Getting your first product marketing hire right 

Product marketing: the process of bringing a product to market. Yet one of the greatest challenges of product marketing is defining exactly what this involves.  

In the early days of a tech startup or scaleup, it’s common for the founder or CEO to adopt the product marketing role – often as part of a wider ‘product-focused’ role and certainly without fully appreciating the what, when, why and how of this challenging (and frequently misunderstood) position.  

So, what is product marketing – and is your startup ready to make its first product marketing hire?  

In this article, we’ll outline the role of product marketing in a startup and explain why we believe it’s critical for a startup to have a dedicated product marketer on their team. 

Product marketeer or conventional marketing specialist? 

One of the questions that startup founders ask us is why they should hire a product marketing specialist specifically – and not, for example, a content marketer or growth marketing manager. 

It’s the proverbial chicken and egg scenario.  

Under the general marketing umbrella, there are various teams dedicated to tactical marketing delivery – PR, social media, email marketing, PPC etc. The purpose of their roles is to build brand awareness; to inform and engage; drive demand; create prospects. 

Product marketing differs in that it starts much earlier in the customer journey. It focuses specifically on product features and functions, to create an overarching strategy on how products are delivered to market. 

Because of this, product marketing is much more than conventional marketing.  

It requires someone to delve into and form an understanding of your customers’ needs at a much deeper level. It’s about creating strategies and plans for generating demand for your product. It defines the positioning, value proposition and messaging that will ensure your customer not only fully understands what you are bringing to the market, but also how it meets their unique needs.  

So why should I hire a product marketing specialist for my startup? 

Because product marketing is crucial for the commercialisation of your startup product. 

One of the major reasons that startups fail at launch is because of product marketing. You have a great product, a strong brand, unrelenting internal support... but a failure to strategically plan the launch of your product will significantly increase the chances of your product launch failing. 

Why? Because failing to properly determine and understand your target audience, a lack of clarity around your technical message, poor product positioning and a one-size-fits-all promotional message will be viewed as little more than marketing ‘fluff’. And strong brands aren’t built on soft foundations. 

What skills should I look for in a product marketing specialist? 

Product marketing roles are complex. And as in any role as pivotal to the relative success (or indeed, the failure) of a new product or service launch, there are specific product marketing skills required to succeed, including:  

• Strategic thinking: the ability to develop a comprehensive product marketing strategy and align it with the overarching business objectives 

• Market research: a deep understanding the target market and competitive landscape to inform product positioning and (internal and external) messaging 

• Communication: the ability to effectively communicate with a range of stakeholders, as well as translate complicated products, solutions and/or technology into simple messaging for customers to understand 

• Analytical skills: a strong grasp of data and how to use it effectively to make informed decisions 

• Technical understanding: the understanding of the product and its technical capabilities, and the ability to clearly communicate the value proposition to the target audience 

As a founder, it’s important that you don’t overlook soft skills when hiring product marketing specialists. Successful product marketers are naturally curious; they’re intrigued by what makes something possible, and the intricacies of how it works. Importantly they’re self-motivated, with the drive to get things done and make a real difference – undoubtedly sought-after qualities in most tech startups.  

So, how do I hire a product marketeer for my startup? 

Engaging a tech startup recruiter with experience of placing product marketing roles is a good place to start. This is because recruiting top talent in a competitive jobs market can be a costly and time-consuming process for tech startups and scaleups.  

As recruiters, we leverage our network, meaning that we can reach passive candidates who aren’t openly looking for roles – something that is particularly important when looking at a talent pools which, when compared to other roles, is much less well-defined. 

There’s also the issue of what is product marketing exactly? Even Google can’t give a consistent answer to this question.  

Roles can be varied and cover a wide variety of areas: customer research; product marketing collateral; sales enablement; development of a go-to-market strategy. The list goes on.  

This is further complicated by the route to becoming a product marketer in a tech scaleup or startup. Only shortlisting candidates with a strong tech product marketing background is perhaps shortsighted, with other well-suited candidates likely to be found in disciplines such as management consultancy, non-tech product managers and conventional marketing with a strong research focus. 

This is reflected in salaries too, with most roles commanding a wage of around £60-£80k - although we have placed a candidate on £95k (and on the flipside, one candidate at £50k). But all the data points to a rise in average salaries for product marketing candidates as tech startups and scaleups draw battlelines in the race to sign the market’s top talent. 

Advice on recruiting product marketing specialists for your startup or scaleup 

If you’d like to talk more about how we can help you build a product marketing function in your startup or scaleup, get in touch with our co-founder and CEO, Alan Furley, at alan@isltalent.com or connect with him on LinkedIn.