Most tech companies get marketing wrong because they don't know how to do product marketing right. The next in the bestselling SVPG series, LOVED shows what leaders like Apple, Netflix, Microsoft, and Salesforce do well and how to apply it to transform product marketing at your company.

The best products can still lose in the marketplace. Why? They are beaten by products with stronger product marketing. Good product marketing is the difference between also-ran products versus products that lead. And yet, product marketing is widely misunderstood. Although it includes segmenting customers, positioning your product, creating product collateral, and supporting sales teams, great product marketing achieves much more. It directs the best way to bring your product to market. It shapes what the world thinks about your product and category. It inspires others to tell your products story.

Part of the bestselling series including INSPIRED and EMPOWERED, LOVED explains the fundamentals of best-in-class product marketing for product teams, marketers, founders and any leader with a product and a vision.

Sharing her personal stories as a former product and marketing leader at Microsoft and Netscape, and as an advisor to Silicon Valley startups, venture capitalist, and UC Berkeley engineering graduate school lecturer, Martina Lauchengco distills decades of lessons gleaned from working with hundreds of companies to make LOVED the definitive guide to modern product marketing.

With dozens of stories from the trenches of market leaders as well as newer startups with products just beginning their journey, the book shows you:

LOVED is an invitation to rethink tired notions of product marketing and practice a more dynamic, customer and market-centric version that creates raving fans and helps products achieve their full market potential.

MARTINA LAUCHENGCO is the product marketing partner at Silicon Valley Product Group and a partner at Costanoa Ventures, a boutique early-stage venture capital firm. Martina worked at Microsoft and Netscape, two of the most formative tech companies of all time, before advising startups and Fortune 500 companies. A lecturer in the engineering graduate program at UC Berkeley, her work has been featured inTechCrunch andVentureBeat.

Martina received her BA and MA from Stanford University. An avid cyclist, runner and snowboarder, she lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children.

Twitter: @mavinmartina
LinkedIn: martinalauchengco
Martinalauchengco.com

Foreword byMarty Cagan xiii

Introduction: My Story 1

Part One: The Foundation: Understanding Product Marketings Fundamentals 7

Chapter 1: When David Beats Goliath: Why Product Marketing Matters 9

Chapter 2: The Fundamentals of Product Marketing 16

Chapter 3: Ambassador: Connect Customer and Market Insights 24

Chapter 4: Strategist: Direct Your Products Go-to-Market 31

Chapter 5: Storyteller: Shape How the World Thinks About Your Product 39

Chapter 6: Evangelist: Enable Others to Tell the Story 47

Part Two: How to Do the Role: Who Should Do Product Marketing and How to Do It Well 53

The People and Partnerships

Chapter 7: Strong Product Marketing: Skills of the Good 55

Chapter 8: How to Partner with Product Management 66

Chapter 9: How to Partner with Marketing 74

Chapter 10: How to Partner with Sales 81

Essential Processes and Tools

Chapter 11: Discovering and Rediscovering Market Fit 88

Chapter 12: Product Marketing in the Age of Agile 98

Chapter 13: The Metrics That Matter 105

Part Three: Strategist: Guardrails and Levers: The Tools to Guide Product Go-to-Market Strategy 111

Chapter 14: When Strategy Guides Product Go-to-Market: Salesforce 113

Chapter 15: What the iPhone Shows Us About Adoption Life Cycles 117

Chapter 16: The Brand Lever: Its Not What You Think 127

Chapter 17: The Pricing Lever: Its About Perceived Value 134

Chapter 18: Marketing When Its Not About Product 141

Chapter 19: The One-Sheet Product Go-to-Market Canvas 149

Chapter 20: Understanding in Action: Real Marketing Plans 159

Part Four: Storyteller: Clarity and Authenticity: The Process and Tools to Rethink Messaging 167

Chapter 21: Discover Your Position 169

Chapter 22: How to Listen and Connect: Expensify and Concur 174

Chapter 23: Understanding in Action: Netflix and Zendesk 181

Chapter 24: The Balancing Act: Right Message, Right Time 192

Chapter 25: The One-Sheet Messaging Canvas 199

Part Five: Advanced Product Marketing and Leadership: How to Do and Lead It Better at Any Stage Company 207

Chapter 26: Leading and Transforming Product Marketing 209

Chapter 27: How to Hire Strong Product Marketing Talent 218

Chapter 28: How to Guide a Product Marketing Career 225

Chapter 29: Product Marketing by Stage: Early, Growth, Mature 231

Chapter 30: Mature Company Inflection Points: When to Lean into Product Marketing 238

Conclusion: What You Can Do Right Now 244

Appendix: Marketing Terms Explained 247

Acknowledgments 255

About the Author 258

Index 261