How to learn how to launch new products

Contents:

• What place does a product marketer occupy in the life of a product?
• What tasks does he solve?
• What soft and hard skills need to be developed to achieve success?
• Product marketer, product manager, brand manager, and marketer. Understanding the differences.
• What tools does PMM use in its work?
• How much do product marketers earn in Belarus and abroad
• How to become a PMM. Useful resources from the editors of Skillbox.by

What place does a product marketer occupy in the life of a product

Imagine a team that has been working on a project for many months. Marketers have studied the market, found weaknesses and shortcomings of competitors, studied the requests and problems of the target audience (TA). Hundreds of ideas were reviewed, most of which were discarded, while others were tested and implemented as functions and interface features.

All this resulted in an application that is not overloaded with features and is easy to use. Focus group surveys showed that testers liked the product and that it solves the assigned tasks in fewer steps. The release is released, but the sales volume is not enough to even cover the development costs. The advertising launch brings new customers, but there is no noticeable increase. Why?

The problem is that it is not enough to simply tell people about a new product. You need to convey the idea, show the value of the product and convince people that this product will solve their problem better than the competition. This is what a product marketer does.

A Product Marketing Manager (PMM) is responsible for positioning a product in the market. They shape the vision and communicate value to potential users. They participate in all stages of development. They help generate ideas, shape the overall concept for functionality and design, and manage the promotion strategy at the release stage.

Product Marketing Managers are involved in:

• transforming an idea into a concept or prototype;
• Determining positioning and benefits for the target audience;
• Forming the price;
• Drawing up a product promotion plan;
• Choosing sales markets and communication channels;
• launch and further promotion of the product.

What tasks does a product marketer solve?

The PMM communicates daily with various team members - the sales department, marketers and the development team. He synchronizes their work. Developers don't always understand what users need and have their own ideas about what constitutes a user-friendly and beautiful design. Marketers don't have time to keep up with the releases of new features, and the sales department doesn't know exactly why a particular feature is useful.

A product marketer communicates marketing ideas to developers, explains the benefits of specific features to the sales department, and then provides feedback to marketers. This specialty combines different sciences and professions, which is why a PMM is sometimes confused with a product manager, brand manager, and a regular marketer.

This profession is diverse and requires extensive knowledge. Moreover, the role of a product marketer may change at different stages of the product life cycle, as may the list of tasks itself:

• At the project planning stage.A product marketer conducts market research - studies trends, determines what the audience needs, analyzes competitors, studies the strengths and weaknesses of their products in order to differentiate themselves from them. Determines the viability of the project as a whole - is the product needed now, will it recoup the development costs. If so, then the collected data is interpreted into functions, user interface, and design. At this stage, the PMM works closely with marketers and the product manager.
• Before the project release.A product marketer forms a strategy for launching the product to market. At this stage, the PMM works closely with various team members. Discusses pricing with the project manager and product manager. When setting the price, considers development costs, competitors' rates, and the potential number of sales (downloads, installations, subscriptions). Together with the marketing department, the PMM creates a profile of the target audience and develops a unique selling proposition (ed.: a message for the target audience that shows what you offer and why you are better). After this, they determine target markets, promotion tools and channels for communicating with the audience, as well as the style and format of communication with users. At the same time, they train the sales department, convey the value of the product to them, and explain what customers need to pay attention to. After the project's release. The product marketer continues to manage the product. They analyze the results of advertising campaigns and sales levels, and manage advertising budgets. They also provide ongoing training to the sales team when updating the product. They also communicate with developers to improve the product, implement new features, and make the interface more user-friendly.

The effectiveness of a product marketer can be measured by the following key metrics:

• Number of active users (MAU, WAU, DAU);
• Customer retention rate (CRR);
• Customer churn rate (Churn Rate);
• Customer satisfaction (CSI);
• Revenue size;
• Average check size (AOV);
• Average revenue per customer (ARPU);
• Repeat purchase rate (RTR);
• Customer lifetime value (LTV);
• Return on marketing investment (ROMI).

What soft and hard skills does a product marketer need to develop to succeed?

To succeed, a product marketer needs to develop certain personal skills (soft skills) and professional skills (hard skills). Let's list the main ones.

Soft skills:

• Communication skills and the ability to ask the right questions.You need to communicate a lot and with a variety of people - developers, the project manager, colleagues in the marketing department, the sales department and potential users. You need to be able to listen, ask the right questions, convey your ideas to others and find compromises.
• Developed empathy.This will help you understand the tasks and difficulties that customers face and understand what kind of product is needed.
• Ability to prioritize.This skill will come in handy when working on large-scale projects. The ability to focus on more important and relevant processes will allow you to meet deadlines and achieve goals with less effort.
• Analytical thinking.Analytical skills will help you find relationships, draw the right conclusions from research, formulate hypotheses, and find new solutions.
• Critical thinking.Processing huge amounts of information is part of the job. It is important not only to structure it, but also to filter out useless or unimportant data.
• The ability to set goals and achieve them.This will help to create tasks for developers at the stage of product promotion.

Hard skills:

• Understanding marketing in general. Namely, how to analyze markets, find points of contact with the audience. You must be able to develop a marketing strategy and understand the principles of online and offline promotion.
• Knowledge of the main channels of communication with users. SEO, contextual and search advertising, promotion in social networks (SMM), targeted advertising in social networks, banner advertising, affiliate marketing, email marketing.
• Ability to launch an advertising campaign. Through contextual and search advertising (Yandex.Direct, Google Ads, Bing Ads), on VKontakte or Facebook (VK Ads, Facebook Ads). It is also necessary to understand how the account in banner and teaser networks is structured.
• Understanding of analytical services.For example, Google Analytics, Yandex Metrica, Similar Web, Sem Rush.
• Ability to create client scenarios.JTBD (Jobs To Be Done), CJM (Customer journey map). Such techniques help to understand the motives and requirements of customers and build the buyer's path from the beginning of the search to the purchase.
• A/B testing. Helps understand what users like more. The essence of the method lies in the simultaneous launch of several versions of the product. And the version that produces the best results remains.
• Customer Development (CustDev). One of the methods of audience research and startup development in general, which puts the client at the forefront. Allows you to create a detailed "portrait" of the client, understand how to solve their problems.
• Content creation skills. Although a product marketer usually doesn't write texts, social media posts, or create banners and presentations, they should be able to do all of this independently. This will allow them to more accurately draft technical specifications and speed up the work.

Product marketer, product manager, brand manager, and marketer. Understanding the differences

The product marketer profession is a relatively new one. Therefore, the difference between a product marketer, a product manager, a brand manager, and a regular marketer is often not understood by either company executives or even specialists who hold similar positions. Similar titles and tasks often lead to confusion. To figure it out, let's compare PMM separately with each direction.

Product Marketolog Manager vs. Product Manager

Both the product manager and the product marketer are responsible for the "voice" of the product. The difference lies in the audience to which the message is directed.

At the idea development stage, the product manager and the product marketer work together. The goal of their collaboration is to understand the client, their tasks, pain points, and offer a solution. Then their paths diverge:

• The product manager communicates with the development team - programmers, designers, UI/UX designers, layout designers. They explain the idea, describe the functions, and describe what the application or website should look like. Then they monitor whether the goal has been achieved and whether the product solves the problem.
• A product marketer communicates with the outside world—potential clients. Their goal is not only to talk about the product, but also to demonstrate its value—how the software will solve the audience's problem.

Product Marketolog Manager vs. Brand Manager

The tasks and goals of these specialists are the same—they are responsible for value and shaping the correct perception among the audience. But the scale differs:

• A brand manager promotes brand ideas;
• A product marketer is one of the company's or brand's products.

Specialists collaborate periodically. For example, at the stage of idea processing and when developing a marketing strategy for product promotion. A product marketer needs to coordinate with the brand manager to ensure that the perception of a specific product doesn't deviate from the overall brand concept.

Product Marketolog Manager vs. Marketolog

It sounds trivial, but a marketer focuses on marketing in general—launching advertising campaigns, email newsletters, and preparing advertising creatives. A product marketer focuses on the product itself. They collaborate with the marketing department at various stages of product development—from audience research to market launch and advertising campaign analysis.

What tools does a product marketer use in their work?

Today, marketers have thousands of products at their disposal, and it is impossible to cover each of them in one article. Therefore, we will briefly dwell on the most popular ones.

Market research tools

• Google Trends — shows what people are searching for in different regions, displays graphs of the popularity of individual queries at different times.
• DataReportal — collects data on various industries on the Internet and publishes reports (global and individual, by country).
• Statista — collects and publishes statistics on a wide variety of industries.
• UserTesting — allows you to test a digital product and get feedback from users.

Analytics, collecting user information, marketing management

• Adobe Analytics, Yandex.Metrica, Google Analytics, Heap Analytics — all tools work on the same principle. These are counters that are installed on a website and allow you to track the number of users and their behavior. They generate reports and graphs.
• Ringostat — allows you to link phone calls to different advertising channels and conduct an advanced analysis of advertising effectiveness.
• HubSpot — a marketing platform for managing advertising campaigns. Shows data on advertising, email newsletters, and other user acquisition sources.
• Semrush is a comprehensive marketing and advertising campaign management system.

Document sharing and project management

• Trello, Asana — allow you to create dashboards and quickly distribute tasks among team members.
• Google Docs, Office 365 — cloud-based office suites that include tools such as a word processor, spreadsheets, presentation editor, and forms. Collaboration and plugin integration are available.

Content Creation

• Graphic raster and vector editors.Teams usually use Photoshop and Illustrator, but other applications are also common: Corel Draw, Gimp, Pixlr, Sumopaint.
• Applications for quickly creating postcards, collages, and banners.They usually work like a designer and contain a database of templates and stock photos. Among the popular ones: Canva, MS Publisher, Pixlr, VistaCreate, Photopea.
• Applications for quickly creating short advertising videos.For example, Animoto, Renderforest.

How much does a grocery store earn? Marketer

Before choosing the PMM path, keep in mind that vacancies only appear in large cities in Belarus. Companies are reluctant to hire interns and juniors for remote work. At best, it will be a hybrid work format—you'll need to come into the office a couple of times a week.

On the other hand, after gaining experience, you can work remotely. Large companies in Europe and the US are eager to hire mid- and senior-level product marketers from other countries. In addition to a good salary, they also offer a benefits package, including paid vacation and bonuses, health insurance, and a gym membership.

There is high demand for such specialists on the international market. On job boards in the US, Product Marketing Manager is one of the most popular vacancies. Only on the portal indeed.comyou can find more than 300 job offers, and every second one offers the opportunity to work remotely. Assistants are expected to be paid between $55,900 and $77,700 per year, while seniors can expect an annual income of up to $193,000.

The average product marketer salary is twice the average salary in the US. This is higher than the income level of marketers and even some development areas. According to salary.com, the median PMM salary in the US is $140,093 per year. The portal indeed.comindicates the average salary at $122,486 per year.

A product marketer helps to promote a product and convey its benefits to potential users. This enables startups to develop faster and create popular and well-selling products. As the volume of data generated by each user grows, the role of a PMM will only increase. After all, this specialist allows for more precise targeting of the audience. And with the improvement of neurotechnologies, such PMMs will help companies immediately create products that perfectly meet the needs of their audience, generating billions in profits. Therefore, with the development of technology, the demand for product marketers will only grow, as will their salaries. And so that you can get to know this profession better, the editors of Skillbox.by have collected useful resources for study.

Literature:

• Wes Bush "Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself";
• Jack Trout, Al Ries "Positioning. The Battle for Minds";
• Robert Cialdini, "The Psychology of Influence";
• Geoffrey Moore, "Crossing the Chasm: How to Bring a Tech Product to the Mass Market."

Internet resources:

• HubSpot Blog — Here you can find many useful articles on marketing, sales, tools, trends, and the implementation of artificial intelligence in the industry.
• kokoc.com — A website promotion agency blog where you can find articles on marketing and promotion technologies.
• Product Marketing Alliance — A community and blog on product marketing.
• olivinemarketing.com - blog of a product marketing agency.
• The Product Marketer - English-language blog about product marketing.