Internal alignment is often that spot where every manager in the organization is happy, while everyone looking from the outside (customers included) have no clue what is going on.
Aligning is important, but it needs to happen on broad topics. Values, principles, long-term targets.
When alignment gets down to the tactics, to the details, it turns into agreement. It becomes a patchwork that at best reflects the ego and desires of a limited amount of people.
Understand that it is normal to want to make things complex.
To want to add just one more feature. To want to make a clause for that particular case. To want to split the price to make it more flexible. To want to tell exactly how it works. To want to cover all the needs of all possible audiences. To want to factor in all the preferences of all possible stakeholders.
Understand that it is normal to want all of this.
And understand also that customers want simple. You yourself want simple when you are the customer.
Complexity is natural. It is also not what is going to make your business grow.
Two thoughts about the Uber campaign running in the UK emphasizing driver’s rights.
You have one single product and multiple ways to tell about it.
That does not mean that you have to tell a different story every time you talk to a different audience. It means that you need to be sensible enough to adapt your story to match the language and the background of the audiences you care about (i.e., that make you money).
The drill goes like this.
You can’t have 2, 3, and 4 if you have not started with 1. And at the same time, you can’t pretend 1 to be effective if you are not following up with 2, 3, and 4.
When you get to 4, that’s the time to be consistent, over a period of time, to see if you have worked, identified, and researched well.
It’s a tough job. It is long-term.
Product marketing can be many things.
It can be a way to communicate new products and features.
It can be a way to gather insights on markets and customers.
It can be a way to produce material that helps sales selling.
It can be a way to decide what the product is about and how it should be expressed.
It can be a way to strategize how to launch a product or a feature.
It can be a way to create content for marketing campaigns.
Product marketing can be many things. And the best product marketing is all of that at the same time.
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