Product marketing

This is an opportunity to learn more about the Product Marketing Professional. If you are new to the area of product marketing, this will be a great introduction to the basics. If you are already working in this field, this will provide a refresher on the basics.

We will cover the following topics:

Product Definition: What is it and why is it important?

Product Marketing Strategy: How to determine what products to offer, and how to market them.

Product Planning: What goes into product planning and how to approach it.

Product Launch: How to develop go-to-market strategies, and how to maximize the launch impact.

Product Definition

The first step in the product development process is defining what the product is and how it will be used. This is an essential step in determining the success of the product in the marketplace, as well as for planning and budgeting. There are two aspects to defining your product. The first is identifying the features and functions that will make up the product. The second is identifying who will use the product and what business value it will bring to them.

What makes up a feature?

A feature is a piece of functionality that makes your product useful to users in some way. An example of a feature would be a radio or a television. It would not be necessary to have a TV without any input, since you could just listen to or watch what’s being broadcast over the airwaves or over a cable connection. However, there are some features that make it more useful than just listening to the radio or watching TV without any input. Features might include:

• Picture-in-picture (allows you to have two sources on screen at once)

• Closed captioning (allows viewers who can’t hear well to read what’s being said)

• A channel scan (allows users to scan through all available channels)

Features don’t always make sense for all users, or may not make sense for all products you offer. For instance, closed captioning for some of your products may not make sense because your target market wouldn’t use it, or because you don’t have any legal requirements to meet that require closed captioning features. Additionally, while not every TV has picture-in-picture capability for all TV programming, it is available for most major sporting events like football games. This is because you can put multiple camera shots of the game on screen at once, so that you can see both the offense and defense at the same time while watching the play unfold on TV.

Features Are What Make A Product Useful

What makes up a feature? In general a feature has three aspects: it must be something people want, something people need and something people can actually use (or at least that they perceive they can use). For example, if you want a cookie cutter shaped like a starfish that makes cookies shaped like starfish… well, it doesn’t matter what else you want it to do; there are clearly no other people who want this particular feature so it doesn’t qualify as one of your features! On the other hand, if you want a cookie cutter shaped like a starfish that could also make cookies shaped like dolphins or pandas… then maybe someone else out there wants this too! Because they have different needs from your own, this doesn’t qualify as one of your features either! However if you want an actual cookie cutter shaped like a starfish that could also cut out regular shapes like circles and rectangles… now we’re getting somewhere! You might also love this if you wanted round cookies but your kids insisted on having starfish-shaped ones instead!

Features Are What Make Your Product Useful (and Necessary!)

Features must also be things people need—something they must have in order for them to get their work done or enjoy life more fully. For instance, most people need shelter over their heads—a roof over their head—in order to feel comfortable in life and do their work well. However, very few people need an eight-foot tall pyramid with an underground swimming pool under their roof in order to feel comfortable in life and do their work well. Obviously some people think they need these things (or at least someone else thinks they do) but those are actually desires (see below), not needs! You might need them if you live in Arizona where there are scorpions lurking around every corner but this isn’t necessarily true for everyone everywhere. There are plenty of places where such things aren’t necessary even though they might be desirable!

Features Must Be Possible!

Finally features must be possible—they must be feasible from an engineering standpoint—if they are to be included in your product definition! Many products don’t exist simply because nobody thought of them; nobody knew about them; or nobody was smart enough to figure out how to make them happen until now! For instance, until recently no one had invented an effective artificial heart pump yet so there were none on the market although many people needed one! Similarly until recently no one had invented a system for successfully storing electricity generated by wind power yet so there were no such systems available despite the fact that many people needed one!

A Feature Could Be Something People Want But It Could Also Be Something They Need

In addition to needing something people might also want something too; however this isn’t always true especially when talking about technology products where rarely anyone really wants anything new unless someone tells them they should want it first before they actually get around to wanting it themselves! Nonetheless features can both meet needs and fulfill desires so both types of “wants” should be considered when determining which features belong on your list of features for your product offering(s). Features must usually meet both criteria—people need them AND they want them—to be included as part of your product definition otherwise they won’t qualify as “features” deserving consideration during planning and development phases of your project(s).

People Need To Be Able To Use Your Product

Finally features must also be possible from an engineering standpoint—they must be feasible from an engineering standpoint if they are included as part of your product definition otherwise they won’t qualify as “features” deserving consideration during planning and development phases of your project(s). Certain features may require certain types of technology either not currently available or only available at prohibitively expensive cost levels; however with creativity even these types of “unfeasible features” may become feasible after all! Sometimes engineers simply discover ways around problems once they become aware of such challenges which means these types of challenges can even turn into opportunities when approached creatively by teams with lots of experience tackling tough problems like these ones! We will talk more about creating new solutions later in Chapter 6: Develop New Solutions When Necessary which goes into greater detail about how feasible new solutions can come into existence through creativity and collaboration using tools such as Design Thinking™ processes including ideation techniques such as brainstorming ideas.1

Features Must Have Value To Users Beyond Just Being Useful

In addition to being able to solve their problems/needs/desires effectively/efficiently/cheaply/reliably/safely etc., customers expect features included on products sold by companies like yours offer additional value beyond merely solving their problems/needs/desires effectively/efficiently/cheaply/reliably/safely etc., otherwise why would anyone want them? Unless customers perceive additional value beyond merely getting their job done better/faster/cheaper etc..