Choose promotions for effectiveness, not coolness

If you want to be a bad product manager, make sure to only do “cool” and “viral” marketing to get your message out. You need those “whiz-bang” promotional ideas that will get people’s attention. Flashy stunts, guerrilla marketing, and social campaigns are the only way to get your word out. Print advertising, direct mail, trade shows — those “old media” techniques are just not appropriate in today’s world and any product marketing manager with any self-respect will avoid them at all costs.

If you want to be a good product manager, put your efforts into promotional campaigns that will impact your key marketing metrics. Though there are plenty of ways to draw attention to your product, good product managers should instead focus on defining the key performance indicators for marketing initiatives and working with the product marketing manager to choose the most appropriate ways to meet those goals. In some cases, that may mean using newer and “innovative” promotional methods; in others, that may mean that more traditional approaches will be best.

Just like other areas within product management, good product managers focus on “what” the marketing campaign needs to accomplish, not “how” to accomplish it. (See Take responsibility for what, not how.) Though it may be tempting to dictate specific marketing tactics, those decisions are best left to the product marketing manager. As a product manager, you should of course be involved in some major decisions, much like you should be involved in major decisions about the design and architecture and technical setup of the product. However, good product managers ensure that overall goals, objectives, and strategy are clear, while the various team members responsible for each area — engineering, marketing, etc. — are given the direction and leeway to make decisions.

Rather than spending time trying to push specific marketing tactics, product managers can be more effective — and help their product marketing managers to be more effective — by focusing on key performance metrics. Ultimately, everything about product management and marketing comes down to limited resources. Product managers and product marketing managers must focus on the most valuable initiatives given the resources available. In order to make a decision about what is most valuable, managers need something to measure against. Are you trying to increase the number of sales or the amount of total revenue? Do you want a large number of warm leads or a small number of hot ones? Would you prefer visitors sign up for our newsletter or contact us for more information? What is your measure of a conversion? What is the goal of a campaign? Only once you answer these questions can you then decide what will best help you meet those goals.

While it may seem desirable to try out new approaches to advertising and promotion, any marketing tactic should be chosen for its benefit relative to its cost, and its overall effectiveness. Good product managers help define marketing goals and work with product marketing managers to determine the best approaches to help meet those goals.