Product Marketing the PLG Way: A Collection of Best Practices
March 2, 2022
If a product launches, but no one’s around to hear it, did it really make a sound?
While product marketing teams are heavily focused on bringing products to market, that’s not their sole responsibility. It’s important to remember that product marketing is equally on the hook for ensuring that internal product teams have the competitive intelligence and feedback they need to build the best product available.
All to say: Product-led growth demands extremely tight coordination between product marketing, design and development, and sales. Without that tight-knit collaboration, perfectly good products could end up withering on the vine.
Whether you’re feeling a little stuck or looking for a hint on where to focus your efforts, here’s a selection of the finest product marketing advice from the OpenView community over the years:
First principles: Your product is your GTM strategy
It’s probably a good time to come to terms with the fact that, in a PLG world, the product itself often is the marketing strategy. Are you ready to adapt?
Your guide to product-led marketing
Marketing in the era of product-led growth requires more than just marketing savvy, it requires a lot of product savvy, too. Our resident PLG expert, and partner at OpenView, Kyle Poyar explains.
Why marketing needs to speak product
Who owns “growth”? Is it product? Marketing? Sales? Mailchimp’s former director of growth Lauren Schuman talks about why that ought to be a rhetorical question.
Define the role and scope of product marketing at your organization
Before you dive headfirst into hiring, there are some fundamental things you need to establish about product marketing and its place and purpose within your organization. Do you know how product marketing is going to unlock value for you?
When to build out your product marketing team
Former VP of Marketing at HubSpot Meghan Keaney knows a thing or two about running a product marketing group. She offers tips on traits to look for in new hires and lends advice on the best time in the product and company’s life cycle to start building out the team.
Build and scale a product marketing function
The product marketing function is frequently misunderstood. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the goals and roles of this team that has a highly integrated role.
Top executives from some of the most established PLG companies like Twillio, Autodesk, and Notion share their expert advice on how to reach a crucial milestone: landing your first 100 customers.
Avoid these product launch pitfalls
Failure to plan is planning to fail. This post serves up some good reminders of common hiccups in the go-to-market process alongside some tangible advice on how to avoid them.
Product launch readiness checklist
Product marketers run on checklists and this is one of the most important ones. Is your product actually ready to launch to the public? We may often get so fixated on our hard work and effort that we become a little blinded. This checklist will keep teams honest.