Product Marketing Is Not About the Product

It’s About the Journey, the Challenge, and the Strategy

In today’s fast-moving landscape, product marketing is no longer just about positioning a product. It’s about helping customers make progress—and empowering Sales to guide that journey.

I believe product marketing is at its best when it meets prospects and customers exactly where they are—whether they're just beginning to explore a business challenge or actively evaluating how to scale a solution. That means delivering content and context tailored to their stage in the journey—not just pushing product features.

The Buyer’s Journey Has Changed—Dramatically

We used to rely on the idea that 70% of the B2B buying journey happens before a prospect ever talks to Sales.

But that stat no longer reflects the reality.

In today’s AI-driven world, that number is likely closer to 90%. Buyers are leveraging AI-enhanced search, consuming analyst reports, peer reviews, and on-demand education before ever engaging with a human. They’re forming opinions and shortlisting solutions without speaking to Sales.

For product marketers, that means we own more of the journey than ever before.

Beyond the Funnel: Flywheel Thinking

The classic marketing funnel—awareness, consideration, decision—remains a useful framework, but it no longer captures the full complexity of today’s B2B buying journey. Buyers move fluidly, often looping back, gathering insights from peers, communities, and digital signals long before they engage with sales.

That’s why I advocate for a hybrid approach: respecting the structure of the funnel while embracing the dynamism of the flywheel. The flywheel model prioritizes momentum, customer experience, retention, and advocacy—acknowledging that the real opportunity doesn’t end at the point of sale.

In this model, product marketing becomes a lifecycle discipline. It’s not just about attracting interest—it's about continuously enabling customers, supporting partners, and fueling long-term growth through loyalty and evangelism. Your most successful customers don’t just renew—they amplify your brand and bring the next wave of buyers with them.

AI’s Impact on Product Marketing Efficiency

AI is not just transforming product marketing—it’s reshaping the entire go-to-market engine by enabling faster decisions, smarter content, and deeper customer understanding.

We’re using AI to:

• Rapidly generate first-draft content
  
  

• Extract insights from customer feedback and sales calls
  
  

• Personalize messaging at scale
  
  

• Accelerate competitive analysis and persona research
  
  

• Automate repetitive or manual workflows
  
  
  

This isn’t about replacing the strategic brain of a product marketer. It’s about amplifying our ability to deliver, freeing up time to focus on what matters most: messaging, sales alignment, and driving go-to-market outcomes.

Done right, AI is not a shortcut—it’s a force multiplier.

Owning the Sales Connection

At its core, product marketing is the bridge between go-to-market strategy and revenue execution. It doesn’t stop at positioning—it ensures that messaging lands where it matters most: in the sales conversation. This means fully owning the sales connection, not just supporting it.

That includes taking the lead on sales enablement:

• Creating / evolving pitch decks, one-pagers, and battlecards
  
  

• Equipping Sales with competitive intel and objection handling
  
  

• Supporting strategic deals with customized content and proof points
  
  

• Embedding product value into customer outcomes
  
  

But true enablement goes beyond asset creation. It requires listening to the field, tracking what resonates, and closing the gap between product capabilities and buyer expectations. In this role, product marketing isn’t a content vending machine—it’s a strategic partner to Sales, shaping conversations that drive revenue.

Enablement is more than delivering assets. It’s listening to Sales, understanding what's resonating in the field, and closing the gap between product truth and buyer perception.

In this sense, product marketing must be a strategic partner to Sales—not a service function.

It’s Not About the Product. It’s About the Problem.

The best product marketers don’t lead with features—they lead with insight.

It starts with understanding the business problems our customers are trying to solve:

• Where are they blocked?
  
  

• What are the risks of inaction?
  
  

• What’s the cost of complexity?
  
  

• How can we help them automate or accelerate their go-to-market strategy?
  
  

Today’s buyers aren’t just looking for tools—they want solutions that drive change, enable scale, and help them deliver results. Product marketing must bridge that gap between technical capability and business value.

Product Marketing Is the GTM Integrator

Product marketing is more than a function—it’s the connective tissue of a successful go-to-market strategy. It’s where alignment becomes acceleration, and where cross-functional efforts converge into measurable impact.

It’s the point where:

• Messaging fuels demand generation
  

• Customer insight shapes product development
  

• Sales enablement drives pipeline velocity
  

• Brand promise comes to life in the field
  

Operating at the intersection of Product, Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success, product marketing translates vision into narrative—and narrative into growth. It ensures that every stakeholder is speaking the same language, aimed at the same goals, and executing with clarity and confidence.

Final Thought

In a world of compressed attention spans and AI-curated buying behavior, product marketing has never been more critical.

It’s about creating clarity in complexity.
It’s about helping Sales succeed.
It’s about solving real problems—not selling features.
And it’s about doing all of that with greater speed, precision, and impact thanks to AI.