How to Build a Product Marketing Organization

In this current wave of start-ups, I am often asked how to build a product marketing organization from the ground up. Product marketing is typically not something that a company develops early in its inception. Start-ups usually focus on building a product and achieving the first wave of sales. Product marketing is more of a strategic function that is needed 1-2 years after a product hits the market. Unfortunately, once a company accepts the need for product marketing, it is usually 6-12 months late and there is a back log of projects, many of them urgent.

Define and Map: The first step is to define what product marketing means to a given company. It is a multi-disciplinary function and as such it can often have different definitions and responsibilities. Mapping the organization and identifying gaps is critically important in product marketing success. Too many companies have product marketing teams with no clear definition or goal and wind up either cleaning up marketing messes or functioning as a content factory. Neither is an effective use of resources. A successful product marketing team bridges the gap between customer, product, and market.
Audit: Create an understanding of the needs of the product and organization. There are typically several fires that need to be put out such as out of date pitch decks and inconsistent messaging. I like to ask people from sales, marketing, and product to give me the elevator pitch. More often than not, it is completely different. The solution is a positioning document. This is a short 3-5 page document that concisely describes the need of the customer and how the product is uniquely positioned to solve it. I like to start all of mine with the sentence, “The problem is…” The positioning document serves as an ultimate guide to describing the product. The buck stops here.
Organize: It is best to decide early how to organize product marketing, rather than to let it happen organically. 3 of the most common ways are: product, industry, and solution. Organization by product is the most common for good reason, it is the simplest. Each product, or piece of the larger product, has its own product marketing manager (PMM.) This PMM owns that product and its features and will work closely with the product manager in charge of the development. This works best when it is possible to slice up discrete products and create an expert for that particular product. The second way is by industry. When a single product is sold into multiple industries, it helps to have a PMM who is an expert in this industry and the way the product is used in that industry. This has the benefit of creating a subject matter expert who knows the buyer intimately and the unique behavior and jargon of the industry. The third option is by solution. This is a mix of the first two. A solution marketing manager takes multiple products and markets them to a unique use case.
The final step is to implement. Now that the organization is mapped and the product marketing function is understood, the positioning is defined, and the organizational structure is agreed upon, it is time to pull the trigger. At this point a GTM plan (see my other blogs) can map the specifics of product roadmap, creative, strategy, and sales enablement and the hiring process can start. With a clearly defined product marketing function and GTM plan, the hiring process can begin. Attracting talent to a well-organized product marketing organization becomes a much simpler task.