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Hi & welcome to my website

All Things Product

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I am a dependable and experienced project/program manager well versed in all things product. Upon graduating with a BA in International Economic Development from UC Berkeley - alongside with working in technically heavy roles - I formalized my IT knowledge with a Certificate in Web Programming and recently attained a MSc in Information Systems & Technology.  I am passionate about using my tech, marketing, sales, business and content skills towards product roles. This website features my product ethos, professional experience and work samples. 

Go ahead and explore!

 

Ashlyn 

Product Marketing for Online based Rideshare Startup ZoomPool

The Intersection of Product & Marketing

Product Manager, Product Marketing Manager, Content Marketing Manager

In order to better elucidate the relationship between product and marketing lets imagine a hypothetical startup.  Its entire product management and marketing being done by one person - the product manager.  This person owns the product strategy and manages its development, understands marketing well to know how to message and position the products, and is excellent at creating marketing content for each stage of the buyers journey.  

 

However, over time these jobs have become increasingly complex as product managers are not only responsible for shipping one or two products but perhaps they are in charge of many products or a few products with a multitude of features.  This additional complexity also increases the responsibilities of marketing the product(s) and further complicates content creation.  In short, in today’s world for most organizations, it is impossible to be managing every aspect of the product(s) while also being responsible for successfully marketing the product. Driving adoption while at the same time creating innovative and compelling content for each customer type.

 

In response, organizations have broken up these roles into product manager (PM), product marketing manager (PMM) and content marketing manager (CMM).

 

The product manager sets the product vision and is essentially responsible for the who, what, when of the product that developers build.  The PM is in charge of what product(s) will be delivered and details when in a release plan.  A key responsibility is providing the product roadmap that matches short term and long term business goals and describes exactly how the product will meet those goals.  In addition to leading the product the PM is also responsible for cross-functional team leadership and keeping teams such as sales, marketing, developers informed about the product roadmap and update on progress. Another key aspect of the job is customer success. The PM is tuned into customer needs and wants and serves as a customer advocate within internal teams.

 

The PM owns the product especially in relation to internal teams.  However it is the product marketing manager’s job to convey the product’s unique value  proposition to the market.  This entails training Sales on how to sell the product and creating marketing materials and campaigns that create product interest among customers and prospects.  The product marketing manager understands the product well enough to as needed step into the PM role and carry out PM duties.  The PMM also has a really good grasp on the competition and customer types.  Finally, the PMM has knowledge of sales cycle and is well versed enought in pitching products to be able to train the sales team.  While the PM is ensuring the teams ship the right product.  The PMM is focused on driving market demand and customer adoption of the product pre and post launch.

 

While the PMM is the customer facing product expert, the CMM is focused on getting prospects tuned into the company’s brand and building loyalty among the companies existing customers thru content.  For example, say a person has a general interest in flowers, they visit the website of a flower shop in their neighborhood and gain valuable information about how to take care of flowers.  They sign up for the shop's e-newsletter to continue to receive helpful tips on flowers.  The newsletter also features flowers for sale and related flower care products.  The person decides to purchase some of those products and flowers on sale.  This is an illustration of how the product marketing (the section of the newsletter detailing flowers and related products on sale) and content marketing (the rest of the newsletter providing information that the person found useful) work together to drive adoption.

 

Here is how the roles coalesce:

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I have relevant technical, marketing, sales, and writing experience that enables me to contribute on every stage of the product creation and adoption process from overseeing product development to managing the GTM and creating compelling content - I have experience on all aspects and have successfully contributed in each area.

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