What is Product Marketing Anyways?
Over the years and through my recent research, I feel many still do not understand the basic principles of product marketing. I believe many do not truly comprehend what product marketing is, let alone what product marketers are meant to do and the benefits they can provide to an organization.
I’m going to share what my definition of product marketing is as well as how many others define it.
My Definition of Product Marketing
I see product marketing as the liaisons between all departments in an organization who serve as the market and product experts as well as the evangelists.
That was my short and sweet answer, but there is so much that goes into product marketing, I feel my definition above doesn’t do the role any justice. Product marketers can cover many aspects of the business including:
- Messaging & Positioning
- Pricing & Packaging
- Market Research
- Competitive Analysis
- Product Roadmaps
- Product Launches
- Enablement
- Customer Communications
- Events
- Content Marketing & Evangelism
- And I could easily be missing some!
How Others Define Product Marketing
So, I shared my definition of product marketing, but how do others in the field describe it? Check out their fantastic responses and perspectives below.
“What makes product marketing so interesting is that it sits at the intersection of customers, product management, sales (direct and channel), and marketing. It starts with defining a go-to-market (GTM) plan along with differentiated positioning and messaging, and then driving demand and usage of the products and/or solutions. I often get asked the difference between product management and product marketing. My simple answer to that is product management manages the lifecycle of the product (roadmap, development, etc.) whereas product marketing drives the success of the product in the market (buyer persona, asset creation, sales enablement, etc.).”
Parag Pathak, Security Product & Solution Marketing, IBM
“Product marketing sits at the intersection of product, marketing, and sales. It is critical to putting successful products to market by driving the future vision and direction, ensuring the right go-to-market and position, launching and marketing products, and selling and gaining adoption with sales enablement.”
Anjali Yakkundi, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Aprimo
“Product marketing is a subset of the discipline of product management. This is a key role to the organization, as they define the market problem, create a sustainable roadmap, and launch products into the marketplace. A successful product marketing team is responsible for bringing new products to market and creating momentum which meets (or exceeds) the strategic goals. A successful go-to-market strategy contains various marketing campaigns with content, sales, and technical enablement for marketing readiness, and internal and external market alignment for real success. It’s a job that requires passion for customers, products, and hard work. It is very rewarding.”
How do you define product marketing? Would love your thoughts in the comments below!
