A few years ago, I had the opportunity to guest speak on the B2B Growth podcast about how product marketing influences growth (you can hear my episode here.) On the podcast, we discussed product marketing focuses of the “P”s — Positioning & Messaging, Pricing, Packaging, along with Go-to-market Strategy and Competitive Intelligence. Indeed, in order for your product to be successful, you need to have a great product marketing strategy in place. Product marketing is essential for two reasons: 1) It helps you reach your target audience and 2) It helps you differentiate your product from the competition. In this blog post, we will discuss the key components of product marketing and why they matter for growth.

Positioning

Positioning is defined as “the place a brand occupies in the mind of its target audience.” A marketing strategy that works and enables growth aims to make a brand occupy a distinct position, relative to competing brands, in the mind of the customer. A good brand is one that stands out from the competition, and has an indelible position in the mind of the customer. Companies win mindshare when they solve real problems that a customer has, in a way that isn’t already being addressed.

For example, Nike Air Max shoes are known to be comfortable and durable. The name “air max” gives the customer a straightforward idea of what this shoe is about and why it’s different. Plus, their design is unlike any other brand of shoe. Nike’s positioning is: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world”

Targeting

In order to distinguish itself from the competition, a brand should not target everyone. Going too broad and making something for everyone puts a brand at risk of being uninteresting and forgettable. The best brands are those that focus on one specific group of people or one particular goal and do it better than anyone else. Having a target audience is important for brands, as it helps them define who they are and what their products can offer to potential buyers. Product marketing is responsible for defining the appropriate target audience and buyer personas for the offering.

To define your target market, you can start by looking at who your best customers are, what attributes they share and what similarities they have. Demographics including age, income and location may be relevant along with firmographics like company size (employee count and revenue). Additionally, customers may share motivations, pain points and more. You can also look at people who have been interested in your product or service that you have not been able to serve. By assessing who your product is for, and who it’s not for, you’ll get a good idea of who your target is.

Messaging

Messaging is clear, simple language that defines the features and benefits of your product. Messages should clearly state what the product does and who it’s for in simple language in order to be effective. Messages should also be conveyed in a tone that is on-brand, for example, with a professional, friendly and helpful tone. Product marketing is responsible for crafting messaging that tells an offering’s value story to the buyer.

There are many messaging frameworks to choose from that can help guide you as you get started with this baseline requirement for growth. Examples include message house and Building a Story Brand. Some key questions to ask yourself as you are developing messaging include:

Who is my customer?

What problem is my customer looking to solve?

What is keeping my customer up at night?

What is the customer’s goal, what do they want to accomplish?

What are the key features my customer will get value from?

What benefit does each feature provide?

How can I explain this value in my customer’s language, in a way that will make sense to them?

Does my message convey what my product does, who it’s for, and why it’s better than other solutions?

It’s critical to engage with customers directly before building out a messaging framework for your brand. Read more about how to work with customers to get their feedback in Your Company’s Greatest Asset: Customer Feedback.

Additionally, after messaging is developed, it’s not final and can always be improved. Experimentation is key with messaging, and can have a dramatic impact on growth. For example, at Constant Contact, we regularly ran A/B tests with messaging that was sometimes dramatically different, sometimes just minorly tweaked, to improve our click-through rates. We were about to move our in-product CTR from 2% to 7% — with just wording changes and iteration.

Pricing & Packaging

One of the bigger ways Product Marketers can impact the revenue driver of growth is through enticing pricing and packaging. Packaging means bundling features or products together into a single offer. Pricing is the monetary amount customers pay you to use your product or service and should reflect willingness to pay. When done well, pricing and packaging will ensure you are providing significant value to your customers while also enticing them to spend more with you.

By placing higher value features in higher packages and pricing them well, a company can get a package mix that gives customers value and improves revenue. Which features or value metric you package on will depend on what you sell, for example, it could be usage based where the price goes up depending on usage. Usage models are appealing to customers but also carry some risks including sticker shock as usage goes up. Whether you price on usage or another value metric, it is crucial to pose offers that make sense to your audience, so be sure to validate your thinking with customer research.

Pricing and packaging are two of the most important tools that Product Marketers have at their disposal. By enticing customers with the right offers, companies can improve their revenue growth and drive more sales.

Go-to-Market Strategy

One of the most important tasks for a product marketer is creating an action plan for how a company will achieve growth and gain an advantage in the market. The goal of a GTM Strategy is to identify how your company will reach prospects and customers, while maintaining a competitive advantage. Organizing a go to market strategy and executing on it means defining responsibilities, activities and timelines for marketing and coordinating strategies with all commercial functions.

One of the key questions to answer is whether you employ a product led growth strategy, a demand generation strategy or an account based strategy for acquisition and retention of customers. Being product led means your funnel is bottom up and coming from your product, for example you are offering a free trial and working on free trial conversion. Having a demand generation strategy means you are casting a broad net with content, SEO and targeted ads. Being account based means you are “fishing with spears” and creating outreach strategies for individual accounts that you want to sell to. The strategy you choose will depend on how large your customers are (individuals, small businesses or enterprise customers) and what type of product and sales cycle you have.

Another important point is to make sure your go-to-market strategy is holistic and has strategies and tactics for acquisition, retention, cross-sell, up-sell and that you are thinking through all growth levers available to you. In a go-to-market plan, it’s critical to put which of these levers you are expecting to impact with your initiative or campaign, and the expected result. Look for gaps and opportunities in lead generation, conversion, retention and expansion.

Competitive Intelligence

Another key task of a product marketer is gaining intelligence from other businesses in their sector. This better enables acquisition, retention, and revenue strategies for growth.

Competition never stands still, and other companies will be exploring new initiatives of their own which need to be anticipated and mitigated. The world of business is always changing, and it’s important for you to be prepared in the event that your competition does something drastically different from what they’ve done before. You can’t expect them not to explore new initiatives with their time; innovation never stands still.

For example, at Franklin Pierce University there was a constant price war going on between competing Universities to win students’ deposits after admission. Just knowing this information helped the team come up with value based messaging and new academic programs to entice students to come to the college for value.

In a world of competition, differentiation is what sets your business apart and ensures success. It’s not about being the biggest or flashiest company out there – it’s how you make an impact in the market.

Differentiate and Focus on Growth

As we’ve seen, product marketing is essential for any business looking to grow. It’s not just about putting a product out there and hoping it sells – you need to position it correctly, target the right customers, deliver the right message, and price and package it in a way that encourages people to buy. And don’t forget your go-to-market strategy! All of this takes careful planning and execution, but if you can focus on these essentials, you’ll be well on your way to achieving (and even surpassing) your business goals.