Read on to learn more about how to connect product marketing and sales to generate more revenue and longevity for your company.
After all, what is product marketing?
Product marketing is one of several marketing paths. As we said at the beginning, the main objective of product marketing is to generate demand for the products and services that a company offers.
It is not, in fact, simply about generating demand. You need to connect the right products to the right people. This means that it will be necessary to develop capture and conversion strategies for the sale of products.
However, market research and studies related to the needs and expectations of active customers are also a strong interest in product marketing. This knowledge generates fundamental inputs to direct customer acquisition actions.
This is what makes product marketing efforts so strategic, and it is the reason why this discipline is multifunctional and relates to other important departments of a company in order to generate direct impacts on their respective results.
What are product marketing skills?
To understand in a practical way how product marketing can strengthen the sales team, see what the main product marketing skills are:
- Know the ICP (ideal customer profile) and map your customer purchasing journey ;
- Define the positioning of the product in the market;
- Develop a narrative for the product;
- Identify the competitive advantage of the product/service and highlight it;
- Establish a clear message that connects the product with potential customers;
- Study the product life cycle ;
- Manage releases;
- Plan content that accelerates customer decision-making;
- Create and distribute sales enablement content.
You can already see that these skills are a valuable source of insights that can serve as input for sales strategies, right?
Let’s understand in more detail how these two areas are related below.
How is product marketing connected to the sales team?
We’ve already said: that product marketing is all about sales strategies!
This discipline must be taken seriously by all organizations that value the relevance and longevity of their business. This is because it is the duty of product marketing to set the tone for your marketing campaigns and direct them to the right audience.
Product marketers study the product life cycle in detail and know their role throughout the customer’s purchasing journey. In this sense, they can identify the most appropriate moment to put the sales approach into action.
Thus, the purchasing decision-making process is optimized, and sellers can identify and close deals more quickly.
During sales strategies, which are driven by product marketing efforts, indicators and metrics are generated that provide feedback and improve marketing actions.
In other words, one department strengthens the other, and therefore it is essential that they work in harmony.
The benefits of aligning product marketing and the sales force
When this working relationship is well established, many benefits are realized. Among them, we mention:
- reduction of the sales cycle;
- increased revenue;
- higher customer loyalty rates;
- increased cross-sell and upsell ;
- greater productivity of the teams involved;
- more agility in validating the actions of each department;
- ease of resolving customer queries and overcoming objections;
- product alignment with ICP demands.
In addition to these benefits, we also highlight the production of content aimed at training the sales team. This is a fundamental aspect of product marketing and is directly linked to beer enablement.
We will explain in more depth how this works in the next few lines. Follow along!
Sales enablement and product marketing: how to empower the sales team?
If you are not yet familiar with the term “sales enablement”, we suggest reading the article Sales Enablement: what it is and How to Use it to boost your team’s Performance to be up to date on the subject.
In short, sales enablement is a strategy that aims to strengthen the sales force. For this purpose, methodologies, tools, training, data, and analyses are used.
Among these, our keyword here is training. This is when product marketing professionals come in, creating content that talks about features and presenting the differentiators of products and services.
This content is strongly related to leads who have high purchasing potential, that is, they already know their needs well and have already identified an appropriate solution for the challenge in question.
At this point, leads evaluate the differences between each alternative they have and compare solutions to make a decision. Product marketing is crucial for converting leads at this stage, as the team knows exactly what message to convey and, above all, how to convey it.
However, in addition to converting more sales, bottom-of-the-funnel content is important material to train the sales team and raise awareness about the product they sell. This means that sellers, through this content, are aware of the main features that the product offers and position it more strategically in their negotiations.
How does this work in practice?
Let’s clarify this. Observe how the customer decision-making process happens, in general:
In the awareness stage, for example, the product marketing team can distribute content with surveys or articles about specific features to a potential audience.
Or, create content with updated competitive resources and distribute it to all business opportunities that are in the evaluation stage.
This content is directed to the sales team, which accesses the necessary knowledge to facilitate the entire purchasing decision process.
In view of this, the contents must:
- be developed with a view to practicality in the assimilation of content;
- be easily accessed at all stages of the commercial process;
- have the seller’s language and the most appropriate format for the team.
Furthermore, the product marketing team must be open to feedback and apply it to guide necessary adjustments and improve content.
Better content empowers sellers, who in turn sell more, and better and generate more revenue.
Is it clear how product marketing plays a role in training salespeople?
Now, see what types and examples of content can be produced for this objective.
What content can product marketing produce for the sales team?
As we said, one of the pillars of sales enablement is sales training. And, as you have seen so far, product marketing can develop and distribute crucial content for this purpose.
In this topic, we list four examples. Check it out below!
1. Product videos
Product videos are great materials to inform the seller about how the products work. Mainly those that are more simply understood visually, as well as technological solutions and SaaS platforms.
These are brief demonstrations of the product and its features. That is why they are also recommended so that the seller has a general overview of the limitations and possibilities of the solution.
2. Product Pages
Product pages function as a guide that contains all the product features, mentioning what the solution includes or does not include.
If your product features are separated by different plans, this page is even more necessary. A simple table helps salespeople have their answers at their fingertips if customers question the conditions of each plan.
3. Blog Content About Product Updates
To keep the sales team up to date with product updates, the product marketing team can develop materials focused solely on feature updates.
As a result, sellers are always prepared to receive new demands and do not let them pass them by due to a lack of knowledge.
Product update content can be brief and is very targeted at the bottom of the funnel stage.
Remember: this content must also be targeted at active customers to provide cross-sell, upsell, or simply loyalty.
4. Success stories
Success stories are an important social proof trigger.
If your company has not yet produced any content with the purpose of presenting successful projects and customers satisfied with your products and services, you may be missing out on many sales opportunities!
