why product managers should care about content marketing

Why product management should care about content marketing

Barb Nelson@barbaragnelson

February 27, 2016

© 2016 barbara g nelson consulting - your message made brilliant

Follow the money

Market yourself

Be a hero

Don’t you want to be the hero? If not, why are you in product management!?

Follow the money. You NEED marketing. They’re the only ones with a budget. And they need the CONTENT you can provide.

And your content can help you get noticed both internally and externally. Toot your own horn without chest beating.

?© 2016 barbara g nelson consulting - your message made brilliant

Who is responsible for product roadmaps?

Let me make this relevant to product managers


They had me at the title

I ran across this piece of content either on LinkedIn or Twitter. Definitely a topic I cared about as a product manager.

If the title doesn’t get you, do you care about:How to develop a winning product strategyBest practices for building your roadmap9 examples roadmaps to get you started

They’ve included product roadmap business challenges from strategy to execution.

Isn’t that worth paying with your name and email address? © 2016 barbara g nelson consulting - your message made brilliant

Jargon MonsterSorryForMarketing.com

Content marketing is an umbrella term covering a set of strategies, techniques and tactics to fulfill business and customer goals by using content across the customer life cycle and the business functions in a consistent, integrated and continuous way.


I was looking for a good definition of content marketing and stumbled across the Jargon Monster.

Gobbledygoop!

Content marketing is just solving the same customer problems as your product but through media you create and distribute.

Naked Little Truth SorryForMarketing.com

© 2016 barbara g nelson consulting - your message made brilliantPlain English! This is more like it! I love this definition.

That blog is a great example of how content can help people find you. I popped over to Jay’s website, went to Twitter and found he perfectly articulated what I believed. Marketing is NOT making people want stuff. It is TOTALLY making stuff people want. I asked Jay whether he thought content marketing helps people find him. His answer, “Without a doubt J”


If you don’t already know about David Meerman Scott, I recommend you check him out. He wrote the New Rules of Marketing and PR which has sold over 300,000 copies in 25 languages. I’m lucky to have worked with him when I was at Pragmatic Marketing.

A KEY LESSON: EDUCATE AND INFORM INSTEAD OF INTERRUPT AND SELL.


And then there is Joe, the godfather of content marketing.

Joe put a name on my marketing strategy. Content Marketing. And I was in love. Heart to heart. By the time I met Joe face-to-face, I had already read a ton of his content and was already an evangelist.

In his latest book, CONTENT INC, I found this fascinating. “Build your audience first. Then create your product. “

I found Joe’s company through his free content. I then willingly paid to go to an executive roundtable on content marketing, and took my content marketing manager with me to Content Marketing World. He didn’t have to sell to me. I happily spent thousands of dollars because he had established his credibility through his free content.

Build your audience first. Then create your

product.

Joe PulizziThe Godfather of content marketingFounder, Content Marketing Institute


Steve Johnson was our thought leader at Pragmatic Marketing which was named 7 times by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America.

Steve was blogging on product management and product marketing before the term blogging was coined.

His ebook, The Strategic Role of Product Management was downloaded over 100,000 times. Product managers loved it because they wanted to be strategic and they often used it to sell their bosses on bringing Pragmatic Marketing in to convince them that product management should be strategic. It helped the product managers sell up.

The ebook is the sexy younger sister of the white paper.


What problem are you trying to solve?


development

marketing sales

market stories


listen talk


personas


Change the conversation


Buyer problems

Help people buy

Lead TO not WITH products

BUY RENEWCO

NSID

ER

FIND

ADAP

T

USE

Buy Use

1

2

3 6

5

4

Customer journey


What do your personas care about?


Their family

Their job

Their industry

The future

What’s new

What’s cool

Risks

Rewards

Problems they have

Solutions to the problems

Advice

Resources

Survey results of others like them

How to tips and tricks

Customer success stories

How your solutions solve the problems

How can you help?

Good artists copy, great artists steal.Don’t misinterpret this. It does not mean you can steal other people’s content!

Image source: Apple, Inc.© 2016 barbara g nelson consulting - your message made brilliant


orand

When solving problems for your market through your product, you should determine whether you should buy, build, or partner to create your products. It’s the same with content. You might sponsor existing content, you might build some yourself, and you might partner with others who share your point of view.

As a product manager, you should build some core content yourself, based on the market stories you need to build for development anyway. By building content, you can differentiate yourself both internally and externally, elevating your credibility.


buy

build

partner

Start with great contentPublish where your audience will find you


website

email marketingsocial

media

search

lead conversion

PR

adsevents

Relevant content drives the marketing machine


Start here


Buy Use What’s missing? Any ROT*?Redundant Outdated Trivial

Team with marketing to map existing content to the customer journey

* Source: Content Marketing Institute

Deliver content based on persona and customer journey


FIND CONSIDER BUY USE ADAPT RENEW

Charley, CEO

Cindy, CFO

Chris, CxO

For a market segment

Experience how these companies use their content to support the customer journey.


Sage Job Ready - www.sage.com/us/industry/construction


Quarterly themes relevant to construction industry

Infographics, ebooks, blog posts, presentations, videos

Integrated across the marketing machine: website, social media, events, email nurture, public relations, sales tools, partner assets

Business optimization

http://www.sage.com/us/industry/construction


• Follow Kapost on Twitter

• Search for content marketing machine ebook

• Fill out forms to receive follow-up emails

This example from HubSpot shows how you can segregate your content by persona or role or industry. Making the content RELEVANT to the audience.


3 ways to start establishingexternal credibility


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More examples


Slidesource


Connect their life to your solution

Inspire them with the possibility of using your solution

Add value with your content even if they they aren’t ready to buy

Talk about what they care about

Slidesource


Bob Befuswill be giving a technical seminar.

BlogsEmail marketingSocial mediaWebcastsPress releasesConferencesSpeaking engagementsPaid search

Slidesource Tailor the messages to the stage they are in on their journeyGive them practical tips on how to implement your solutionShow them how other customers solve problems similar to theirsHighlight features they might not know by showing scenarios of how problems can be solvedHelp them see how they can get even more value about what they already haveGive them a peek into other services that could add value for them

• Read the blog• Follow on Twitter• Sign up for free trial to see content used to help you

buy and use the product to solve business issues

Matt is a lawyer writing about topics his law firm specializes in. He uses Twitter and his blog to establish thought leadership in their area of expertise. He connects to other influencers and is a guest blogger on other websites.

Deb uses her sketch notes of talks she attends to increase her audience

Other resources