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Product Marketing

Marketing is in the Middle: Jennifer Doctor

So the next person to participate in this series of interviews is Jennifer Doctor, she is a product marketer who tirelessly gives time to volunteer for the community of marketers with participation in Product Camp ATL and Product Camp Minnesota.

Jennifer is also an active blogger and I’m thankful she took time out of her hectic schedule to participate. On to the answers….

What marketing roles have you had and in what markets?

Over the last nearly 20 years, I’ve worked in marketing, product marketing and product management. This includes everything from marketing communications and pr/media work, web development and marketing, and classic product marketing and product management. I’ve been in a variety of industries and technologies, including nonprofit agencies, hardware, b2b software for enterprise and small business – ASP (forerunner to SaaS,) ERP and desktop, and also services.

When you look at your career in marketing, what activities have you found most interesting/challenging?

I haven’t found the activities involved in marketing “hard;” rather, I believe what is hard is understanding and adapting to the different cultures I have entered and left. Each environment brings its own set of expectations and rules, mostly unwritten and tribal driven. This can make it challenging to drive to what is right and make a difference.

Based on your experience what activities do you think get the most return?

I believe that investing in any activity that brings about a greater understanding of the market is the where you are most likely to get the result. Tactics are driven better when you have that understanding of how your buyers, the potential market, will respond. Without this, no amount of marketing effort will succeed.

What do you feel is the most important component of a successful marketing gig?

The most important element of a successful marketing gig is to understand the buyer. I believe that you have to understand what the buyer is seeking, so they will invest in the sale. This understanding is important for any size product or sale. Without this knowledge, no amount of marketing of your solution will matter – regardless of how creative, flashy, interactive, or informative.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?

Wow. Not easy to answer. A perfect corporate environment is where the silos of the organization do not exist. Teams are formed which are more agile (not capital A agile as in development process,) and combine skills and talents from different focus areas to come together to solve the problem for the market – at that time. These teams need to have a single challenge to tackle, and be in alignment with the overall strategic vision. They also need to be empowered with the right resources – from talents to money to time – to make it happen. It all comes down to creating a collaborative atmosphere, which exists without the barriers.

How far is this from reality?

I have no idea how far my ideal is from reality. I know that when it is achieved – and I have seen it work in organizations – it can produce amazing results. Unfortunately, I believe that it takes leadership, leadership which embraces collaboration and empowerment.

So what’s next?

Next? I have seen great strides in recent years from marketing (including product marketing and management) coming closer together in alignment to execute. I also would like to see more organizational leaders break down the walls that still exist. It’s time more people start worrying about who is right, and focus on what is right. It’s business. It’s not personal. More environments need to embrace this.

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Blog: Outside-In View

Twitter: @jidoctor

February 4, 2011 by Jon Gatrell

Can pricing change your business? Sure it can!

Innovation isn’t only limited to the product, the other P’s can also be leveraged for innovation. As product marketers / product managers, we can drive innovation with pricing, placement and promotion. Todd Sattersten has created this presentation which leverages pictures to provide insight into how pricing can change the business. this is a follow up to the eBook on Pricing he did in early 2010. Worth the click through – thanks todd!

Pricing Pictures

View more presentations from Todd Sattersten.

February 3, 2011 by Jon Gatrell

Marketing is in the Middle: John Peltier

John Peltier is an interesting guy who I’ve just recently gotten to know better now that he is an Atlanta-ish resident which I am glad I have. I first met him via ProductCamp Austin, btw – the whole Austin crew is just a good group of folks and for a single city I think Austin might have more product marketing and product management bloggers per capita than anywhere. Second I think is Toronto maybe. Which reminds me, John blogs as well @ johnpeltier.com and is still active in Product Camps, now that he has moved to Atlanta he is actively engaged in helping the team make the 4th PCAMPATL a success as well.

John provides some interesting insights into the journey many technology marketing folks take which often starts in the tech side of the business in his responses. John is currently a product manager and product owner.

What marketing roles have you had and in what markets?
I’ve got a little inbound and a little outbound marketing. My primary outbound marketing experience was the year I spent as Marketing Lead for ProductCamp Austin. On the inbound side, I’ve spent three years in product management.

When you look at your career in marketing, what activities have you found most interesting/challenging?

As a technologist with a background in quality assurance and technical support, my biggest ramp-up was the business side of things — the interpersonal relationships and consensus building, as well as the financial analysis.

Based on your experience what activities do you think get the most return?

The biggest return comes from relationship building and understanding what products to build for the market and what the business constraints are. Validating which problems people are willing to pay to solve helps ensure financial justification, as well as a successful rollout and marketing campaign. So tools that allow engagement with a wider range of customers and prospects provide the raw input for the most important decisions faced by an organization.

What do you feel is the most important component of a successful marketing gig?

I am bordering on repeating myself here, but marketers can bring to market a wide range of situations, and developers can build a wide range of products. Marketer need to identify what is needed–what to sell, and what to build–is ultimately the determining factor of a good gig.

How have you seen organizations change in the last 3-5 years to better support the needs of product marketers, product managers and communications teams?
I’m a big proponent of agile development, because I see agile as a response by development teams to the reality that it’s extremely difficult to craft a winning solution out of nothing. Building things iteratively, and proactively obtaining feedback on each iteration, gives marketers the opportunity to change course well before the die is cast. This works best, naturally, when marketers actually bring in end users to see the product throughout the process.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?

Companies benefit when they provide the freedom and resources to allow innovation; over-emphasis of delivery dates to the detriment of building game-changing products leads to efficient followers. Further, companies whose leadership can unite disparate divisions around a unified purpose have an advantage over those whose leadership can’t. Product managers can’t necessarily create the former, but those who can provide a vision to help unify the company can improve the 2nd metric.

How far is this from reality?

Some large companies like Google dedicate resources to innovation and to pet projects, and others like Apple force themselves through many design concepts before picking the final one. Obviously exceptional companies, they illustrate ways to institutionalize the innovation that so many of us want.

So what’s next?

Product management is evolving and maturing as a discipline, which is helping illustrate to companies the clarity of vision that should exist for products brought to market. Product managers should strive to establish a minimum set of deliverables that can clearly convey the essence of a product, and should strive to ensure they can complete it convincingly before delivering a product to market. As just one example, last year I proposed a standard set of documentation that covers the problem(s) solved, buyers, users, value proposition, and the proposed workflow(s). My example is probably a bit heavy on the workflow side for a true agile implementation, but by going through a similar exercise in concept validation, a product manager can make the life of the marketer and the product marketer much much easier.

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Twitter: johnpeltier

Blog: Johnpeltier.com

Thanks for taking the time to provide your feedback on where you see marketing today John!