eJournal #2 - The Product Marketing Journey.

Image provided by D, Daniels (2023, June 13). Sample Product Marketing manager job description - pragmatic. Pragmatic Institute Resources.

Throughout my final semester in Digital Marketing Management Postgraduate at George Brown College, I have been given the opportunity to listen to industry professionals who donate their time to showcase their experiences in seminar form. For my second eJournal entry, I have decided to highlight Mathew Krizmanich’s presentation on product marketing best practices. In this presentation, Mat describes his journey through numerous positions, including UX designer to marketing strategist, on the way to his prestigious current title of Head of Product at Jouleia.

Image captured from Mathew Krizmanich’s presentation.

In hearing Mat's career story, I was instantly captivated by his ambition and passion towards securing his dream position in product marketing. Reflecting on my own journey into the industry and what avenues I find most engaging, product marketing has consistently held a spot on my radar since my time at TELUS. The issue that I faced was determining where I should begin. One often sees the title of marketing professional, but the intricacies of their day-to-day responsibilities often remain unclear. Mat’s presentation instantly addressed these uncertainties. Like any good mentor, Mat began by walking us through his key points regarding the product management process, as seen below.

Image captured from Mathew Krizmanich’s presentation.

Audience Research 

Mat stated the importance of starting any product’s lifecycle with research methodologies that best reach your desired target audience. In order to understand what it is that your target audience needs, it is critical that a product marketer does their research into who the audience is, what their pain points are, and how your product can solve their problems. A few examples of audience research that a product marketer could employ are interviews, surveys, focus groups, user testing and similar data collection methods that paint a holistic picture of the who, what, where and how listed above. Creating a Persona can help one visualize a target audience and dig deeper into the behavioral and psychological habits that lead them to making decisions. 

Understanding Challenges 

Once we gather enough research to determine who our target audience is and what problems they are currently facing, we must analyze that data in a meaningful way and begin to understand the potential challenges that the audience might face. It is here we uncover opportunities to solve these problems with our product. Using our newly formed audience Persona, we can create a Journey Map that highlights the specific issues an intended market may face along each part of the buyer's journey. With a clear understanding of what groups will most benefit from our product and which pain points they will encounter along each step of the way, one can become an expert in crafting a solution that is best for the target audience. 

UX & UI Design

After a clear understanding of what a product's consumer objective is, the next step would be to focus on UI/UX Design. At this stage, it is important that the marketer begin to apply design principles such as wireframes to develop relevant, user-friendly marketing materials. This is the bone structure of the operation. Not only do we want users to feel like their needs are being taken care of with our product, we want them to have an easy and desirable time interacting with it as well. 

Build & Ship

With the framework mapped out, it is time to build prototypes of our product and test it. Testing and iteration are the main takeaway from this section. We begin with a simple design of the product and expand from there, making sure to correct any errors along the way. This is where user feedback becomes crucial. We want to obtain consumer feedback to gauge how our product is being perceived by its users, as well as to make sure that we continue to service the target audience’s needs with updates and fixes.

Image captured from Mathew Krizmanich’s presentation.

Putting It All Together

What I really found captivating about Mat’s presentation was his ability to tell a story. Mat began by walking us through his career path, then moved onto breaking down the role of a product manager into digestible pieces, and finally concluding the breakdown of the role with how each part comes together to map out an entire blueprint for how a product is marketed. It is through this storytelling that I became mesmerized with product marketing and how it relates to my sales and customer experience background. The way that Mat owned one particular product and made it his world made me eager to invest my time into one thing and do it really well.

In conclusion, not only did Mat share the breakdown of his role and projects, he also shared what it felt like to take a deep dive into a particular product and really get into the mindset of a problem solver. I originally had a base knowledge of product marketing before Mat’s presentation. Now, through his sharing of strategy and intellect, I am able to conceive what is really needed to succeed and excel in the world of production and marketing.