As a product marketer, you have three responsibilities:
- Connect your company’s value proposition to your customers
- Ensure that your customers are empowered
- Help your entire organization learn as much as possible from the communities you influence
It’s an exhilarating role that requires you to cultivate powerful, 1:1 relationships. By getting to know your customers, prospects, and stakeholders, you’ll create a feedback loop that helps your company grow. As your company scales, however, a new challenge will arise—you’ll have very little time and will need to rely on marketing automation to reach people 1:1.
Content is an integral part of this process, and you’ll need to make sure that you’re creating the right resources for your team and customers. Here are the three types of content that product marketers should create:
1. Customer Stories
Today’s customers are research-driven and laser-focused on finding the perfect solution for their exact needs. That’s where customer stories come in—they’re educational assets that share how stakeholders derive value from your product. Strong customer stories benefit from having the following qualities:
- They’re customer-centric and focus on your customers’ pain points rather than your product
- They’re narrative-driven, being that they’re framed as stories rather than sales pitches
- They incorporate the voice of the customer
- They’re extremely specific and incorporate ROI and cost metrics when possible
Customer stories can fit into a variety of channels, from resource hubs to lead-nurturing campaigns. Once you have the assets created, you can use them in a variety of ways, from field-marketing campaigns to direct customer communications. What’s most important is that you have them ready and on hand.
2. Internal Newsletters
As teams begin to grow, communication falters. One of the most important things you can do as early on as possible is create an internal newsletter that describes what marketing, sales, and customer-facing teams are learning.
These “trend reports” will help ensure that, at any given time, your teams are aligned with your customers. As you create content and product marketing copy, you’ll amass a wealth of knowledge about the community that you’re influencing.
Share this knowledge with the rest of your team—the information will carry them far.
3. Onboarding Materials
It’s hard to get started with something new—especially if that something is a complex piece of technology. One way to help customers adjust to your product is to give them a series of short, focused steps worth taking to get acquainted with your company.
Keep your customers energized, and help them see the hidden gems within your product. Provide guidance, and make the onboarding process easy.
The assets you create will also be much-welcomed by your account management and customer support teams.
As a product marketer, you’re in a great position to help your customers learn. Create content that accomplishes this goal, but, more importantly, use communication touchpoints to learn as much as possible about your customer base.