Educating Your Organisation on Product Marketing's Value
Strategies for Internal Alignment and Demonstrating Value
By SUHAIL SHAIKH
The Misunderstood Role of Product Marketing
Despite being critical to successful product launches and growth, Product Marketing is often misunderstood or undervalued inside organizations. It's not uncommon for product marketers to hear questions like, "So, what is it you do again?" or to find themselves treated as a collateral factory rather than a strategic partner.
In many companies—especially those new to having dedicated product marketers—there's a lack of awareness about the role's scope and impact. This leads to confusion, misaligned expectations, and tension between departments.
Confusion
Stakeholders often have unclear or contradictory ideas about what product marketing actually does.
Misalignment
Without proper understanding, teams fail to engage PMM at the right times in the product lifecycle.
Undervaluation
The strategic contributions of product marketing get overlooked when viewed as merely tactical support.
Why Product Marketing Is Often Misunderstood
If you've ever had to explain your job multiple times to coworkers, you're not alone. Product marketing is a relatively newer and evolving discipline, which contributes to the confusion. Unlike sales or engineering, which have been standard functions for decades, product marketing's definition can vary widely between organizations.
Varied Role Scope
The PMM role isn't standardized. Stakeholders carry biases from past experiences or have never worked with PMMs at all.
Overlap With Other Teams
PMM sits at the intersection of product, marketing, sales, and customer success, creating territorial confusion.
Relatively New Function
In many companies, formal product marketing is introduced only after reaching a certain size or complexity.
Service vs. Strategy Mindset
Some companies treat product marketing as a tactical support function rather than a strategic driver.
The Impact of Poor Internal Alignment
Misalignment can hurt both the product marketing team and the broader organization's success. When colleagues don't fully grasp the PMM role, several negative consequences emerge:
PMM Team Overload and Burnout
Treated as a catch-all request desk, spreading too thin
Missed Strategic Input
Losing valuable market insights and customer perspective
Role Conflict and Turnover
Creating frustration and territorial disputes
Inability to Demonstrate Value
Lacking clear metrics to prove impact
Without proper understanding, PMMs become overwhelmed with requests from every department, strategic input is overlooked, role conflicts arise, and it becomes increasingly difficult to demonstrate the function's value to the organization.
Define and Share Your Charter
Start by clearly defining the charter of the product marketing team. This means articulating, in writing, what your team is responsible for (and in some cases, what it's not responsible for).
Create a Written Charter
Document your core focus areas – messaging/positioning, launch planning, market research, sales enablement, competitive intelligence, etc. For solo PMMs, this is your personal role description; for teams, it's your mission statement.
Share Widely
Introduce your charter in cross-functional leadership meetings. Create a one-page cheat sheet or internal wiki page that outlines "How to work with Product Marketing."
Set Clear Expectations
Specify how and when other teams should engage you. For example: "PMM should be involved in product planning discussions at least 3-6 months before any major launch."
Secure Executive Buy-in
Get your VP or head of product to endorse your charter, reinforcing that PMM is a strategic function, not just ad-hoc support.
Establish Key Processes
By establishing clear processes that involve product marketing, you naturally educate the organization on how and when PMM adds value. A prime example is the product launch process.
Discovery Phase
PMM conducts market research, competitive analysis, and helps validate product-market fit
PMM executes the go-to-market plan, supports sales and marketing teams with messaging
Post-Launch
PMM analyzes results, gathers feedback, and identifies optimization opportunities
Other valuable processes include market insight sharing (monthly updates to product teams), sales feedback loops (quarterly win/loss analysis), and content request intake systems (formal processes for requesting collateral with reasonable lead times).
Be a Cross-Functional Bridge
Product marketing is uniquely positioned to connect teams across the organization. Build strong relationships to demonstrate your value through direct collaboration.
Product Management
Set up recurring syncs to discuss upcoming releases and product strategy. Offer to validate product ideas with market research. Show PMs how you make their products more successful.
Sales Team
Join sales meetings to share useful resources like messaging cheat sheets or competitor battle cards. Ask for feedback on what would help them sell better. Transform from "PDF sender" to strategic partner.
Marketing/Demand Gen
Clarify complementary roles: PMM focuses on positioning and core content, while demand gen handles campaigns and lead generation. Collaborate on projects to demonstrate your value.
Customer Success
Provide "what's new" product briefs and gather frontline feedback on customer pain points. Build rapport by supporting customer satisfaction efforts.
Communicate Wins and Impact
To solidify the value of product marketing, regularly communicate your wins and impact. You need to market your marketing not for vanity, but to ensure the organisation sees tangible evidence of what strong product marketing can do.
500
Demo Requests
Generated in first week after launch with strategic messaging
25%
Win Rate Increase
After implementing new sales enablement materials
15%
Revenue Growth
Following pricing strategy update project
Share kudos and testimonials from stakeholders. If a sales director praises your new pitch deck or a product manager acknowledges how your market insights influenced the roadmap, make that known (with permission). Consider producing a monthly or quarterly report highlighting PMM initiatives and results.
Set Boundaries and Prioritize High-Impact Work
Education isn't only about saying "yes" and showcasing value; sometimes it's about teaching others what not to expect from product marketing. Set boundaries and reinforce what the PMM team should focus on.
Establish request processes
Create formal intake systems for content requests
Set realistic timelines
Educate on lead times needed for quality work
Focus on strategic priorities
Say no to low-impact work that won't move the needle
When declining requests, do so constructively. Offer alternatives or explain your current priorities: "This quarter our focus is on the Version 2.0 launch, which limits our capacity for ad-hoc requests; let's revisit after launch." By consistently responding this way, stakeholders learn that PMM isn't an on-demand service but a strategic function with its own workflow.
Becoming an Internal Evangelist for Product Marketing
In the same way that we craft messaging to educate customers about our products, we must craft messaging to educate colleagues about our role. It requires empathy, consistency, and applying our marketing skills internally.
Define Your Role
Create clear documentation of PMM responsibilities
Establish Processes
Implement structured workflows that include PMM
Build Relationships
Forge strong connections across departments
Showcase Impact
Communicate wins and tie efforts to business results
With patience and persistence, you can transform confusion into clarity and skepticism into support. When everyone understands how to work together, launches become smoother—teams operate like a well-rehearsed orchestra with product marketing conducting the go-to-market symphony.
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