As I reflect on my career and journey over the past 15 years, from my early days at Square to my current role at Mailchimp, one question consistently emerges from aspiring product marketers:
"What do you wish you knew before entering the product marketing world?"
This question always takes me back to the beginning of my career. I vividly remember fumbling through launch plans, struggling to keep pace with the rapid-fire developments, and questioning whether I was truly cut out for this demanding field.
Now, 15 years into my career, I believe I've gained some valuable insights. Here are three key lessons I wish I had known when I first stepped into the world of product marketing:
1. Cross-functional Collaboration is Your Superpower
Whenever I start a new position, I always struggle internally with making the choice to actively engage with my counterparts. Do I want to take my time and ease in? Do I feel like I don't have a reason to get involved? It takes time to get in there and start building those relationships. After a few times at bat I quickly realized that the true essence of product marketing lies in its role as the connective tissue between various teams within an organization.
Product marketing isn't just about promotion – it's about being the glue that binds product, sales, customer success, engineering, and numerous other teams together. Your ability to translate complex technical concepts into customer benefits, to convey market needs to the product team, and to arm the sales team with the right tools and messaging is invaluable.
Key Takeaway: Cultivate relationships across teams early and often. Learn to speak the language of each department. Your effectiveness as a product marketer will be directly proportional to your ability to facilitate communication and collaboration across these diverse groups.
2. Data Fluency is Non-Negotiable
I still, to this day, lean heavily on my creative instincts and communication skills. While these are crucial aspects of product marketing, I’ve since learned that the most impactful product marketers are those who can dive deep into data and emerge with actionable insights.
The ability to analyze product usage metrics, conduct and interpret market research, and leverage A/B testing to optimize your strategies is what separates good product marketers from great ones. At Mailchimp, this skill became so critical as we scaled our products and user base.
Key Takeaway: Embrace data analysis as a core part of your role. Learn to love product analytics, market research methods, and testing frameworks. While your creative instincts and industry knowledge are important, backing your decisions with solid data will make your strategies more compelling and your results more impactful.
3. The Product Launch is Just the Beginning
One of the biggest misconceptions I had early in my career was that the bulk of a product marketer's work culminated in the product launch. I would pour my heart and soul into crafting the perfect launch plan, only to feel like I had forgotten something or wasn’t doing enough post launch.
In reality, a successful product launch is just the beginning of your work. The post-launch phase is where the real challenges – and opportunities – lie. This is when you need to be prepared to iterate quickly, gather and analyze user feedback, and continuously refine your strategy to drive adoption and retention.
At Mailchimp, I learned the importance of having a robust post-launch plan. Our most successful products were those where we remained agile, responding quickly to user feedback and market changes.
Key Takeaway: While launch day is exciting and something to work towards, remember that your work accelerates post-launch. Develop strategies for gathering user feedback, monitoring adoption metrics, and iterating on your product positioning and marketing tactics. The ability to adapt and evolve your approach based on real-world performance is what will drive long-term success.
Just remember...
Product marketing is a challenging, dynamic, and incredibly rewarding field. As you embark on or continue your journey in this exciting domain, remember that your success will be built on your ability to collaborate across teams, your skill in leveraging data to drive decisions, and your commitment to continuous improvement and iteration.
To all the aspiring product marketers out there: embrace these lessons, but don't be afraid to forge your own path. Every product, company, and market is unique, and part of the thrill of product marketing is discovering new ways to connect innovative solutions with the people who need them most.
