Product Marketing is Product Management
Product Management and Product Marketing should be one job, and it's the Product Manager who should own the messaging. This is an article in the series of Tony Fadell on Product Management.
Tony Fadell, of iPhone and Nest fame, in his book Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making argues that Product Management and Product Marketing should be one job, and Product Management should own the messaging.
This is an article in the series of Tony Fadell on Product Management. If you like to start at the beginning, consider reading this first:
HPM: I believe that Tony means that the thing (Tony refers to it as "the spec") and the messaging should be developed together. Whereas its more common that they are build in the wrong order; first the spec, and then the messaging is 'bolted on' to it after the fact:
"The messaging predicts people's concerns about the product and finds ways to mitigate them. Messaging answers the question "Why will customers care?" and this question has to be answered long before you start building." - Tony Fadell [emphasis mine]
Product Management at its core is about providing value to the user of the product, in a way that works for the business. One risk you run is that users do not get (enough) value out of your product. If someone does not experience severe pain they will not care about solving it. They're even less likely to pay you for a solution for it.
So if you skip this part you might insufficiently address value risk; one of the Four Product Risks identified by Marty Cagan. It would not be prudent to address value risk only after you have build the thing.
The narrative and the spec are intertwined and they should evolve together:
"They flex and change, shifting as new ideas are introduced, or new realities slap you in the face." - Tony Fadell
The messaging shapes the thing you make. And then vice versa as well, because a product is never finished; you continue to improve that narrative as the product evolves.
The PM should:
"Work with marketing to help them understand the technical nuances in order to develop effective creative to communicate the messaging." - Tony Fadell
If Product Marketing is equated with messaging, then the PM owns that, and Marketing owns creative.
HPM: it’s interesting that Tony specifically advises that the PM should “own” messaging, whereas he’s also quite negative about the role title of ‘Product Owner’ — because that sounds too much like that person is directing and deciding everything, which is not the case. Also, I am not too fond of discussing who ‘owns’ what, at least not without taking into account a specific organisational context. I don’t believe there is one ‘right’ organisational blueprint that works everywhere.
Another reason to develop messaging early on is that it helps you explain and convince stakeholders — beyond the customer — of the need for your product; your CEO, your wider company and the press. They will screen for value, putting themselves in the shoes of the customer, and the messaging feeds the imagination.
HPM: I agree with Tony that way too often the product development and messaging development are too separate, with increased risk and longer lead times as a result.
One case is when the product being developed in one workstream, and the messaging in another — the latter coming after the former. This to me often seems like putting lipstick on a pig, especially in cases where the response from the target market is lukewarm. This is when there’s pressure on the messaging to compensate.
If there ever was, then today there is absolutely no reason to develop in isolation, without gathering input from the imagined user persona early on. Validate those imaginations, for example with a painted door test, aka fake-door test, or any one of the ways mentioned in books like The Right IT or Testing Business Ideas.