Product Management as a Key to Business Marketing Success

There is currently an ongoing conversation among marketers around the “sexiness” of enterprise software marketing.

Robert Scoble kicked it off with a post claiming that Enterprise Software Isn’t Sexy. Michael Krigsman retorts that Scoble misses the point - “Enterprise software is all about helping organizations conduct their basic business in a better, more cost-effective manner.” Erik Engbrecht’s take is that “More people don’t blog about enterprise software because it strikes too close to home.” Vinnie Mirchandani has a great view on the elegance and value that a great enterprise software solution brings to all of us. Sadagopan’s says that the “consumerization of enterprise technology has the potential to open up new powerful combinations”.

While admirable - I think the current conversation misses a big piece of the puzzle. We seem to be constantly talking about the desire to drive a conversation with the market - but then focus on driving that conversation to generate leads, to raise awareness and to improve natural search results. We forget about the other half of the marketing equation - understanding a market’s needs - and doing the heavy lifting of building requirements and working with a development team to bring a solution to market that elegantly solves a real business problem - for the most discerning of customers - enterprise IT organizations.

I think we forget because product managers are often placed in odd places in organizations. Sometimes they are a part of development teams or business units, sometimes in marketing departments, sometimes standing alone and apart. But if we all profess that the future of marketing is a two way conversation with the market - it is time to bring product management back where it belongs - as the centerpoint of the modern marketing organization. To improve the visibility of enterprise software marketing we need to see more product managers blogging. Product Managers openly engaging the market in a dialogue about the raw problems and pain of the enterprise and helping to find solutions in conjunction with customers, prospects and the market itself can only help raise the profile of enterprise software.

For those of us in start-ups - lets not get stuck in the trap of thinking we can afford wait to bring on board formal product management expertise. Before writing code, before starting to build our solutions - lets understand the market problems we are trying to solve. This can only happen by engaging the market in a conversation about the problem. That’s where your product management resource comes into play. Don’t wait until right before launch to try to figure out what the market is for the “solution” you have already built. Marketing does not need to be a dirty word in tech startups – make it a part of the organization on Day 1.

For a definitive take on market driven Product Management - take a look at the work done by the Pragmatic Marketing team - and Steve Johnson’s Product Management Blog.

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