Archive for February, 2012
The Stages of Awareness
Posted by: | CommentsProduct marketing managers are often asked to create or increase the awareness of a product in the market. The belief is that awareness equates to leads.
Buyers are complex beings and go through stages of awareness as I’ve outlined below. An awareness of these stages (pun intended) helps to understand why the trade show you did last month didn’t result in a gazillion leads.
No Recognition
The buyer has no idea that your company or product is an answer to their problems. You are wearing the Cloak of Invisibility.
Aided Recognition
Provided with clues, buyers can recall your company or product, and that it might be an answer to their problems. You still have work to do.
Unaided Recognition
Buyers recognize your company or product without help. They understand it’s an answer to a problem they are experiencing. The door is open to dialog.
Preference
Given multiple choices of vendors/products, buyers will prefer to buy your product as an answer to their problems. You are the ‘go to’ vendor. Congratulations.
Loyalty
Buyers will consistently choose your company or product over others, even when they have had a less than ideal experience. This is nirvana.
Rejection
Rejection is the opposite of Loyalty. Buyers will go out of their way to avoid your product. For whatever reason, real or otherwise, they think your product sucks. You need to fix this perception.
What Product Marketing Managers Really Do
Posted by: | CommentsWhat salespeople think I do when they get what they want
I am a tireless team player providing everything they need to be successful.
What salespeople think I do when they don’t get what they want
I am the devil who finds every opportunity to impede the progress of a sale.
What product managers think I do
Everything they don’t want do and it changes on a whim.
What my boss thinks I do
He’s not really sure, but tells me I’m doing a great job.
What my family and friends think I do
Travel in first class to exotic locations, waited on hand and foot.
What I think I do
I am a god-like, marketing genius deftly addressing every challenge with laughter and song.
What I really do
I take care to balance the urgent with the important, and try to get through the week in one piece.
John the Misunderstood Product Marketing Manager
Posted by: | CommentsIn a previous post I introduced you to John, the product marketing manager. John is very busy and has his share of frustration. Most of John’s frustration is because his role is misunderstood. Product managers think he should do one thing. Marcom another. Sales yet another.
How did John get here?
For many technology companies the job title of product marketing manager is a fairly recent addition. The job was introduced to fill a void between product management, sales, and marcom. It happens when product managers are so consumed with product development issues, they don’t have the bandwidth to work with sales or marcom. The resulting problem is a sales force that is not prepared to sell and marketing that misses the mark.
Why is John frustrated?
He is frustrated because the line between what John should do and what the product manager should do is fuzzy. One time he gets scolded because he did something the product manager felt was her responsibility. Another time he gets scolded because he didn’t do something assuming the product manager is responsible. Finger pointing is not a solution.
What is John’s role?
There are activities in the Pragmatic Marketing Framework that are about using products and there are activities that are about buying products. One way of clarifying responsibilities is to have product managers accountable for activities related to using products, and have product marketing managers accountable for activities related to buying products. Another way of looking at it is product marketing managers are experts on buyers and how they buy, and product managers are experts on products and how they solve problems.
Are you clear about your role as a product marketing manager?
Are you defining the role or waiting for someone to do it for you?
Meet John, the Product Marketing Manager
Posted by: | CommentsMany of you know me from teaching Pragmatic Marketing’s Effective Product Marketing and Product Launch Essentials classes. In this role I get the privilege of working with many marketing directors, product managers, marketing executives, and product marketing managers. This experience I wanted to share with you from the product marketing manager’s perspective.
The role of the product marketing manager is evolving and becoming more standardized. By that I mean the importance of the role is better understood and the activities they are accountable for are more clearly defined. What I can report is the role of the product marketing manager has become more strategic and more valued than ever before.
Before getting deeper into roles and responsibilities of the product marketing manager it’s important to understand his persona. Please let me introduce you to John. John is a product marketing manager at a B2B technology company. He is 34 years old and he has a technical degree. About 30% of the time he has an MBA. His path to becoming a product marketing manager was not a direct one. His previously could have been a sales engineer, a product manager, or had a sales role.
He’s married, has two small children, and lives in the suburbs.
John is part of the marketing organization and reports to either a director/VP of product marketing or the VP of marketing. He gets a base salary and a bonus based on the performance of the company and the products he supports. Revenue is the primary measurement of success.
John may have the job title of product marketing manager, or he may be known as a marketing manager, segment marketing manager, or industry marketing manager.
John’s primary responsibilities fall into the following categories:
- Develop messaging for the products he supports
- Differentiate products from alternatives in the marketplace
- Develop content and sales tools including presentations, website content, brochures and white papers
- Conduct sales enablement training
- Create demand (lead generation)
John complains about the following issues:
- “Urgent, last minute requests from Sales like custom presentations, RFP responses, and demos are common requests that keep me from focusing on more strategic activities that I know will come back to haunt me.”
- “I have no clear way to prioritize my work. Every priority is the same: HIGH”
- “The sales team constantly complains about their sales tools. I keep delivering what they ask for but they still complain.”
- “Continuous changes in company, marketing and sales strategies have me bouncing from one project to the next. I’m working hard but not feeling like I’m getting anything done.”
- “I have to justify the ROI of marketing programs but I don’t have a set of metrics to use to prove my contribution.”
What about you?
Why Asking Sales What They Need from Marketing is a Bad Idea
Posted by: | CommentsA cardinal sin of a marketer is to ask the sales team what they need to be competitive. The response to that question elicits a range of requests, often unrelated to the realities of the market.
Recently, two independent reports confirmed for me a trend I’ve been seeing for years: that sellers have far less control over how products are sold than they believe, and it’s buyers that are increasingly making up their minds before contacting a supplier.
MarketingSherpa published a B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey that reported that B2B sales cycles are getting shorter.
The MarketingSherpa survey correlated lower deal prices to shorter sales cycles, but I believe something more significant is happening.
The Corporate Executive Board published a study reporting that…
“Buyers are not contacting suppliers until they are, on average, 57% of the way through their purchase process —meaning they have already determined their needs, completed due diligence, and have even begun to do some comparison shopping.”
Given this market dynamic, asking the sales team what they need would be a foolish exercise and a waste of company resources. In the end, the sales team would get what they asked for, but not get what they need to be competitive.
Customer engagement starts well before first contact with a salesperson and they are much further along in their purchase decision. Whether the prospect makes contact or not will largely be determined by the information provided to the buyer, the company’s reputation, and market visibility. The marketing team, therefore, plays a decisive role in helping prospects with needs determination and due diligence.
Update: Additional insight from Beth Negus Viveiros over at Chief Marketer
“Recent Corporate Executive Board research shows that B2B customers may look at up to 10 sources of information about potential purchases prior talking to a vendor. Many of these sources are typically not supplier related. In a survey of 1,900 B2B customers, word of mouth was cited by 72% of respondents, while 62% cited non-supplier blogs and 47% cited trade journals.”
