“For Patel, the key issue is to determine if a company is product-centric or sales-drivennnnnnnnnbm
According to Patel, there are two philosophies in product: one to constantly keep innovating, and keep capturing larger markets by making sure the footprint of the product solves larger and larger problems. The second approach is milking the cash cow. That is, develop a product, not invest in it but keep investing in sales people so introduce it to a broader base of customers.
‘I personally would never want to go work for a company where all they are looking for is efficiency from the product function, because at some point in time what that ends up telling you is the very core values that you aligned with the product,’ Patel said. ‘A product person is there to scale and innovate and that requires capital.'”
“As the company grows — either organically or through acquisitions — company leaders often bring on a CPO to handle the increased complexity that comes with, for example, having multiple product lines and a diverse set of customers.”
“It’s instructive to remember that in corporate terms, the CMO position is relatively new, really only emerging as a C-suite position in the 1980s. In the three decades since, marketing has fundamentally altered: Among other things, the relationship between marketers and agencies has evolved, technology has empowered consumers with more information at their disposal than ever, and the emergence of social media has sparked new channels for informing, winning, and losing customers (and reputations). “
“In a healthy organization, product management and product marketing work closely together, and their complementary responsibilities help take a product from the earliest strategy sessions all the way to successful market adoption.”
“… the product manager is responsible for helping to create and define a new product. They own the problem. A product marketer is responsible for bringing it to market and putting it on the shelf. They are focused on marketing to customers, not prospects and leads.”
“In my view, the the starting point when thinking about potential Product Marketer/Product Management configurations should be:
1. Product Management is responsible for soup-to-nuts product development, including product direction (all the inbound activities)
2. Product Marketing is responsible for ensuring customer adoption once the product has been decided upon (all the outbound activities)”
“Stereotypically, brand marketing tends to make customers happy and performance marketing tends to be annoying. But performance marketing also clearly works, or else our inboxes and social media platforms wouldn’t be filled with ads, and opera companies wouldn’t be calling us each night to remind us to renew our membership.
And now an important, and possibly contentious, point:
At every step of the marketing funnel, brand marketing and performance marketing are in dynamic tension with each other.
Meaning: whatever we do to make one better will make the other worse.”
