How Product Marketers W.I.N.
If you ask a CMO what a product marketer does, they might say something like “They market the product”, or “They position the product”. While that’s technically true, it doesn’t quite capture the level of thought, strategy, and decision-making a product marketer brings to the table.
What product marketers really do is W.I.N.
How product marketers W.I.N.
An experienced product marketer knows that winning in their market comes down to three things:
From these elements stem every other aspect of a product marketer’s role.
Nail them and demand will drive itself.
Miss them and you’ll feel like you’re forever playing catch-up.
The W.I.N. framework breaks these steps down for us.
Who you target
It’s a big world out there. Too big.
You need to drill down on a clear target segment → ICP → buyer persona to focus time and resources. Without clarity, there is no filter for roadmap decisions or priority for sales efforts.
Product marketers need to own this definition, and the source of truth on all thing's customer.
This customer understanding then determines all other efforts – “who” matters in win/ loss, which competitors you truly compete with, what journey and channels matter most, which metrics to track, etc.
A tight customer target, means a clear organizational focus, so it’s critical to start here.
The Impact you deliver
Even with a defined target, there is still too much room for interpretation. You need to drill even deeper.
The next step is to determine which of their many jobs to be done you want your product hired for.
The common trap at this stage is to pull out the feature checklist; those aren’t what drive value for your customers.
Good PMMs convey the value of their product; great PMMs convey they impact their product has on buyers and businesses.
You need to find the deeply held values that you’re helping them with - gain control, further my career, save time – and deliver them.
The strongest ones are both rational (tied to their job, measurable, etc.) and emotional (tied to their ego, relationship with peers, etc.).
Positioning on a few powerful value drivers is what gets you in the door and keeps you there.
The Narrative that pulls marketing and execution together
The hardest part of a product marketer’s role is creating a compelling narrative that inspires internally and externally.
This isn’t just story-telling. This is change management.
Maintaining a relevant narrative that every part of the organization genuinely understands and believes requires investment every single day.
A successful one finds its way into every function across the organization – it’s foundational in the strategic plan, it guides the product roadmap, it’s central to the content strategy, it’s embedded in employee onboarding – it evolves from strategy to culture.
Product marketers are the champions of the thread that ties the organization together.
The best CMO’s know that winning in product marketing means aligning an entire organization around what matters most to their customer.
And the best product marketers know their role is to W.I.N.
Interested in learning more?
Read Part 2 of the series on Winning with Revenue Plays.
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