roastery”
5. Velocity B2B Content Marketing Blog
Velocity B2B Content Marketing Blog could be a product marketing blog any time of the day. Apart from challenging the status quo in business writing and branding, their misfit writers also deconstruct successful storytelling from entities you wouldn’t even think of: The Simpsons, NBA, even 17th century explorators. Then package the lessons into actionable bites so any beginner could implement them right away. Upbeat and educational at the same time.
Must read: B2B documentaries: the next big thing
6. Animalz
Animalz is a full-service content marketing agency. Their blog is arguably the #1 authority when it comes to setting up a new bar for quality, thoughtful content. This comes as a sanity check in todays era where every company invests in content just for the sake of it, hence produce poorly-researched articles on “10 things to do cure [xyz]” without any plot or meaning whatsoever. They also tackle more technical aspects of content like SEO, SERP, and building audience alternative, while keeping it human.
Must read: Copycat Content: SEO Tools Got Us Here, Humans Will Get Us Out
Crazy product marketing resources
These are my own muses. They work for me, but might not work for you, so take them with a pinch of salt.
1. Manga
Mangas are Japanese comics packed with loads of fiction, action, emotion, humor and cuteness(kawaii 😸) than most movies do. That’s because their writers — mangakas — weave in complex stories over hundreds of chapters and occasionally drop small hints on how things could unfold to keep us hooked to the main story. They’re what Chip and Dan Heath would call masters at creating knowledge gaps: mysteries created on purpose which in return breed curiosity and a need to solve them.
Worth following
One Piece — Counting 950+ chapters and 49 arcs, this is perhaps Japan’s best-selling manga, starring a crew of pirates with special abilities (devil fruits, haki, to name a few) whose goal is to capture the treasure One Piece.
Kimetsu no Yaiba — A rather new manga, this story revolves around Tanjiro, a young demon slayer, prepared to risk his life in order to turn his demon sister back into a human. Strap on for action and tears, yes tears.
One-Punch Man — While most mangas feature heroes and unbelievable fights that are hard to screen, this one makes fun of them all by portraying a cheap-looking, baldy hero who defeats everyone with a single punch.
2. Food YouTubers
It’s never been easier to cook thanks to food YouTubers. Apart their awesome video skills, they also display unique narratives — much like mini documentaries — designed in such a way as to make elaborate, exotic dishes look like a fun and easy thing to do. Even after you’ve returned home from work completely exhausted. If you don’t find any value in their storytelling, at least you’ll know how to cook meals that will amaze your colleagues for days to come.
Worth following
Binging with Babish — I always regarded rice as a side dish, up until I saw Andy’s (Babish’s) recipe on how to make risotto. Since then, he’s been popping around my feed, remaking dishes from popular movies and TV series in a deep, yet soft voice with sarcastic jokes sprinkled here and there.
Adam Ragusea — Journalism teacher and part-time YouTuber, Adam combines simple cooking with science and hard facts, like why season your cutting board instead of your steak or keep tomatoes out of the fridge. No fancy recipes, just practical rules for those of us with less time on our hands.
My Name Is Andong — Andong probably has the most funky background around here. As a half German, half Russian Jewish who lived in China for a while, he’s the go-to man when it comes to exploring food from other cultures and the story behind it. Not to mention his love for testing new cooking techniques.
3. Stand-up comedians (the legends)
Humor is volatile, you never know who you’re going to upset or how amateurish you’re going to look in the eyes of your shareholders. Used in the right context though, it can touch not only our selfish egos, but our goofy inner selves too. No wonder that most memorable ads are funny — think Dollar Shave Club or Doritos at every Super Bowl. So where to turn for inspiration? Legacy stand-up comedians, masters at interpreting reality.
Worth following
Eddie Murphy —The comedy genius sold-out theaters (see Delirious) way before it was the norm. He spoke vividly about reality, when everybody dressed and looked more or less the same, hence instantly connected with the audience and made it look all natural.
Bill Burr — Every comedian has their own generic voice to vent out frustrations and Bill’s is the most hilarious (at least for me). What I love about him is that he’s not afraid to joke about more sensitive subjects like parenthood, politics, or feminism.
Dave Chapelle — I’m talking about those two years when Dave’s show had the entertainment business at its feet. Even though it aired in 2003, the what-if sketches were funny, well-structured, and surprisingly revealing for the dramas and hypocrisy of the world we currently live in.
And that’s pretty much it. Got any product marketing resources, and if yes, which are your favorite ones? Share them in the comments below 👇
If you’re serious about product marketing or know someone who’s just starting out on this career path:
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