If you’re starting a company, chances are you’re selling either a product or a service to a group of customers. Oftentimes, companies and or Founders are so fixated on building a product that they believe will resonate with a market or audience but often do very little, if any testing…

Many leadership teams get product marketing wrong. Below are some key takeaways that have emerged in the 15+ years I’ve witnessed as a Product Marketing executive and advisor. Go-To-Market is not *just* a function that should be put into place before a big launch. Go-To-Market is a first principle and…

Most people waste a lot of their time thinking about and then working on things that don’t matter. How many times have we sat at our desk, and then our attention drifted into some obscure news article that then catapulted us into a storm of fear and anxiety? How many…

Market research is vital to delivering valued customer centric marketing & products. — The “customer-centric” or “market-centric” approach to product marketing and product is a fundamental pillar for creating products that customers want. There is 1) “Market-Driven Marketing” which includes a comprehensive understanding of customers and market to inform the right strategies, tactics and marketing assets for customer adoption. This type of marketing aligns GTM with product validation and company goals.

The world of product marketing has changed significantly since I started working in the field over a decade ago. — Early in my career, the product marketing position was misunderstood by nearly everyone in a company. Because the role had little structure and understanding, many companies and leadership teams de-invested in the role, and reduced the function to glorified subfunctions. About six years ago. I searched “product marketing books” on…

Why lack of clarity is what’s keeping you stuck. — I believe that in order to have success in a creative endeavor, we need to be persistent and consistent. Many people are inherently very creative, but they are not consistent or persistent. In other words, they are NOT consistent with their values and purpose, and mission. …

When a new product is launched, who owns the success of the launch? After launching hundreds of go-to-market plans and witnessing the mix of emotions involved in this process, I believe a CEO or the leadership team needs to empower one person to own the end-to-end GTM process, capture metrics for a product launch, and reconcile the value proposition across different functions. Oftentimes…

Are you sharing information cross-functionally in real-time? Via Slack? Trello? Many internal stakeholders work with very different platforms. — A product marketer’s first and most significant skill is clear, cross-functional communication. This part of a product marketer’s job is imperative because it’s impossible to launch and service a product unless the entire company rallies behind the effort.

Have you taken an emotional pulse of the internal key stakeholders on the launch? Do they want to continue working with the company? — I’ve worked on more than 200 launches in my career across a variety of industries. Almost every launch requires a tremendous amount of emotional bandwidth, especially if cross-functional communication lines haven’t already been established prior to launch planning.