David Strom and Paul Gillin co-host a weekly podcast called For Immediate Release: B2B, with a focus on B2B marketers. They generously invited me to join in for this 20-minute episode
We talked about the importance about researching markets and not generalizing from a single case study or customer. Marketers / product managers should spend time talking with dozens of customers before making any product decisions, and deeply understanding real customer problems — even if users/customers don’t yet understand our solutions). We don’t want to build something that no one wants. (Easy to say, harder to do; similar to noting that there are no health benefits from *joining* a gym – you actually have to go there and exercise.) Marketers will do their job better if they have some idea of what customers are doing with their products.
Marketers should also know that product managers are pulled in a lot of different directions, and figuring out where the dividing lines between product managers and marketers is a good thing to do up front. Find the best stories from the product team and make them sing.