If you’ve ever worked at a start-up company, chances are you’ve experienced first-hand the “get the job done” attitude. The CEO doubling as the salesman, finance officer sitting in for the front desk office, and IT personnel handling telephone calls. Give or take, such an environment is great, as everyone gets to play the supporting role in getting the company off the ground. As the company begins to expand, however, the blurred lines between specialized roles begin to disappear, ultimately requiring the attention of equally specialized professionals. The not-so-well-defined roles, on the other hand, tend to get overlooked, meaning no one is assigned to handle them.
In this article, we are going to explore the role of a product marketing team, the skills required, and how to hire a product marketing manager.
What Is Product Marketing?
Put simply, product marketing is the process of generating interest and demand for products through thoughtful messaging, effective positioning, and marketing programs. As a business owner or manager, having a properly constituted product development team is of utmost importance, as they help you understand your customer’s needs and the prevailing market conditions, information that can later be used to craft, build, and execute a compelling sales and marketing strategy.
The Roles and Functions of a Product Management Team
Great product managers are a rare breed that doesn’t come easily. They’re highly influential, forward-thinking individuals capable of setting incredible product visions and walking people through the rationale behind a particular decision —even without data. In terms of responsibilities, the scope of the technical product marketing manager role can be broken down into six main parts:
- Identifying opportunities
One of the primary roles of a product manager is to identify new opportunities to develop new products or improve the existing ones by injecting unique features. As such, they must have a deep understanding of the market and keep tabs on the current trends to make the right decisions when an organization decides to build a new or improve an existing product.
- Developing market strategy
For any product to find market success, it must be pegged on a strong market strategy. Crafting a market strategy entails in-depth research, high-level thinking, and careful planning, all of which happens before a product is released to the market. As such, a good digital product manager needs to have in-depth knowledge of the product, target market, and a laser-focus action plan to introduce the product into different market segments.
- Marketing
Working alongside your marketing communications department, it is the role of a digital marketing product manager to create demand for your product by convincing the customers to purchase it. Along with that, they’re tasked with mastering marketing principles and crafting a marketing communication proposition that leads to sales.
- Marketing program guidance
Product Marketing Manager also helps create product differentiation, with particular emphasis on articulating the value proposition to the customers. This is achieved by elevating specific product features and linking them to customer benefits. And a good product marketing team should be able to do all that.
- Supporting sales
A good product without sales is as good as dead. You may have the best product on the market but failure to generate market push could spell disaster. And to do so, your sales team needs to be equipped with great sales tools such as good product training, compelling demonstrations, and solid product presentations. A good product development manager knows the prerequisite sales tools needed by the sales folks and the unique points to emphasize to make the sales pitch successful.
- Team and stakeholders management
A product manager is also tasked with ensuring that all team members work in harmony to achieve the common goal of crafting and documenting an effective product strategy. One of the most critical functions of a product manager is to clearly communicate the project’s requirements to the team and streamline the process towards achieving the results in the most efficient and cost-effective way. Along with that, the product manager is tasked with negotiating with stakeholders and balancing their expectations and demands.
Important Skills That a Qualified Product Manager Should Have
When looking to hire product manager, there are several skills and experiences to call on. They include:
- Demonstrated aptness in positioning and launching products that are differentiated and meet business objectives
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including copywriting skills
- In-depth expertise in a particular product or market, including specific technical or industry knowledge
- Excellent teamwork skills
- Deep understanding of the sales process and channels
- Proven ability to manage cross-functional teams cutting across the sales and marketing departments
- Analytical skills
Why Partner With Us in Setting up a Dedicated Product Marketing Team in Ukraine?
Our agency has been helping companies all over the world build product marketing dream team/s. Our professionals have the necessary experience in creating product awareness, customer engagement, and driving sales. But talk is cheap! It’s even on the 99 cents menu. Different staffing firms for product marketing managers can say that they’ve been helping companies create a differentiated product positioning and drive sales. However, most of them treat their customers like a source of income. Would you be happy to learn that some agency somewhere treats you like a source of passive income? Probably not!
Here are some of the reasons why you should consider working with us:
- Experienced professionals
Our agency is packed from top to bottom with experienced and talented product marketers. Our hiring team ensures that we offer expert skills and a collaborative culture, all of which are intended towards delivering effective marketing strategies that resonate with your customers.
- Data-driven product marketing
Our product marketing recruitment services combine competitive research and analysis to help your company define its voice in the market and craft a well-defined product roadmap that eliminates any hurdles in launching you to the market. Our product marketing manager remote workers use deep customer insight and powerful narratives to shape your narrative, and every idea and decision is pegged on monetizing your audience and delivering a growth-driven product marketing strategy.
- Flexibility
Thanks to the bird’s-eye view and experience of our marketers, they’re able to quickly identify the basic and technical needs of your business and provide the necessary solutions. When working with us, you can hire a certified product manager or build an entire project management team. In other words, you get to pay for what you receive, without feeling like someone is forcing unnecessary marketing services down your throat.
Services That Our Remote Product Marketing Manager/s Can Help with
One of the reasons why most of our clients keep coming back stems from our professional’s ability to understand their needs, empathize with them, and adjust to all their unique needs. Whether you are looking for an IT product manager or a certified product marketing manager for any other service, our professionals can help in the following areas:
- Idea generation
- Market and competitor analysis
- Visual design
- Product differentiation
- Product prototyping and development
- Optimization
- Product launch
- Product marketing
- Sales and product adoption funnel analysis
- Product messaging and positioning audit
- Consultancy
A successful product marketing strategy requires an in-depth understanding of customer needs, market trends, and the competitive landscape. A dedicated product marketing team with expertise in Dynamics 365 for marketing implementation can help you build and execute effective strategies that resonate with your target audience and drive growth.
How We Recruit and Hire Product Managers for Our Clients
‘How to hire a good product marketing lead’ is one of the most searched phrases on Google. And with a reason. Many companies find it extremely challenging to find talented product marketers, as most aren’t actively looking for jobs but are busy pushing big brands to the next level.
To make it easier, our agency has streamlined the entire recruitment process, so you as the business owner can focus on the core business tasks. If you are about to hire a full stack marketer with our agency, chances are you are asking how our recruitment process plays out. Well, it’s as simple as it gets!
Here is a quick breakdown:
- Understanding your hiring needs. The first step in our hiring process entails holding a virtual or physical meeting with our clients to understand their needs. Unlike some positions that are super-easy to define and decipher their sphere of influence, the role of the product manager is a little bit cloudy, which is why it’s important to understand what you are looking for, as well as the skills.
- Selection of product marketers. After establishing your hiring needs and the skills needed for the position, our recruitment team will begin the process of sourcing the right product marketing coordinator candidates. And to get the ball rolling, we will create a great candidate proposition in the form of a catchy advert to attract the most skilled candidates. Luckily for our clients, the sourcing process is relatively fast, all thanks to our huge pool of active and passive product marketers and a robust referral-based system. Lastly, we will forward you the resumes of the selected candidates for your consideration.
- Screening of product marketing professionals. Once you’ve selected the most fitting tech product manager or team for your organization, our team will set up interviews via Zoom, Skype, or any of your preferred video conferencing tools.
- Contract signing. By now, the sourcing, screening, and interviewing process has wrapped up and you have the right remote product manager or team. Next, we will deliberate on your starting date, staff workflow, salary, and sign the contract.
- Induction. The process of crafting your product management strategy and expanding your flock will begin. While at it, the newly-hired product marketing analyst or fully-constituted team will be introduced to the rest of the team, as well as trained if need be.
Industries Our Product Managers Are Ready to Serve in
We are proud to work with small, medium, and multinational companies across the globe. Our marketing experts can and have worked in the following industries:
- Tech
- Finance
- Manufacturing
- Healthcare
- Construction
- Retail & eCommerce
- Telcom
- Services
- And so much more