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- [00:00]
A
Ever wonder why some product releases are widely successful while others fail? Well, I think this lies in an interesting discipline called product marketing. Today I am super excited to be joined by the godmother of product marketing herself, SVPG partner Martina Luchenko. She is the author of the book loved and really the leading mind on this subject. I would love to pick her brain here on really what it takes to have a good product marketing organization, why it matters and why the essential skills of great product marketers and how well they can collaborate with product teams. Martina, as always, it is an honor to have you on the show. Welcome to product Therapy.
- [00:46]
B
You know, I love having reasons to talk with you. Christian, thanks for having me again.
- [00:51]
A
It is my pleasure. You know, Martina, I'm excited about today's topic on product marketing. Candidly, this was a tough topic for me in my career. I actually really didn't understand the discipline till very late in my career as a product manager. It's kind of like I understood that, all right, I have built a product, you know, I've created something valuable. Do I need to train some salespeople on it? I need to tell some customers about it, I might need to market it. And I'm like, well, we have a sales organization, they should figure it out. We've got a marketing organization. Okay, but how do I get this product to my customers? And I wasn't sure where I had control around that choice and if I was responsible not just for building the product, but getting in the hands of the customer and if other people could help. So I think a great place to start is maybe give us some product marketing 101. Like what the heck is product marketing? Why should we care? Like in companies, when do we know when we need it and when we don't.
- [01:52]
B
So let's start with a basic definition with what is product marketing? The function it is driving product adoption by shaping market perception through strategic marketing activities that connect to business goals. It is this steel thread that unites the product that gets created with all that the go to market machinery. So the sales and marketing organizations, all the work that they need to do, it's building the foundation upon which that go to market machine can be successful. So for example, if you have a demand generation team in the marketing group that's producing all these campaigns, if they're saying the wrong words to the wrong people, the product will not succeed. If the sales team is qualifying the wrong customers in and selling the wrong people that would pay money but then ultimately don't retain the product because they're like, oh, this didn't meet my expectations. Oh, and all the features were wrong because they weren't targeting the right customers. They could sell it. They were talking about the right features, but it wasn't really the right customer segment in which this product would succeed. Again, the product's gonna f. So product marketing, the discipline is building that bridge. It's putting in place the foundational building blocks that let the go to market machinery succeed. And of course, as might be evident by this description, depending on where you are as a stage company, early stage growth or scaling stage or very mature, that role evolves. And that's part of why it's so confusing, because every company draws those lines around the boundaries of it a little differently.
- [03:24]
A
Is there some framework to know the ideal places to draw the line? Like how will I know that I need it and what will I see as missing or challenges in my environment as an indication that I could really benefit from this function?
- [03:38]
B
Well, the number one way to know that you need it is if your product is not being adopted in the market. And what I'll say is, it's not do I or don't I have a product marketer that is doing this job? It is if your product is not being adopted in the market. You haven't done the product marketing work that would let it be understood. And I think part of what is different that most people don't understand is they think of marketing as promotion. I have this thing, world is now ready, come use my fabulous thing as opposed to the world right now. For example, in the United States, there's an election going on and every single day there's some like jaw dropping thing that is happening that all of us like, oh my God, we're all busy thinking about other things. And so why would your fabulous new product be something that I should pay any attention to? You have to bridge into the market and where it is. You don't get to change the market. The market is what it is. You need to bridge into it, make yourself relevant to it, provide context, frame, value. Why is your fabulous product valuable? You have to do that work. And the reason why I always advocate that it happen as early as possible is it should shape your product. I again at Costa Noa Ventures, we're early stage vc. So we're very much at the vanguard of this where people like have incredible technology vision. And the harder part is how do I make this meaningful to market? It is really easy to come up with great technology today and really easy today to build products. The harder thing is to get the market to adopt them.
- [05:09]
A
Okay, so people are not adopting my product. How do I know it is for lack of good product marketing or lack of product marketing or just a bad product? You know, my product sucks.
- [05:24]
B
So. Well, all the other SVPG podcasts, I'm sure, are talking about all the foundational elements that you should be de risking. You should know the answer of whether before your product is out there, you should actually, if you've been listening to the SVPG podcast, you actually know before you put it out there if your product is worth it or not. So if you have done that work and it's still not getting adopted, then you know you haven't done the right work to prepare the market and to frame why it has value. I see this all the time. So early stage startups, brilliant ideas, and the product is actually still kind of taking shape. And it isn't until they encounter a hyper specific use case where someone's like, oh, I can do that with it. That's fantastic. And it is. Often the product's value gets defined through a use case. Oh, now I understand. And what is unique about what's happening today is it is super rare to have a technology greenfield. Oh, I'm not already doing this some other way. It means you're displacing something that is familiar, known and trusted to some degree. So that's a really high bar. And it also means for me to understand why I should be listening to you over everyone else who's trying to tell me to do things differently or why my why this is insignificant. The bar is really high for why I should listen. You have to show me something that is really superior, not just incrementally better. Yes, for it to get my attention.
- [06:49]
A
Yeah. And so, you know, we used to say in the product walk, it's not that you haven't found a problem compelling enough to solve. In many cases, the solution you've come up with is not compelling enough for people to switch to or change behavior. And you know, and, and in some ways you actually call out something. I love the way you framed that. That the product value gets described through the use case. And often people have to go hunt for those stories. My goodness, you're absolutely right. You know, when you have this hyper specific use case of like look at what our product did in creating these outcomes for these companies, all of a sudden people understand what the product is even better than anything you put out there. Now, things I've seen many companies struggle with is who owns this function? Where does it sit in, okay, we've got a group that already has the first part of the name product, and we have a group that already has a second part of the name marketing. Like, you know, I mean, is this a marriage between product and marketing? Is it product function or marketing function? What is the difference between this and corporate marketing activities? Hey, give me some sense of your thoughts around this.
- [07:56]
B
Yeah, Well, I will say, most of the time, it is a marketing function because the marketing team is. Are the ones that. They're not the builders, but they're the ones that need to let the world know about this product and help drive its adoption. So most of the time, it's a marketing function where it might move into product. There are two scenarios. One is sometimes marketing teams get way too far away from what product is actually building. They have campaigns that are working. They're able to meet their sales, and so they're kind of creating their own machine that is effective enough, but it's not tied to what's actually being built. Or sometimes it's the legacy of what was you basically. Basically, you're marketing a reputation of a product as opposed to what it actually is today. And so that's where you might want to move it closer to product. Either sometimes it's reporting directly into product, or it's just having a dotted line, or it's embedding product marketers into those product teams. Most of the time, that is the best thing to do, no matter what. But they have to know what this engine is. There's a company that I'm working with right now that had this separation happen where, like, the function existed, but they just viewed themselves as like, we're creating the collateral, we're enabling sales. We are doing the messaging. And they were checking every box, and they were doing a comprehensive job of checking every box. And that's not the job. The job is actually to be selective about what's most important to say so that sales can be successful selling it, so that the newest, most important stuff is elevated above the entire feature list. It's not the everything. It is the what will move the market. And that's what's often missed in the practice of, I'll say average product marketing. They do it all. They're always busy, but they're not actually moving the ball for shaping the market. And if the product is actually being adopted. Ooh.
- [09:42]
A
So, you know, in traditional marketing, early in my career, I was always coached, like, the whole goal of marketing, traditional marketing, at least, is to generate a lead in the sense of whether we're doing branding, advertising, all the other aspects of telling people about what way is the whole is to create interest enough in what problems we solve or the solutions we have that someone says I'm interested in that. And sales job is to capture that lead. You are kind of calling out this layer of you're not letting something happen to you, you're not going out and just telling a story. You are shaping the story. With product marketing, you kind of said being selective of what words we will use in order to win more, what words we use to differentiate ourself. This is a very different skill Martina, from what I have always known traditional marketing.
- [10:29]
B
I'll give you an example that everyone has just experienced in the world of technology. So three years ago, if you had asked anyone that works in tech who is the leading company in AI between Google and Microsoft, no one would have said Microsoft. A hundred percent of people would have said absolutely Google. So what did Microsoft do? Well, they did a lot of strategic things. They did a lot to build up the product portfolio, including their investments in OpenAI. But what did they do is they then shaped the market by making the Bing & ChatGPT early beta available to a slew of influencers with no restraints. We said write about it, go ahead. The good and the bad. And for six months even people who weren't in technology were talking about like did you see that article that so and so wrote about their experience try and chatgpt and the, you know. And Microsoft was one that was responding. Satya Nadella so the CEO basically had interviews where he would say I want to make Google dance and I want them to know it was us that made them dance. He threw down a gauntlet. That's not an accident. These were all very intentional actions that completely changed our perspective and view of AI and who the leader was. Now do you go to Bing instead of Google now? No, you don't. But that wasn't their objective. Their objective from a business perspective was we're going to AI ify our entire enterprise product suite. And when you are deciding who as an enterprise, you're going to trust to know how to take advantage of all these large language models to use my proprietary data. Like who are you going to trust? You're going to trust us at least as much as anybody else, if not more because you saw we were leading the way. You know, we're doing this with great intention and purpose. They have the product portfolio to back it up, but they took all the market shaping actions so that they could command this market. Perspective. And now of course, depending on the day, Nvidia or Microsoft are the most valued companies in the world. But this is the power of it. They shaped the market's perception. They had the product, you have to have the product. You can't do it without the product. But if you also shape market perception, it doesn't matter what Google does now. They are always being looked at as they are responding. They are behind. Everything they do is in response to and literally the Google I O that happened after Microsoft did all this stuff. They said AI 121 times because they were trying to take the narrative back. But at that point it was an attempt and they didn't yet have Gemini, which is great, but they were behind. They were caught flat on their feet. So that was brilliant product marketing that all of us witnessed. Now, it wasn't just product marketers that did that, that was the whole company. But I think that's my larger point. The discipline isn't just people who hold the title. Everyone needs to think about how do we do this together.
- [13:12]
A
What you described, you know, I'm almost saying is that the magic of product marketing has marketing just been taking all the glory of this for so long. You know, we always say things where we sit there like that's good marketing, that's good marketing. You know, that's a great ad, that's a great promotion, that's good marketing. But you're calling out distinctively in some ways that product marketing is very intentional, very deliberate in its. The actions are designed to shape the narrative, to create a compelling argument around things. It's not just done for brand awareness. It's not the activities that generate general interest. And I think that's a fantastic distinction because there's a very. Just as product teams are solving a problem, I think product marketers are really engaging in solving. This is not a fire and test. And let's try, try this out here 100%.
- [14:02]
B
You use some words here that were really important, Christian, that the product marketing discipline is about creating the argument for why into which the product is valued. Whereas marketing are creating campaigns and they're being clever and they're getting attention, but it is something that is fleeting and then the very next campaign that is of this moment is the next thing that's going to come along. So product marketing work is creating a market position that is durable for a period of time, but it is much more durable. Whereas the things that the marketing team works on are like the click campaign Y, like social. That's something you, you gotta tend to that every single day.
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A
That's right.
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B
That in aggregate can help position a product, but that by itself won't do it. You have to have that bigger umbrella thinking and puzzle piece that you're moving toward.
- [14:47]
A
Oh, I love that. Now I'm, let's say I'm a company. I've got a product marketing organization, we've got product marketers, and we've got product managers or a product team. Give me the sense of the relationship between a product manager and a product marketer. What is healthy, what does good collaboration look like is a indication that it is working well and maybe some guidance on how to improve that relationship.
- [15:10]
B
Well, the biggest indicator that it's working well is both feel like they are better at their job because of the collaboration with the other. So product marketers should never feel like they could do their job without feeling like, I need to know every week, like, what are you guys building? What did you learn? Because that might shape and inform how. I'm making this argument to an analyst that the conversation I'm having tomorrow and then I sound really incisive because I said, well, we just brought this feature to a customer and here's how they responded. That's shaping the market's perception through an analyst, even though I'm using a product anecdote. So. And I just, that I just got yesterday from the product manager and vice versa. The product manager. In the daily or weekly standup, they're making a decision on what to prioritize instead of just saying what can be done and what are we signing up for? What's easy or what is the epic that we're moving thematically toward? They're asking the question, as a company, what do we need to show the world? Like everyone's asking themselves this about AI right now. What do we need to do to show that we actually have something substantial? Not lipstick on a pig. It's not just a little rinky dink AI. Like one of the companies I work with, their competitor came out very quickly with an AI feature, but it's kind of crappy, but they're able to talk about it a lot. So of course these guys are saying like, we want the substantial response. And we've talked about this. We're like, did you want to be the Zune phone from the ipod? Do you want to be the BlackBerry or do you want to be the iPhone? Google was not the first search engine by far, but they were great at doing something hyper specific. So I'm a big fan of do it right. But then you want into the market context in which you're making that decision. And so that's what the product marketer brings to the product team on a very regular basis. Here's what people are saying. Here's, here's the customer environment. Our competitors are doing X, Y and Z. They're taking all the oxygen out of this conversation. Is there anything we can do that would let us change this conversation? It should drive prioritization. It should say, you know what, we can pull that social feature in. Or it should be a dialogue. It should always be a dialogue. So that's the healthiest relationship. You're not good at your job without the other. And it feels like a dialogue and not like a sweep and poop or a, well, I'm telling you what we're building and I just want you to get it out in the market right now.
- [17:15]
A
Where does this good collaboration happen? Are we inviting the product marketer into discovery? Are they on standups? Are they participants in the team when they are solving problems? Where do we fit them in? Because I mean, we're not advocating another meeting on updates exchange. How do we really work together?
- [17:31]
B
So this is one where it really is company dependent. And it depends on what your regular cadences are. It might be all of those things, it might be every single one of those things, or it might be a small sampling of those things. That depends on the team, the team structure, the maturity of the company in general. What you want is a very regular version of embedding where they're not just peripherally there to listen and then report back and bring some product juice into what the marketing team is doing. Whatever that cadence is for your team, you want them to be there to help you with decisions, to actually imbue in product conversations the market perspective so that you feel like you are a better team as a result of the presence of that person. So you have to decide, is that daily stands up? Is that weekly standup? Is that every other week? Is it every day? We just have a phone call. And they're not necessarily the standup because we're talking about engineering issues. You have to figure that out. And most of the time there are far more product squads than there are product marketers. So it's never a one to one. And so this is where you have to decide, okay, what's the right level at which that lives? So it might be a product marketer is assigned to a product director that has a whole bunch of squads reporting or empowered product teams reporting up into that person. And they can Kind of speak on behalf of all of these. And that's where that tight relationship lives. So this is where judgment must be exercised. There's not a single formula and you really have to shape it to what's going to make the function successful at your particular company.
- [18:58]
A
Yeah, I love that. Now, Martina, what happens when we don't have product marketing? Are we doomed? Are we always going to lose in our market here? You know, what do we do? How do we save ourselves from ourselves?
- [19:09]
B
Yes. Well, then the work must be done by everybody else. Oh, and I'll say so again, I work with early stage startups and most of the time the earliest product marketing is done by the founders because they're the ones that have all of the knowledge of the customer, what's possible with the product. They're the ones having like weekly daily conversations with prospective customers. And so they're getting all this market signal and so they're in the best position to kind of keep, keep bringing it's, it's really soft, wet clay in the beginning and they're the best ones to keep iterating or my next conversation tomorrow. I'll try this. So they're actually oftentimes the earliest product marketers and then they might try and bring in people with sales and then the sales team actually, let's say there's no product marketer and the sales team actually tries out some of this material and somebody at some point needs to codify these things. All right, this is the messaging framework at this moment. This is our sales deck at this moment. And let's hold still on this for three to four months. Let's learn and then let's iterate upon it. So that will fall to somebody and you can always decide who that is. But the work has to be broken up among the people who are there.
- [20:13]
A
So you're kind of advocating this is important for the success of any product. Someone has to pick up this work even when we don't have a designated person called a product marketer in the company. It's that important for that to occur in a company.
- [20:28]
B
And I'll say too, like, I work a lot with some very technical founders and very technical startups, reps that are 100% engineers and they're the ones doing this. So I don't care what your background is, it is not an excuse. The work must be done and you just have to do it. You have to. You learn how to flex a new muscle.
- [20:46]
A
I love that.
- [20:47]
B
Yeah, it's why I wrote loved. Not for just product marketers but for anyone that needs to practice the discipline.
- [20:52]
A
Martina, maybe leave us with this. Let's say I'm a big established company or Enterprise or B2B Company and I want to make the argument that we need production marketing or product marketers. We've been doing the work, but maybe code me on how I will say that to my leader. Make an argument or a case for product marketing. What will I say that may be convincing and compelling enough for them to look into it or take action?
- [21:15]
B
Yeah. So the scenario I see most often is that they have invested in like one or two or three product marketers. And the bigger question is how do we argue for more because we're totally underwater and we're not actually able to do the function. Well, how do you craft that argument? That's the more common scenario for more mature companies. And there I'd say it's a hundred percent about what the business is trying to do. If the business is fine just growing incrementally and being what it is, there's not much argument. But if they're investing heavily, if there is an investment in product that you're trying to reap in connected and correlated business growth, I can't imagine a scenario where you can get there effectively without product marketing work being done. Maybe you have some miracle workers in marketing that can do the function. And some people do that and they say like, well, you know what, we actually will carve out this group within marketing to do that work. That's reasonable, but is really, if you're making an investment in product as a way to growth, that bridge doesn't happen by itself because the marketing teams and the sales teams simply don't have the skill to metabolize everything that's coming out and why it is meaningful for the market, especially if you're a mature company. Because a mature company has a reputation that exists, has a product that exists, and you need to overcome all of that to be seen as new or different. You can brand some aspect of that, but the product has to live up to that shift in perception. So that's why product marketing as a function is that bridge. One important thing in making arguments for why product marketing, There are many CEOs and business leaders that will say, if we're trying to grow revenue, what we need is salespeople, people who carry a bag that we can correlate that revenue to. And how to have that discussion is they need to be saying what will make them successful. Just adding the people without the enablement that lets them leverage the investment is not going to guarantee that you're actually going to be able to get that additional revenue. So make sure that we have enough investment in the messaging, the pricing, the packaging, all of the stuff that lets that additional sales investment actually be successful. And that is the product marketing investment.
- [23:23]
A
Oh, I love that. Now. You know I've always joked like when we talk about what kind of company are you? When a CEO says I want to grow, I often look in the room to who the CEO turns to first. Does he turn to the head of sales? Is he dependent on sales strategy for growth? Is he turning to the head of products? Is he looking for us to create new value for growth? And in some ways it does. You're kind of saying it doesn't matter matter who it turns to. You need to make an investment in ensuring that that engine works. So it's something like in traditional project based companies that are operationally led. My goodness, how do you succeed without the investment in ensuring you're enabling your engine to succeed? And it's a really great framing for what product marketing is. I just felt like I got from 101 basic education all the way to an advanced degree in 30 minutes of time with you Martina. This was an absolutely insightful time together learning about product market and how we coach it, how we talk about it, the value it provides. Thank you for the gift of your time and the gift of your knowledge to do. Pleasure to have you Martina.
- [24:24]
B
Thank you so much Christian.
- [24:26]
A
Want to learn more? Until next time, Please check out svpg.com, sign up for our newsletter that Mary Kagan puts out. Join us for one of our workshops near you and get access to all of the articles and content we put out. And thank you to everyone for joining us. Until next time. Time. Have a good day. A Quick Disclaimer While this podcast is named Product Therapy, it is not hosted by licensed therapists or mental health professionals and it is in no way a substitute for professional mental health services. We recognize the importance of mental well being and encourage anyone facing personal difficulties to seek support from qualified professionals. See www.findahelpline.com.