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Product marketing is an essential role for centralizing outbound go-to-market strategy, not only in terms of positioning for the outside world but also in terms

Product marketing is an essential role for centralizing outbound go-to-market strategy, not only in terms of positioning for the outside world but also in terms of keeping sellers, marketers, and execs aligned. I suspect these particular areas in which you feel they are at deadweight may be missing much of their focus or you've experienced an organization that is misusing this role.

Dwolb 5y ago
Right… in B2B they can help align basically the entire revenue funnel. OP’s view is a bit myopic.
cm2012 5y ago
There are some really great answers to my comment here! I'm delighted. So here's the thing - I get the desired purpose of the role of centralizing GTM strategy. But in practice product managers are too far removed from the customer to be useful 80% of the time. Basically I find that tactics that work for a given business should drive strategy more than vise-versa. This is a very unpopular opinion for sure. In the end, messaging and positioning don't exist in a vacuum. The market responds to what it responds to. But because product marketers are too far removed from the stress of actually making messaging turn into revenue, they just don't have the skillset to be useful. I wish product marketers could make positioning that actually works. But what happens is they make positioning that doesn't appeal to customers, and sales and demand gen pick up the slack and now have two jobs - to actually use messaging that gets results, and to make a middle manager happy with some data that helps them make useless reports upstream.
- redwood 5y ago
  Frankly it sounds like you have organizational or cultural problems or perhaps just the wrong set of people with the wrong set of expectations.
- lukestevens 5y ago
  I don't know, it sounds like you've got a pretty myopic view of marketing if you think FB/PPC ads ('tactics that work') are what should drive strategy. Combine that with experience with PMMs who are too far removed from the customer (!) and I can see why you think product marketing is pointless. From the other side of the B2B marketing fence, I see demand gen burning loads of cash on "high converting", highly "tested" ads that look great in reports, except that those leads never turn into customers, because the PPC marketers never track their revenue that far, and those lowest common denominator leads aren't a great fit for many B2B products anyway. I suspect that if your argument is "Well, they should build the product that those leads want" I can see why (a) that view would indeed be unpopular, and (b) why you would be in conflict with product marketers who want leads that match the positioning, not positioning that matches the leads. When all you've got is a hammer...

Dwolb 5y ago

Right… in B2B they can help align basically the entire revenue funnel. OP’s view is a bit myopic.

cm2012 5y ago

There are some really great answers to my comment here! I'm delighted. So here's the thing - I get the desired purpose of the role of centralizing GTM strategy. But in practice product managers are too far removed from the customer to be useful 80% of the time. Basically I find that tactics that work for a given business should drive strategy more than vise-versa. This is a very unpopular opinion for sure. In the end, messaging and positioning don't exist in a vacuum. The market responds to what it responds to. But because product marketers are too far removed from the stress of actually making messaging turn into revenue, they just don't have the skillset to be useful. I wish product marketers could make positioning that actually works. But what happens is they make positioning that doesn't appeal to customers, and sales and demand gen pick up the slack and now have two jobs - to actually use messaging that gets results, and to make a middle manager happy with some data that helps them make useless reports upstream.

redwood 5y ago
Frankly it sounds like you have organizational or cultural problems or perhaps just the wrong set of people with the wrong set of expectations.
lukestevens 5y ago
I don't know, it sounds like you've got a pretty myopic view of marketing if you think FB/PPC ads ('tactics that work') are what should drive strategy. Combine that with experience with PMMs who are too far removed from the customer (!) and I can see why you think product marketing is pointless. From the other side of the B2B marketing fence, I see demand gen burning loads of cash on "high converting", highly "tested" ads that look great in reports, except that those leads never turn into customers, because the PPC marketers never track their revenue that far, and those lowest common denominator leads aren't a great fit for many B2B products anyway. I suspect that if your argument is "Well, they should build the product that those leads want" I can see why (a) that view would indeed be unpopular, and (b) why you would be in conflict with product marketers who want leads that match the positioning, not positioning that matches the leads. When all you've got is a hammer...