In the evolving landscape of retail media, successful product marketing is not just a strategy; it’s a catalyst for innovation and growth. Whether you’re marketing a banana or the latest iPhone, the fundamental goal remains unchanged. Here are five key components for effective product marketing and industry growth.
Understand the competitive marketplace
Staying well-informed of the competitive landscape is essential for marketers. Regularly monitor market and industry news, press releases, product launches and events. Be sure to review industry scorecards and reports, which offer a foundation to understand the market and position your products to stand out.
Empower your sales team
Frequent check-ins with your sales team or team leads are crucial to understanding their needs for client presentations and meetings. Craft marketing materials that showcase your products in a clear and concise format, supplemented with information about how they fit into the customer shopping journey. Include key benefits and winning strategies or guidelines for media plans, campaigns and creative. Finally, collaborate with your team to create a library of sales and marketing materials to enhance efficiency and ensure consistent, on-brand messaging.
Harness client feedback
The most valuable information you can gather in product marketing is client feedback. A good way to obtain this is through your sales and client success teams, who regularly engage with clients and can provide insights into their needs, perspectives on your product’s performance, pain points and suggestions for new features or products. The better you understand your clients’ goals, expectations and challenges, the more effectively you can position your products and articulate key selling points.
Position your product for maximum impact
With a comprehensive understanding of the market, sales support needs and client goals, you can now develop your product marketing strategy and materials. Start by creating high-level product overviews and standalone sell sheets. Ensure these materials highlight product descriptions and features in a visually compelling design. Finish by taking time to produce case studies, which further illustrate individual and collective product performance.
Orchestrate success through effective communication
Product marketing involves collaboration with product and cross-functional teams to understand the pipeline and develop a marketing plan for upcoming launches. Preparing sales and marketing materials along with key messaging in advance of new product launches is crucial. Planning comprehensive internal and external communications, along with media amplification, ensures a successful launch. Depending on the complexity or scale of new product offerings, training ahead of launch is also beneficial. A good practice is to meet with internal teams to develop informational guidelines and gather anticipated questions for an FAQ document. Once a product launches, monitor adoption and gather feedback on performance to inform any adjustments to messaging or updates to products.
So, how do you know if your product marketing approach is successful? Your sales team is aware of and understands new products and key benefits ahead of launch, your clients are aware of and excited about new product offerings and your product receives positive media amplification and market reception.
