WHAT TO READ NEXT
What is strategic marketing
Marketing is an often misunderstood and as such underutilized engine in many organizations seeking to develop a competitive advantage. To be more competitive, organizations have to better understand the leadership role that marketing plays in driving growth.
Value Chain
A value chain is the process of creating worth or usefulness within an organization as a product progresses forward from its first introduction to the organization.
As an example, a raw material has little to no value to the organization until it is assembled or incorporated into a larger product – thus creating value in the final product. Additional value is created by adding packaging, branding and logistics.
Marketing is a critical next step in the value chain that augments the value of a product by enhancing its desirability and making it known to prospective customers.
As an example, a raw material has little to no value to the organization until it is assembled or incorporated into a larger product – thus creating value in the final product. Additional value is created by adding packaging, branding and logistics.
Marketing is a critical next step in the value chain that augments the value of a product by enhancing its desirability and making it known to prospective customers.
Marketing Roles & Responsibilities
At the heart of the marketing value chain, Product Management is the owner of the product strategy and product roadmap. Product managers define the vision, the portfolio of products, manage the product life cycle, suggest improvements to component parts, control costs and make recommended upgrades to technology.
Product management works closely with Product Engineering teams such as R&D to engineer the products, optimize performance and ensure that strategic product benefits are included to incentivize customers to make a purchase. Product engineering is responsible for the product architecture and technical roadmap as well as any necessary integrations with other products in the portfolio. The relationship between Product Management and Product Engineering is a cyclical and on-going dialogue.
In many large organizations, a separate Product Marketing team works with product management to price, position and market the products for sale. They also work closely to define the product’s Value Proposition. These product marketers have responsibility for the channel strategy as well as how to position the products in specific regions and with particular customers. In addition to product marketers, some organizations also choose to have solution marketers that work in a horizontal manner across the product portfolio to create application-specific solutions for customers. This matrixed approach to product marketing and product management helps organizations avoid the product-centric trap that many product management teams are often prone to.
For large portfolio organizations, a separate Global Marketing team will exist to pull together the organization’s cohesive story – often promoting the organization’s products, solutions and business under a unified brand. The “Global Marketing” function can reside within a business unit, at the division level, or at the corporate level (often called “Corporate Marketing”). Other activities typically managed by global marketing include cross-product positioning, cross-business positioning, event & digital marketing execution, message amplification and website stewardship.
The activities of all the product management and marketing teams often culminate in a Commercial Go-To Market strategy that includes the execution by the organization’s sales teams (inside sales and field-based), promotion by the field marketing teams and any third-party channels. More recently, organizations have started to formalize the sales enablement function in a centralized team
Product management works closely with Product Engineering teams such as R&D to engineer the products, optimize performance and ensure that strategic product benefits are included to incentivize customers to make a purchase. Product engineering is responsible for the product architecture and technical roadmap as well as any necessary integrations with other products in the portfolio. The relationship between Product Management and Product Engineering is a cyclical and on-going dialogue.
In many large organizations, a separate Product Marketing team works with product management to price, position and market the products for sale. They also work closely to define the product’s Value Proposition. These product marketers have responsibility for the channel strategy as well as how to position the products in specific regions and with particular customers. In addition to product marketers, some organizations also choose to have solution marketers that work in a horizontal manner across the product portfolio to create application-specific solutions for customers. This matrixed approach to product marketing and product management helps organizations avoid the product-centric trap that many product management teams are often prone to.
For large portfolio organizations, a separate Global Marketing team will exist to pull together the organization’s cohesive story – often promoting the organization’s products, solutions and business under a unified brand. The “Global Marketing” function can reside within a business unit, at the division level, or at the corporate level (often called “Corporate Marketing”). Other activities typically managed by global marketing include cross-product positioning, cross-business positioning, event & digital marketing execution, message amplification and website stewardship.
The activities of all the product management and marketing teams often culminate in a Commercial Go-To Market strategy that includes the execution by the organization’s sales teams (inside sales and field-based), promotion by the field marketing teams and any third-party channels. More recently, organizations have started to formalize the sales enablement function in a centralized team
Product Management
The primary purpose of product management is to lead the product strategy and manage a product’s life cycle. This includes the following key deliverables:
- Portfolio strategy
- Portfolio roadmap
- Product strategy
- Product roadmap
- New product business case
- Technology enhancements or upgrade pitch decks
As part of these responsibilities, product management is also responsible for product margin, pricing, costs, vitality, addressable market analyses and target customer account information.
Effective product management teams proactively monitor and manage threats to product and commercialized technology. They continuously upgrade and enhance the portfolio with regular new product introductions. They end-of-life or exit out of products that are no longer generating a significant portion of revenue to the company’s top line. A product management leader should define thresholds for minimally viable products that product managers should keep in their portfolios. This includes such metrics as:
Effective product management teams proactively monitor and manage threats to product and commercialized technology. They continuously upgrade and enhance the portfolio with regular new product introductions. They end-of-life or exit out of products that are no longer generating a significant portion of revenue to the company’s top line. A product management leader should define thresholds for minimally viable products that product managers should keep in their portfolios. This includes such metrics as:
- What is the % of sales contribution?
- How many products are in the portfolio?
- Sales performance over the last 8 quarters?
- Competitive threats?
- Vitality index?
An objective analysis of the overall portfolio is required and decisions to exit out of poorly performing products, entering new markets and integrating or developing new technologies should be made.
Some common traps that limit or impede the ability of product management teams:
Some common traps that limit or impede the ability of product management teams:
- The launch of a “Me-Too” product
- Failure to end-of-life outdated or underperforming product
- Failure to refresh and keep the portfolio current
- Failure to launch enough new products
- Failure to define a differentiated product
- Failure to eliminate costs while maintaining the integrity of the product
- Tunnel vision for specific products preventing innovation / growth
- Lack of objectivity in setting competitive pricing
Product Marketing
Product marketing teams work closely with product management to define a value proposition, commercial Go-To Market strategy (GTM Strategy) and portfolio marketing.
A GTM strategy includes the following key parameters:
A GTM strategy includes the following key parameters:
- Product value proposition (in concert with product mgmt)
- Industry & market segmentation (top-down)
- Target customers (bottom-up)
- Competitive positioning
- Pricing (in concert with product mgmt)
- Packaging / branding (in concert with product mgmt)
- Content & assets required for GTM
The GTM strategy starts with a product’s value proposition – a simple yet effective tool that clearly articulates the value that a particular product holds for a specific customer type (persona). This baseline is later used to develop marketing campaigns.
Ideally, these questions should be answered by product management. However, in practice, product management tends to be overly optimistic in answering the above. Therefore a less biased approach is to have product marketing work with product management by asking objective questions and probing for fluff.
Ideally, these questions should be answered by product management. However, in practice, product management tends to be overly optimistic in answering the above. Therefore a less biased approach is to have product marketing work with product management by asking objective questions and probing for fluff.
Global Marketing
Global marketing is a critical, yet sometimes not well understood function within organizations. While global marketings exists for many reasons, some of the most important functions of global marketers are the following:
- Unify the portfolio of products within a single industry or across an organization’s business units with the goal of amplifying the value proposition of individual products and converting the value into organizational brand equity.
- Sit at the top of the marketing funnel – creating brand awareness, generating demand and helping to build pipeline.
- Helping to consolidate customer stories, feedback and customer experiences in such a way as to instill trust and build credibility in a brand, its products, people, order fulfillment and customer support processes.
Depending on the size of organizations, some businesses may maintain a “corporate marketing” team that performs global marketing activities. However, in many large corporations with many business units and divisions – organizations often maintain several different global marketing teams by business units separate and apart from a corporate marketing team. This often occurs when an organization spans multiple industries and has varying products from lighting to healthcare.
The role of global marketing is extremely valuable. When businesses speak of an accretive value creation strategy (1+1=3), they don’t know it, but they are speaking of the equity created by the global marketing teams. Global marketers pull disparate products and business units together and tell a cohesive story – thus amplifying not only the message of individual product lines and business units, but creating brand equity for the organization.
Several important areas for global marketers to ensure proper message amplification include:
The role of global marketing is extremely valuable. When businesses speak of an accretive value creation strategy (1+1=3), they don’t know it, but they are speaking of the equity created by the global marketing teams. Global marketers pull disparate products and business units together and tell a cohesive story – thus amplifying not only the message of individual product lines and business units, but creating brand equity for the organization.
Several important areas for global marketers to ensure proper message amplification include:
- Brand & website stewardship: what is being said, how, visuals, logos, graphics, imagery (please note that web has become synonymous with brand, representing how customers view and feel about brands)
- Public relations & business storytelling: What is the public story the company is telling? What are the products, business lines, industries and how are they positioned across the organization?
- Analyst communications: Given the sensitive nature of public companies, only designated individuals should be allowed to discuss and disclose company information with analysts.
- Events: Webinars, large corporate events and trade shows are often managed and executed by a single group to help ensure a uniform and consistent look/feel across multiple events and regions.
Insight
Even when done well, most people will struggle to understand what value marketing generates for an organization. In short, marketing offers a qualitative value that drives brands and brand equity. There are prescriptive activities that generate leads (ie. marketing automation, events and the like). However, the majority of marketing’s role is to fill in the gaps left after the product development process and before the customer makes the decision to buy.
FEATURED INSIGHTS
What is a brand?
