What's your approach to working with product development teams for successful launches?

Customers and prospects are often eager to know about the latest developments / new feature releases of products that they use or love. It's wise to collaborate closely with product development teams to ensure "the product" gets "the spotlight". As Marketers, we must engage early, define value propositions, maintain open communication, plan/prioritize together, and exchange feedback. We should align our priorities and look for the right avenues to capture the mind share of the audience (be it PR, digital ads, print media, or offline events) to plan all the phases i.e. "before, during, and post-launch" activities. This approach gives room for iterations and drives successful product adoption.

Along with understanding the product vision, product marketing should give product team a clear idea of the marketing vision and how they want to position a certain release/launch. This helps in making sure that the release is align with the revenue goals, marketing metrics, and there is zero discrepancy in the factual details of launch and marketing campaigns.

Product, product marketing and UX should be in lock step during product development. Establish the problem you're solving, and the OKR. Conduct user testing to continually validate that you're actually solving that problem, and use a tool that can record feedback so that it's not being summarized by a colleague with a potentially biased POV.

Efficient communication across teams is key, and the use of collaboration tools greatly facilitates this process. The Product Marketing and Product teams must be in clear alignment regarding the product roadmap and scalability plans. This alignment allows both teams to collaboratively create a compelling product narrative that resonates with the target audience. Establishing a reciprocal feedback loop is vital for a successful product campaign, demonstrating a commitment to continuous improvement and responsiveness to user needs.

Although this point seems obvious, it is usually ignored due to the conflicts between the technical and marketing teams. Healthy communication between those teams is key. Based on years of experience, I've realized that treating departments as a spectrum rather than walled gardens is crucial for product marketing success. Integrating marketing personnel with a technical background and developers with business insights into both teams can greatly improve communication and break down language barriers. This approach also clarifies responsibilities and facilitates the flow of information from market research to the development team, significantly aiding in one of the most challenging tasks: determining which customer pain point to solve first.

Sharing research reports in regular calls and checking back with the product team if any of those research or surveys have been helpful is a decent practice to strengthen the partnership between product and product marketing.

Involving product development teams in customer research ensures a user-centric approach. Direct insights from customers enhance product understanding, leading to more informed decisions. This collaboration fosters empathy, aligning development efforts with actual user needs and preferences, ultimately resulting in products that better satisfy customer expectations.

All products must be built with the end users in mind. It is therefore important to carry the customers along in the process of building, developing features that best solve the customer pain point rather than building what in the long-run will not be useful to the customer. Overall, the product development team should be actively involved in the customer research to build a customer centric product for the organisation.

Using a project management tool is a must for product marketing, even if it on Excel. A single project can go on for quarters and proper tracking of individual tasks and details is crucial for a successful launch.

Utilize tools like Slack for real-time messaging and collaboration, fostering efficient communication. Implement project management tools such as Asana to streamline task coordination, ensuring teams stay informed and aligned.

Product marketing teams create various assets, including compelling product messaging, detailed product guides, engaging product videos, impactful sales presentations, and visually appealing product visuals. These assets aid the product development team in conveying the value proposition, features, and benefits of the product effectively to target audiences.

Emphasize rapid prototyping! If you have everything under control, you're not moving fast enough. Move away from lengthy planning phases and instead encourage rapid prototyping and testing. By getting a tangible product in front of users early and often, you can gather valuable feedback and iterate quickly. And, instead of waiting until the end of the development cycle and fully baked prototyping phase, create a culture of continuous feedback loops. This allows for rapid iteration and refinement, leading to a product that truly aligns with customer expectations and ensures that your roadmap adapts to the ever-evolving needs of your customers.

The product team may have a build-first, go-live, and push to the marketing and/or sales team to launch. However, this approach alienates the perspective and "voice" of the customer in the development process. As the product marketer, you need to know better, and actively engage with the product development team, advocate for the customer, and ensure that customer insights are integrated into the development process.