The Problem with Market and Competitive Research
Is It Time for Marketing Teams to Think About Market and Competitive Research in a Different Way? In my experience as a Product Marketer and Product Marketing leader, there’s always the question that floats around, “Who does market and competitive research?” This question comes up…
The Differentness/Sameness Matrix
Thinking Aloud – a Perspective on Assessing the Level of Differentiation and its Value in the Marketplace I’ve been doing some reading lately (a thank you to DR for the recommendation on Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets) as well…
Your New Product Marketing Position – The First 30 Days
A Few Best Practices and Tips for Coming Up to Speed as a Product Marketer in Your First 30 Days in a New Role We have a new Product Marketing Manager at the company I work for which got me thinking about how someone can…
Product Marketing Persona Template
Sometimes when we’re trying to convey information on personas, it’s difficult to condense all the pertinent information and do so in a way that is memorable. I created this design and had the bright idea to use celebrity (not just Hollywood) images to make the…
Launch Plan Template – Update
I’ve updated the launch plan template based on learnings from my latest launch. Feel free to use in your launch planning processes. I also recommend checking out the Launch Tier form as a methodical way to determine a launch tier. For more information on the…
Getting Mindshare and Campaign Air Cover for Product Marketers in Larger Companies
One of the challenges for Product Marketers in much larger organizations is their respective portfolios getting the market air cover they need through campaigns and other efforts. In this blog post, I’m going to focus on how to get more mindshare across the various marketing…
Product Marketing: The Factory and Distribution Channels
Product Marketing is the Factory and the Other Competency Areas in Marketing Are the Distribution Channels I’ve used this analogy before and the last time I did was a couple years back when interviewing with the head of Demand Generation at the company I currently…
Using Glassdoor for Competitive Insights
Glassdoor Company Reviews Can Yield a Number of Valuable Insights When Performing Competitive Research Performing competitive research is more an art than a science at times and I’ve found that a lot of Product Marketers aren’t all that good at performing meaningful competitive research. As…
Resetting Marketing Messaging
Once in a while at a company, you come to a point where the marketing message has taken on a life of its own and it becomes clear that you need a reset. Maybe the marketing message had been in effect so long while the…
Launch Plan Template
Crossing the Bridge Between Knowing How Important Your Launch Is and How to Allocate Marketing Resources to that Launch I’ve talked a bit about the importance of the Product Life Cycle (PLC) to Product Marketers and larger organizations overall. I’ve also talked about the importance…
Helping Product Management Understand the Role of Product Marketing
Conveying the Role of Product Marketing to Product Management Teams is Critical to Set the Right Tone for What They Can Expect A common problem for Product Marketers is that their Product Manager counterparts don’t always understand or appreciate their role. This leads to consternation…
A Healthy Tension
If You Have Tension Between the Teams In Your Product Life Cycle (PLC) Process, Congratulations! You’re Probably Doing Something Right. I’ve always been process-oriented since the very beginnings of my career. I can probably thank the Business Process Improvement training I had as an Internal…
How Should You Organize Your Product Marketing Team?
How Should You Organize Your Product Marketing Team and What’s the Ratio You Should Maintain Between Product Marketing and Product Management? These would seem like two separate topics but they are intertwined somewhat. You can’t make changes to portfolio coverage without considering the impact on…
What’s the Difference Between Positioning and Messaging?
Positioning and Messaging Go Hand in Hand but Their Meaning is not Interchangeable I’ve found colleagues in and outside of marketing sometimes use these phrases interchangeably. However, they really aren’t interchangeable. They have distinct meanings though I can understand why there sometimes is confusion. Let’s…
Having a Finger on the Pulse of the Changing Conversation in the Marketplace
Sensing How the Market is Changing in Small and Large Ways is a Sign of a Tuned-in Product Marketer Periodically, there are times when, as a Product Marketer, you can sense a shift in the ‘conversation’ in the market. That’s what I call a change…
Product Marketing and PowerPoint Go Hand in Hand
Great Product Marketers Are Also PowerPoint Ninjas We’ve talked about a lot of tools that Product Marketers have at their disposal. However, there is one tool that is a critical resource for Product Marketers. Microsoft PowerPoint. Microsoft PowerPoint is so powerful for conveying information and…
Analyst Relations and Product Marketing
Depending on Your Industry, Analyst Relations Can Be a Valuable Tool for Product Marketers Product Marketers have a lot of tools at their disposal. One critical one, depending on your industry, is Analyst Relations for a variety of reasons. We see a number of advantages…
Managing Content Inventory
The Lowest Priority Item is Also the Biggest Headache I know what you’re thinking. This is the last topic you ever want to read about – how do you manage your content inventory. However, as a Product Marketer, we fight a daily struggle to have…