A personal definition of Product Marketing
A specialized Product Marketing Framework, adapted to French Market
2 years ago, when there were just a handful of Product Marketers in France, I created, when I worked at Thiga (a French consulting company, specialized in Product), what I humbly called the Product Marketing Framework. The first iteration is named USE (for Understand, Shape, Execute). After 2 years of evolution, iterations and exchanges with French PMMs, the Product Marketing Framework is evolving! So let's explore it together.
A new Framework even more representative of the business in the field, reflecting our business split in 2, between Product and Marketing, between strategy and tactical execution. 4 areas of expertise for 10 areas of intervention.
Part 1 : Understand (your environment)
The first section of this framework brings together all the skills involved in understanding your environment: understanding the ecosystem and the customer.
Ecosystem: your market & your competitors.
The first essential step in a Product Marketer's approach is to understand his or her market: what is the scope of the market we want to reach, what are the current trends, dynamics, regulations and laws in place? And what about the competition? After all, a product is also part of a competitive dynamic. A product's positioning can only be effective if it perfectly masters its competition, whether direct, indirect or future. This understanding of the ecosystem is a leitmotiv in our business, enabling us to identify opportunities for growth and development of our product.
Customers : story of ICPs, accounts & buyers
The second step of understanding revolves around the customer. We can't stress this enough: product marketing is fundamentally business-oriented! So it's essential to fully understand your Ideal Customer Profile. Although this concept is often misinterpreted, a simple definition of ICP for a Product Marketer can be summed up in two concepts: AI and BC. The AI, contrary to what you might think, refers here to the Ideal Account: in general, this is the type of account you wish to target (sector, size, revenue). The BC, or Buyer Committee, refers to the understanding of all buyer personas (the champion, his influencers or opponents). Understanding these two concepts together gives you a global vision of your KPI: both an account typology and the personas that make it up.
Part 2 : Shape (and make your Product shine)
The second section of this framework covers everything that will help propel the Product forward: how to get the best out of it, how to find the right pricing model and how to communicate about it in an impactful way.
Positioning: highlight your Product value
Positioning is a strategic exercise that aims to define and occupy a privileged position for our Product, in relation to the market and competition. The aim: to make the Product stand out as the best possible choice by linking our entire understanding (user, buyer, account, market, competition) to the Product. Identifying a Product's uniqueness in relation to possible alternatives enables us to reflect the value it can bring to the target. Properly executed, positioning enables your customers to intuitively understand the value proposition and why it's the best Product for them.
Pricing: find the right economic model
Pricing is frequently a company's Achilles heel. Often complex, with no clear owner and a model that is difficult to evolve. Especially since pricing is not simply a question of how much the buyer will spend, but a genuine strategic choice that will influence both retention and growth! As a Product Marketer, engaging in pricing is essential, because it's not just about setting a price, it's also about understanding and shaping the customer's perception of the product's value. Pricing requires an in-depth understanding of customers, their needs and their buying behavior. The Product Marketer has all this knowledge to work on the different facets of the economic model (plans, packages, trial offers, loyalty, promotion).
Messaging: make your Product’s value clear & impactful
Messaging is the transcription of positioning into verbatim, in which the target will be able to identify problems and solutions. This is the first visible aspect of a PMM's work on a product. It therefore has a major impact on how customers perceive the product. With perfect knowledge of the benefits, the target and, above all, the way in which customers talk about the Product, the Product Marketer is ideally placed to tailor a message to the different typologies of buyers, always based on the benefits. The idea of messaging is to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers and users, so that each can find the benefits and therefore the value they can derive from it.
Part 3 : Go-To-Market (Bringing your Product to market)
In this 3rd part of the framework, we delve into the art of the Go-To Market. This is a purely tactical approach to bringing a product out of the shadows. Preparing for a product launch, supporting internal teams and bringing the product to life on the market are the 3 challenges of a PMM in the GTM phase.
Prepare: Organize your Product launches
Preparation is a key stage in the launch of any product. The Product Marketer must develop a solid Go-To-Market strategy to correctly position the product and maximize its impact from launch. This can include identifying market segments, planning communication activities, and even preparing a launch checklist to ensure that nothing is left to chance.
Enable: Tranfer your knowledge internally
An often overlooked aspect of Product Marketing is internal enablement, or the ability to support and train internal teams, particularly salespeople, but not only! Nobody knows the product and the sales cycle better than the Product Marketer. So it's essential to equip in-house teams with the right information and skills to sell the product effectively. This can take the form of training, documentation or even personalized coaching.
Launch: Bring your Product to the market
Finally, the long-awaited moment: the product launch. The product marketer must take several factors into account to ensure a successful launch. Firstly, tiering of launches, or prioritizing the features to be launched, is crucial to maximize impact. Secondly, detailed retroplanning will help ensure that everything goes according to plan. A tool such as the feature launch canvas can be very useful for this. Finally, delivering the right message at the right time is essential to capture customer attention and interest. The Product Marketer must therefore act as the product's spokesperson and showcase, always ready to highlight its strengths and answer customers' questions.
Step 4 : Go-To-Customer
In this last part of the framework, we're going to delve into the art of the Go-To Customer. This is an all-too-frequently forgotten stage, where the PMM stops once he's put his Product on the market. This Product lives on, with a set of features that make up its portfolio. The role of the PMM is to accompany the Product until it is in the hands of the customer.
“Until folks engage with it, you didn’t deliver any value”
Promote & Engage: Ensure Product adoption.
Visibility and promotion are essential tools to ensure adoption of your Product. Marketing levers such as advertising campaigns, content marketing and SEO can help increase Product visibility and attract new users. As a Product Marketer, it's crucial to support Marketing in measuring and analyzing the effectiveness of these campaigns to constantly optimize customer acquisition efforts. Another essential aspect is user support - providing them with the support they need to understand and use the product. Finally, the Product Led Growth strategy is another avenue to explore to ensure product adoption and generate organic growth.
Iterate: Listen to your customers and enhance your Product
Evolving your product is an ongoing process that requires careful listening to customer feedback. This can be facilitated by setting up a solid feedback loop, which enables customer comments to be collected and analyzed in a systematic way. As a Product Marketer, you are the voice of the customer (VoC) - you understand their feelings and needs, and are responsible for representing them within the organization. Optimizing your product's sales cycles, based on customer feedback and win-loss analysis, is also a key aspect of this phase. Continuous development, taking into account customer feedback, will keep your product competitive and relevant in the marketplace.
That’s it for my Product Marketing description in France. It’s not perfect, but it does have the merit of providing structure for this discipline, pretty new in France.
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