This informal CPD article ‘Beyond the sales pitch: The Value of product marketing’ was provided by Product Marketing Alliance, a company founded in 2019 with a mission of uniting product marketers across the globe.
Product marketing is so much more than just pushing sales. While driving revenue is important, effective product marketing focuses on the bigger picture – how to make customers fall in love with your product. This means understanding customer pain points and desires, positioning your product as the best solution, and crafting compelling messages across channels to attract and retain users.
What is product marketing?
Product marketing brings together various disciplines like market research, branding, content creation, campaign management, and product launches to embed your product deeply into your target customers' lives.
It's about forming an emotional connection and making sure your solution is top of mind when needs arise. By providing ongoing value beyond the sales pitch, savvy product marketing creates lifelong brand advocates who drive referrals, repeat business, and grow an organization. In today's crowded market, meaningful relationships trump transactions.
Why is product marketing important?
Product marketing is important because it helps establish product-market fit, communicate the product's value, and drive adoption and growth. Without strategic product marketing, even great products may fail to reach their target audience.
What is product market fit?
Product-market fit means your product solves a real pain point for customers in your target market. There’s demand for your solution and customers see notable benefits from using it over alternatives. Achieving product-market fit is a key milestone and ongoing process in product development and marketing.
Now you know what product marketing is, let’s get into its key benefits.
What’s the benefit of product marketing?
Increased brand awareness and recognition
Product marketing helps get your brand name and products in front of your target audience across various channels and content types. This builds familiarity and mindshare so customers are more likely to think of your brand first when they have an issue, want, or need.
How to enhance brand awareness and recognition
- Consistent messaging across campaigns and content reinforces what your brand stands for in customers' minds.
- Getting press coverage in industry publications raises familiarity among your target audience.
- Promotional giveaways like t-shirts or sponsorship banners at events get your brand in front of more people visually.
Improved customer acquisition
Done right, effective product marketing enables you to reach new customers and expand your audience by promoting your value and awareness of your product's benefits.
Tactics like search engine optimization and digital ads can drive traffic and conversions.
How to improve customer acquisition
- SEO and conversion rate optimization on landing pages make it easy for ideal potential customers to find and purchase your offering.
- Retargeting ads remind prospects about your brand after they've visited your website to drive conversions.
- Free educational content and tool demos introduced new leads to your brand expertise.
Higher customer retention and loyalty
By consistently nurturing relationships with existing customers through content, community building, and customer marketing, you can improve retention, upsells, referrals, and advocacy. Loyal customers become brand champions.
How to improve customer retention and loyalty
- Special perks and surprise offers exclusively for existing customers make them feel valued.
- Customer advisory councils and conferences strengthen relationships with current customers.
- Email, social media, and in-product messaging provide ongoing value to customers after purchase.
Clear product positioning
Product marketing involves defining competitive differentiation and compelling messaging that captures why your product is better than alternatives. This focus on positioning gets customers to buy into your unique value.
How to ensure your positioning is clear
- Unique branding and a consistent brand voice ensure you’re seen as trustworthy and reliable.
- A memorable tagline tells customers exactly what need the product addresses.
- Relevant and consistent messaging in all materials focusing on your product's differentiation.
Faster business growth
By driving demand and adoption for your products through great product marketing, you can acquire more customers and expand your market share. The growth of your customer base translates to business growth.
How to drive business growth
- Successful awareness campaigns introduce your product to new segments and geographies, expanding your total addressable market.
- Well-optimized conversion funnels fully monetize marketing efforts, driving higher customer acquisition and sales.
- Retention and upsell marketing to existing customers increases average spend and lifetime value.
- Positive word-of-mouth and customer testimonials accelerate viral growth by enhancing credibility.
- Increased market share from new customer acquisition and expanded wallet share of current customers translates to faster business growth.
Strategic product marketing pays dividends through greater awareness, increased sales and conversions, improved loyalty and referrals, clearer product positioning, and ultimately faster business growth. Taking a customer-focused approach allows product marketers (PMMs) to deliver these myriad benefits.
