Last week, I found myself in conversation with a Product Marketing Manager. We were talking about the breadth of marketing as a field, and he shared with me that he was musing on the crossover between content, product, and growth marketing. He said, “To be honest, what’s the difference?”
That question has been sitting with me ever since. As someone that got her start in marketing as a Content Marketing Specialist and has since moved into a role as a Growth Marketer, I find myself agreeing with his question. All of the skills that I built up when I was content-focused have followed me into my growth role.
I’m responsible for creating content that builds up brand awareness and keep current clients and prospective clients informed and excited about our service offering. I still write blogs, case studies, guides, and eBooks, and I still look at data to determine what we should be focusing our efforts on and, vice versa, shifting our resources away from.
In terms of the product marketing side of things, I had to think about this a little bit more (mainly because I’ve only ever reported to product marketers, rather than being in a role myself). In conversations over the years with former managers, others in the product marketing space, and events I’ve attended through the Product Marketing Alliance, I’ve become more and more in tune with this area of marketing. Quite honestly, I think there is so much room for this branch of marketing to evolve and define itself.
Here’s where I see the overlap product marketing has with content and growth marketing:
A. Messaging and positioning
In a lot of my recent learnings about revenue operations (RevOps), I’ve come to understand the importance of having everyone in your organization on the same page, especially those in a go-to-market position. As a content or growth marketer, you’re very likely to be producing content that enables the GTM arm of your business to have better conversations and tell a better story about your business.
The more clear, concise, and consistent this story is, the better. This is something that product marketers strive to do, but with the added layer of telling great stories about your product and offering alongside the story of your business.
B. Being customer-centric
My friend and former colleague, Salman, said on my podcast that to be in marketing is to be inherently customer-centric. Everything that marketers do is for, well, the market. That’s your chosen audiences (personas), and the people who keep the lights on–your customers. As a product marketer, you have a responsibility to keep the customer top of mind.
You should be keeping in touch with them regularly to understand what’s working well for them, and what needs to change. In both growth and content roles, you also have a responsibility to understand what your customer base wants and deliver, plus you might be sitting down with them to write about their experience with your business. Make sure it’s been good!
C. Revenue generation
Honestly, every role in a business feeds in the overall function of revenue generation. However, with content/growth/product, the concept of revenue generation is two-fold. All of your efforts go towards growing revenue for the business you work for (in the form of new clients), but also, you’re enabling those clients to see revenue growth for themselves. Whatever you created to bring them in as a client and ultimately see your product or service as imperative, will help them to see business growth.
Content marketers also create resources to sell your product or service, but sometimes, their purpose is to educate on the field that your business finds itself in. Growth marketers can find themselves doing the same. Although slower, it can still result in the content consumer becoming a buyer, or referring someone in their network to your offering.
How do you view the intersection between these three roles? Let me know in the comments 🙂
Khadijah Plummer Consulting 