Product Marketers – why are they so in demand?

Product marketers are growing in demand and here’s why.

Marketing is a multi-faceted discipline and there are many varieties to scaling your marketing team. However, over recent years, product-led growth has become a proven strategy used by the most successful SaaS companies in the world. Therefore, the rise of product marketing and product marketers has become more apparent.

Here at Zeren, we have seen the demand for product marketers increase tenfold. Many of our clients have felt that product marketers are essential to their marketing teams throughout the early stages of pre-product market fit and as they grow and expand. But why is this?

There are many factors for this but, before we get into what those reasons are, let us first clarify a few terms:

What is product-led growth? In a product-led growth strategy, the product is the primary driver of customer acquisition, engagement, monetisation, and retention, instead of a sales team being the primary growth lever. In a product-led growth strategy, teams must combine their efforts, from sales and marketing to product and customer success.

What is product marketing? Product marketing is responsible for bringing a product to market. This includes deciding the product’s positioning and messaging, launching the product, competitor intelligence and overall involvement in sales and product enablement.

So, what does a product marketer do?

Product marketers are the ones who research, define and articulate the position of your product in the market. They create a plan and work across departments, such as product, sales and customer success teams to bring products to customers. These unique product experts are responsible for everything from launching new products and building awareness to getting user signups, converting sales, and growing revenue.

The SaaS product marketing team is responsible for pre-launch and post-launch activities including positioning the product and product messaging, driving demand, adoption, and retention, and account expansion of the product in a continuous cycle. They move users through the user journey in a smooth and easy motion – and each “turn of the wheel” is easier.

So, why do you need a product marketer?

SaaS products are constantly evolving. There are constantly new features that are introduced, with the user interface being continually updated; so, the product marketing team needs to be on the ball 24/7, no matter what changes are thrown their way. They are responsible for:

• Defining product positioning and messaging.
• Building out the market segmentation and defining which personas your product speaks to.
• Interview customers to provide consistent feedback loops to your commercial and product teams for future innovation.
• Increase feature adoption and overall usage.
• Reducing churn and uplifting lifetime value.
• Identifying opportunities for driving land and expand opportunities.

Therefore, to summarise; the product marketing team’s role is to execute the three pillars of product marketing:

1) Bring your product to market.

2) Promote your product through omnichannel marketing methods.

3) Define your audience and understand how best to sell your product to its customers.

Product marketing will enable your business’s chance to position your product competitively in the market and see the bigger picture for its opportunity. Laser in on your product’s USPs and what makes your product stand out: the specs, the price, the style, the ah-hah moment.

The evolution of marketing is as always, a balancing act, however, the rise of product marketing is continuing to be at the forefront for many SaaS companies. It is high on the agenda in many conversations we find ourselves in when building GTM teams. If you would like to find out more or need a soundboard when deciding on the best route to scale your marketing teams, Zeren is here to help.

Zeren exists to empower the world’s change-makers. We do this by building high-performing teams in the world’s most innovative businesses, to accelerate growth by connecting visionary leaders and ambitious talent.

We are a leading global Executive Search & Recruitment firm with teams and offices in San Francisco, Houston, New York, London, Berlin, and Frankfurt.

We partner with high-growth, VC/PE-backed businesses and ambitious Corporate brands placing senior leaders, building exceptional teams, or providing critical interim and consulting talent.