There are plenty of people who think they understand what product marketing is, but when you dig deeper into the topic, you realize there’s much more to it than just creating a brand and promoting it.
In this blog, we’ll explain what product marketing is and why it’s important for any brand. We’ll also go through some examples of successful product marketers and give you tips on how to become one yourself to support you brand and sales teams.
Product marketing isn’t rocket science, but it takes time and effort to be skilled at it. We will help you understand how you can start using product marketing it today.
One disclaimer before we start is that is without product market fit product marketing will not work very well, first make sure your product fits the market needs.
The Definition
Product marketing is the process of bringing a product to market. This includes deciding the product’s positioning and messaging, launching the product, and ensuring salespeople and customers understand it. Product marketers aim to drive the demand and usage of the product.
The Product Marketing Life Cycle
Product marketers know it is all about selling products. However, before you can sell anything, you must know what you’re selling. it’s not always about selling a physical product. Sometimes, it’s about selling ideas, stories, or experiences.
Regardless of whether you already have amazing growth or have just started, there are five stages involved in the product marketing life cycle. These stages include:
- Idea generation
- Concept development
- Prototyping
- Testing
- Product Launches
- Repeat Stage 2 – 5
3 Things To BrainStorm Before Starting Product Marketing?
You should always keep in mind that your product is only as good as its weakest link. So if you’re trying to sell a product that doesn’t work well, it won’t matter how many features it has, the growth will be small compared to if you dont.
When it comes to product marketing, you need to identify your target market, determine your competition, and then figure out how you can stand out from the crowd.
We’ll cover all of this in detail below.
Identify Your Target Market
Your product needs to fit into a certain niche. If you try to sell something that doesn’t fit into a particular category, no one will buy it.
So before you launch your product, you need to find out exactly where you want to sell it.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Who do I want to buy my product?
- What problems does my product solve?
- How do I differentiate myself from my competitors?
- Do I offer a unique solution?
Once you have these answered put them into buyer personas
Determine your competition
You should always know where your competition stands before you start working on your own campaign.
It’s easy to get caught up with thinking of your own product as the best thing ever. But you need to remember that your competition exists too. It might seem like everyone else is doing the same thing as you.
You might be wondering if product marketing is something you should do. If so, then you need to determine whether you’re competing against another company or individual.
When you’re looking at your competition, it’s important to know what they’re offering and where they’re putting their focus.
Once you know what they’re up to, you can work on improving your own product positioning and messaging by taking advantage of their downfalls and mistakes.
Are you better at providing customer service? Are you better at delivering products faster? Are you better at building relationships? Are you better at certain channels are they on?
These are all things you should consider when determining your competition.
How you can stand out from the crowd
Product marketing is all about making sure your customers know about your products.
If you don’t have a clear idea of who your customer is, how can you create a product that stands out from the rest? You need to make sure that your product solves a problem that other companies aren’t addressing.
Here are two things you should do if you want to stand out from the crowd and grow your brand.
1. Create a unique selling proposition (USP)
Your USP is a simple statement that summarizes what makes your company different from the competition.
It helps your potential customers decide whether they want to buy from you or not.
Think about Apple’s famous slogan “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.”
That’s a strong USP because it focuses on the quality of the product rather than its price.
You can come up with your own USP, but here are some examples of good ones.
- Our products are made with premium materials that last longer.
- Our products look better than our competitors’.
- Our products offer a higher level of customer service.
- Our products work faster than our competitors’ products.
2. Product differentiation
Product differentiation is a powerful tool for a brands market strategy looking to stand out from the crowd.
It’s the difference between being average and being exceptional. It’s the difference that makes all the difference.
Your goal here is to use product differentiation to set yourself apart from the competition, but it requires a little more work than simply coming up with a new idea.
Instead, you must find a way to differentiate your product by addressing a problem your customers have. Then, you must solve that problem in a unique way.
Here are is an example of products that have successfully differentiated themselves from their competitors.
Apple iPhone vs Android phones
Apple iPhone users love their iPhones because they are sleek, beautiful, and user-friendly. They are also very reliable.
Android phone owners, however, complain about the reliability issues they encounter.
While both smartphones offer similar features, Apple know that their buyer personas cared about the iPhone because of it being more reliable.
So, Apple’s market strategy used messaging that created a stories that are based around smartphones that offered better battery life, faster performance, and a sleeker design.
What are the steps in product marketing?
Once you understand what product marketing is, then you can start thinking about ways to market your products. Here are some steps you can take:
Product Marketing Strategy Process:
1. Idea generation
Product marketing is all about ideas. Your positioning and messaging Idea generation is how you come up with ideas of messaging that connects, with customers to drive the demand and usage of the product. so if you want to succeed, you need to know how to generate good ones.
To do this, you need to ask yourself questions about your customers. Who are they? Why are they buying from you? What problems do they face that you could solve?
Once you’ve got those answers, brainstorming is the best way to come up with new ideas. Here are some techniques you can try.
- Brainstorm with your team. Find out what everyone thinks is working well and what needs improvement. Then work together to find solutions to common issues.
- Use customer interviews. Ask potential customers questions about their problems and how they would prefer to solve them. Write down their responses and analyze them.
- Brainstorm with your customers. If you sell a service, talk to your clients and see what problems they have. If you sell a product, talk to your buyers and see what features they want.
- Look at competitor data. See what your competitors are doing and where they are succeeding. Learn from their mistakes and successes.
- Look at industry trends. A deep understanding of the latest developments and what they mean for your business.
- Think outside the box. Don’t limit yourself by thinking only about traditional ways of generating ideas. Try something different. For example, you might consider asking your target audience what they want instead of telling them what you think they should want.
- Experiment. Test ideas. Try things out and measure the results. This will help you learn which strategies work and which don’t.
- Get customer feedback. Talk to your customers and listen to their suggestions. They may have great ideas that you didn’t think of.
- Be creative. You don’t have to follow traditional methods of idea generation. Do whatever works for you.
2. Concept development
Product marketing is all about developing ideas.
Once you have an idea, you must research the market so you know whether it is viable or not.
After you have done all of this, you must decide what is the best positioning and messaging Idea you want to Prototype.
Finally, once you have decided on a direction, you must write down everything you know about the product and how it connects to your customer. This includes its name, description, features, target audience, pricing, etc.
3. Prototyping & Testing
It helps you test ideas, gather feedback, and find problems early on.
Why should you bother with product prototyping? Because it allows you to see if your idea works before investing time and money into making it real.
You can learn from mistakes, fix issues, and avoid wasting resources.
Try testing on a landing page A/B Test.
The best practice for communicating new features to customers?
How to create a product roadmap?
Product development is a long process. If you want to succeed, you must plan ahead. To do so, you need to know where you are going.
A good product roadmap helps you visualize your future goals. By knowing where you are heading, you can better manage your resources and focus on the most effective areas of improvement.
To create a roadmap, you must answer four questions:
- What are your products?
- Where are you headed?
- When are you going to reach your destination?
- How will you achieve your goal?
Once you have answered all four questions, you can begin planning your roadmap.
What are some examples of product marketing?
1. Poo Pourri is a toilet spray
Poo Pourri is a toilet spray that eliminates the odor of #2.
This is no new invention, but Poo Pourri has found a way to break the tabu around this common problem, and market their product in a fun and humorous way.
They put our thoughts and fears about going to the bathroom into words and try to start an online conversation about this problem.
The product itself can’t be marketed the same way as, for instance, clothing, because it’s not the product itself that’s attracting customers, it’s the problem it helps people solve.
Poo Pourri uses visuals such as images and videos to illustrate different common scenarios in which their product is used.
Poo Pourri doesn’t sugarcoat their marketing, and they’ve found a way to position their “not naturally funny” product in a humorous and unique way.
2. Oreo
Oreo cookies are famous for their unique taste and how they’re marketed.
One of the best ways to market your products is to tap into your audiences’ emotions.
It’s particularly important when you’re selling groceries.
You want your product’s taste to be remembered, so people will crave it again.
Oreos are fun, imaginative, and delicious.
They ask questions that get people thinking “Wonder if we gave an Oreo to you? Where would your imagination go?”
It’s hard not to get sucked into this question’s fantasy world where anything is possible.
Oreo has used news-jacking to promote its products, especially on social networks.
When an important event or date occurs, they always find a way to include it in their product marketing.
3. Man Crates
Man Crates has adopted this strategy as well. But they’ve done so differently than most companies.
A survey conducted by Nielsen found that half of European and American consumers preferred humor in marketing messages over anything else.
They sell products primarily aimed at men, but they market them to women who want to buy gifts for men in their lives.
For woman, it’s hard to buy gifts for men. They don’t want anything, and they normally get, socks and underwear.
Sure, I’m generalising, but I’ll bet plenty of women will know exactly what I mean.
MenCrates has identified this pain point and has positioned its product as the perfect gift. Many women didn’t know about this type of gift.
They use video marketing (or “video advertising”) to promote their outstanding customer services. It works especially well because their targeted audience (women) might have a greater need for this type of product than men.
By positioning their products in this way, they tap into a new audience where there is less competition, and uses their understanding of this audience to attract more customers.
Conclusion
In conclusion, product marketing is the process by which a company brings a product to market via selling ideas, stories, or experiences. Now we have explained what it is, how to start product marketing strategy and some examples.
It your time to start planning and putting it into action
What To Do Now?
Here is what you should do now:
- BrainStorm – your target market, your competition and stand out
- Come up with an Ideas for new product messaging & product positioning
- Develop the best concepts
- Start prototyping & testing these new concepts
- All the new concepts that are found to connect with customers put them into your product marketing strategy
