🔎 What PMs should know about Product Marketing

Product Marketing - what product managers should know

Do you think all you need to know about product marketing is “it's that stuff those product marketing managers do”? While product marketing may not be your direct responsibility, it’s still helpful to understand what’s involved in getting customers aware of and willing to buy your product. Here’s a set of resources that explain product marketing, provide examples, and describe how product managers should interact with their product marketing peers.

What is product marketing? Product marketing is the driving force behind getting products to market - and keeping them there. Product marketers are the overarching voices of the customer, masterminds of messaging, enablers of sales, and accelerators of adoption. Bryony Pearce takes an in-depth look at product marketing including a framework for product marketing, why it’s important, and some examples of product marketing.
(via @PMMalliance)

Content marketing vs product marketing: What’s the difference? The goal of any marketing strategy is to attract and convert members of your target market into paying customers. Two types of marketing that play a role in this are content marketing and product marketing. The team at userpilot explores the differences between content and product marketing and provides some examples you can use for inspiration. 
(via @teamuserpilot)

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Back in the classroom

A few weeks ago, I started teaching the undergraduate product management course that I started a few years ago at Case Western Reserve University. It’s one of the only undergraduate product management courses in the country, and it’s the very first (and only) one at CWRU. The class is a mix of juniors and seniors – most of whom took the class simply because they needed the credit and it fit best with their semester schedule.

Nevertheless, teaching that class is a lot of fun for me. Even though I know that most of my students don’t even have an interest in pursuing a career in product management, my hope is that the class will still add value for them in a few ways.

1. If they end up working in tech, but never even become a Product Manager – learning about the Product Management role will help them have better visibility of how their organization works outside of their direct role.
    
2. Thinking like a Product Manager and focusing on customer problems can help them in so many ways – whether they end up becoming an entrepreneur or find roles in sales, marketing, customer success, or nearly any other position.
    
3. It may open up their minds to product management and consider a field that they possibly didn’t even know existed prior to the class!

It’s a great class so far – and they’ve already had a chance to learn from some of my favorite product people around (including this week’s virtual visit from Ash Maurya). 

They all were gifted a pass to INDUSTRY Virtual later this month, so if you’re planning on joining us, too, and run into any of my students during the 1:1 virtual networking, you can tell them their professor gave them this shout-out in the newsletter. ;-)

6 Inspiring product marketing examples you can copy. You want your audience to get excited about your product so they’ll become loyal customers. You can invoke this feeling by implementing a product marketing strategy that captures your audience and gives them a reason to purchase your product. Rikke Berg Thomsen shows you examples of brands that have mastered product marketing and explain how you, too, can market your products so that you engage your audience and get more customers.
(via @getdrip)

14 Product marketing applications & examples to inspire your strategy. “Product marketing” and “marketing a product” aren’t synonymous. Product marketing involves some traditional marketing, but it’s ultimately a hybrid, inter-departmental function that spans product, user research, marketing and sales. Marketing efforts often focus on attracting new customers or cultivating “awareness” — converting those who’ve never heard of a product into those who have. For a deeper dive into the realm of product marketing, Mae Rice provides these 14 real-world examples of product marketing.
(via @builtin)

The importance of collaboration between product management and product marketing in the modern tech world. Product management and product marketing are becoming essential roles in the digital world that we live in. Companies that don’t have strong product management and product marketing risk losing market share to more strategically focused teams. Aligning objectives of product marketing and product management can give companies a competitive advantage. Phil Tarnowski explains the responsibilities for these two disciplines and how they work together.
(via @prodcollective)

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How delighting customers can go awry and what to do instead

We’ve learned that the key to building successful products is to iterate quickly and see what delights customers. Unfortunately, it turns out that chasing customer delight can lead to common product diseases and doesn’t guarantee a successful product.
In this discussion, the author of Radical Product Thinking will share concrete examples to illustrate how delighting customers can go awry and a radical approach to turn things around. Plus, you'll have a chance to ask questions of your own as well.

1. A newsletter each and every Friday centered around an important product topic, like roadmapping, strategy, and analytics.
2. Access to a thriving Slack group with thousands of others to share advice, tips and get feedback on your work.
3. Plus, invitations to exclusive video chats, special member privileges at the conferences we hold in the United States and Europe, and more!