Bridging the Gap Between Product and Marketing
How Good Product Management Process Enables and Empowers Product Marketing & Sales
I recently spoke with a Head of Revenue who shared their product-related challenges. One issue that stood out was the lack of collaboration between the product team and marketing. Specifically, the product team does not help marketing frame the value proposition or identify target buyers and personas to shape messaging.
I read an insightful article by my friend, Sean Gillispie about Airbnb's reorganization. Airbnb assigned product management activities to their product marketers. As Sean wrote, "You can't develop products unless you know how to talk about them."
Scanning LinkedIn's job posting on product manager and leader job postings shows an emphasis on technical and domain expertise over connecting customer needs to solutions. However, this core skill - aligning solutions to market needs - is how product managers create organizational value and are being neglected in pursuit of technical innovation.
"Identifying the most valuable problem to solve, then rallying the team to build and deliver the solution"
captures a product manager's essence and purpose within a company. However, most companies and product managers seem to focus on Build and Delivery. But Identification through deep market understanding is the real value-add.
This understanding comes from a thorough knowledge of Buyers, and Users based on:
What they want (goals, outcomes)
What are their needs (challenges, obstacles)
What are their concerns
What they do (jobs, use cases, journeys)
How they talk about their needs and jobs (the words they use)
With this knowledge, we can quickly find product-market fit, know how to market the product, address sales objections, and create meaningful demos and training. We also craft a compelling, Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that enhances marketing investments and creates real differentiation.
Beyond building better products, putting buyers and users at the center can buy time for product managers. For example, when I took over a product portfolio several years ago, we had significant technical debt and were 9+ months from any major product updates. Despite hiring challenges, we conducted market research and built buyer and user personas and key "jobs to be done." Leveraging this intel, we updated our market messaging and sales scripts to address the specific wants and needs of our target buyers in the way they speak and helped to increase conversion and win rate. We also prioritized the highest ROI product fixes to retain business by focusing on those that addressed their concerns and needs.
Using the personas as our north star, retention soared from 63% to over 85%. Revenue grew 20% amidst the disruption caused by a major merger and acquisition.
Regardless of title, successful products start with deep market understanding. Without it, you cannot build what customers need, market where they are, speak their language, or convert investment into revenue. You need to know what they want, need, do, and say. With this wisdom, you can more judiciously build, market, and sell your product, delivering value to your customers and your company.
Interested in a simplified persona approach? Check out these articles:
Thanks for reading! What has been your experience bridging product and marketing? I'd love to hear your thoughts and questions in the comments below.