Product manager communication: How to talk so your marketing managers will listen

Aligning with the marketing team can seem like a bit of a mystery. You might often think: We have the product. Why can't marketing get us more customers?

However, the reverse is also true. Marketing is always about customer requests that haven't been turned into features yet.

But really, this isn't about who's right or wrong. According to Gartner, 89% of companies compete on customer experience, requiring product-marketing alignment. 

This product-marketing communication breakdown impacts you in every way. It leads to delayed launches, increased release friction, underutilized features, and missed opportunities to showcase your skills.

Here's the truth: Product manager communication is about mastering stakeholder engagement with your marketing team.

Being successful at work is like a team sport. Start and not only will you streamline workflows but also amplify your impact. To help you further, experimentation provides a common ground, offering data-driven insights that both you and marketing can rally behind.

Today, see how to turn features into benefits, specs into stories, and your product into a market success.

PLG and SLG: Finding the right balance 

Product-led growth (PLG) has been a powerful strategy, but recent market shifts suggest it's not a complete solution. Consider Airtable's 27% workforce reduction in 2023, despite its strong PLG approach.

While PLG can drive initial growth—potentially up to $20-30 million ARR—scaling beyond often requires a hybrid model. Here's why: 

• Enterprise sales need a human touch
• Crowded markets demand differentiation
• Strategic upselling goes beyond in-product prompts 

The key is leveraging both PLG and Sales-Led Growth (SLG). Use PLG for frictionless entry and wide reach, then employ sales and marketing to nurture high-value prospects and drive enterprise adoption.

As a product manager, your role is to design products that can sell themselves while providing data points for effective sales and marketing efforts. It's not PLG versus SLG—it's about creating synergy for sustainable growth. 

Learn why aligning product and marketing teams is essential to unlocking growth and efficiency in this session from the Test and Learn event.

Why is product and marketing alignment such a big challenge

Product manager communication is a real headache.  

There are so many different product teams (platform, core, growth, innovation, etc.) and marketing teams (lifecycle, consumer, product marketing, performance, digital, content, etc.). The more players there are, the messier it gets.

This diversity, while valuable, often leads to:

• Fragmented communication across specialized teams
• Misaligned objectives due to separate budgets and KPIs
• Short-term thinking at the expense of strategic alignment 

This complexity can derail your product vision.

For product folks like you, performance metrics are all about speed, speed, speed. Your roadmap? It's already bursting with more requests than you can handle. And let's not forget about the HIPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion), who always seems to have a strong view on what needs to be delivered.

Enter the product marketing team with it's own challenges. They do have tons of ideas, each one "guaranteed" to skyrocket user engagement. But you don't have the bandwidth to execute half of them as development resources are limited.

It's not that all marketing ideas are bad. It's just that your priorities are different. For example:

You: We are pushing out a new checkout flow. 

Marketing: But can we push that and add a holiday gift-finder feature? Black Friday is coming up! 

So, how do you strike a balance? 

Experimentation can help you help your marketing colleagues validate ideas quickly. For example, suggest running A/B tests on new features or messaging before full implementation, then take decisions that both teams can agree on. 

For this, you need transparent communication. And here's what it looks like.

The importance of transparent communication 

Half the battle in product-marketing alignment is simply understanding what makes your marketing team tick.

So, what keeps your average marketer up at night?

• Customer acquisition and retention: They're not just after new customers. They're playing the long game, aiming to turn first-time users into die-hard fans.
• Brand awareness and positioning: They want your product to stand out. It's about making sure customers think of you first when they need a solution.
• Revenue growth and market share: They're focused on beating the competition, increasing sales, and making more money for the business. 

When you start framing your product decisions through these marketing lenses, suddenly, you're not just talking about features and sprints. You're speaking their language.

For example, 

Don’t say: We're implementing a new onboarding flow 

Try: This new onboarding flow could boost user retention by 20% in the first month.

See the difference? You're not just sharing what you're doing. You're showing how it aligns with marketing teams' goals.

And no, this isn't about bending over backward to please marketing. It's about creating a shared vision. When you understand their priorities, you can better explain why that critical bug fix is more important right now than the flashy new feature they want for the upcoming campaign. 

Remember, transparency isn't just about sharing information. It's about sharing it in a way that resonates.

Strategies for effective communication 

As per Hubspot, aligned sales and marketing teams close 67% more deals and retain 58% more customers. So, here's how you can turn those product-marketing clashes into high-fives:  

1. Use data to support your decisions

   “Trust me, I'm the product manager” won't make marketers go and sell what you're building. It's time to let the numbers do the talking.

   • Prioritization frameworks: Show marketing why that bug fix is more important than their shiny new feature idea. Example: This fix could reduce churn by 5%. That's 500 more customers sticking around each month.
   • Connect the dots: Link development constraints to marketing goals. Example: I know you want that new landing page, but optimizing our load time could boost conversions on existing pages by 10%. That's 1000 more leads for your next campaign.
   • Contextualize technical decisions: Frame technical constraints and opportunities in terms of business impact and user value. For instance, "Choosing microservices architecture over a monolithic one will require more upfront development time, but it'll allow us to iterate features independently and scale specific components as needed. This means we can respond to market demands faster and provide a more stable user experience in the long run."
   • Use feature flags to test the waters: Roll out features gradually to test messaging and gauge user reception. Example: Launch a new feature to 10% of users, letting marketing fine-tune messaging before full release.

   Remember to set up regular check-ins. A quick 15-minute stand-up can save hours of back-and-forth emails. And give your marketing team a regular peek at your roadmap. Transparency isn't just nice; it's necessary.

2. Involve marketing in the prioritization process

   Want to stop those "but we need this now" moments? Bring marketing into the fold early.

   • Collaborative prioritization: Next time you're prioritizing between features, invite them for a conversation. They might surprise you with insights you hadn't considered.
   • Experiment together: Set up virtual ideation sessions. Challenge marketing to come up with ideas that align with both your constraints and their goals.
   • Invest time upfront to educate: Take time to walk marketing through the product development lifecycle. Once they understand the process, they're more likely to respect the constraints.

   And you don't have to turn marketers into pseudo-product managers. It's about creating a shared understanding. This way your marketing team is likely to champion your choices rather than challenge them.

3. Manage expectations

   According to Forrester, 95% of product leaders say collaboration is critical, yet only 27% do it effectively.

   A key part of this gap? Expectation management. Here's how to bridge it:

   • Set realistic timelines: Don't promise the moon. Break down complex projects into phases, explaining each step. For example, phase 1 will take 6 weeks, giving us a basic version to test with users.
   • Address technical debt: Regularly discuss the impact of technical debt on product development. Review the technical debt backlog and how it affects your timeline for new features. It will help you balance short-term gains with long-term sustainability.

   You can use data visualization tools to illustrate timelines and the impact.

4. Find alternative solutions

   When resources are tight, get creative. Here's how:

   • Explore MVP approaches: Start small, learn fast. Instead of a full redesign, test a simplified version with your power users first.
   • Leverage experimentation: Use A/B testing to validate ideas quickly. Run an experiment on the new feature. If you see positive results, prioritize the full rollout.
   • Identify quick wins: Look for low-hanging fruit that aligns with marketing goals. For example, add social sharing buttons on your website pages. It's a small change but it could boost your referral campaign and perhaps, make Dave in the digital marketing team smile.

5. Build a culture of collaboration

   HubSpot research shows aligned teams achieve 20% annual growth, compared to a 4% decline in misaligned companies. Here's how to foster that alignment:

   • Encourage cross-functional teamwork: Create mixed product-marketing task forces for key projects.
   • Celebrate shared successes: Recognize both teams' contributions to wins. For example, our latest feature drove a 15% increase in user engagement. Great job to the dev team for the smooth implementation and the marketing team for the killer launch campaign. 
   • Implement shared OKRs: Set objectives that require both teams to succeed. An OKR like "Increase active users by 25% this quarter" motivates everyone.

By implementing these strategies, you're not just improving communication - you're creating a collaborative culture where product and marketing thrive together.

How AI will impact product-marketing relationships 

AI is here to help, not by replacing teams, but by improving efficiency. It will accelerate both product and marketing processes. For example, product teams can leverage AI for rapid prototyping and user behavior analysis, while marketing teams can use it for quick content creation and audience segmentation.

However, AI won't replace critical thinking or strategic decision-making. Its output can often be generic, missing important nuances. The human touch remains crucial for strategic direction, understanding market trends, crafting unique value propositions, and maintaining brand consistency.

The real power lies in using AI to generate more pipeline - the metric CFOs care about most. Product teams can iterate faster, creating products that better meet market needs. Marketing teams can deliver hyper-personalized campaigns and optimize in real-time, potentially increasing conversion rates.

By handling routine tasks, AI frees teams to focus on high-level strategy and creative problem-solving. This shift can lead to better products and effective marketing campaigns, ultimately driving business growth.

Tools and techniques for better product-marketing alignment 

1. Project management: Increase visibility and collaboration 

• Tools: Jira, Asana  

2. A/B testing and experimentation: Encourage data-driven decisions 

• Tools: Optimizely, VWO 

3. Agile methodologies: Enhance flexibility and responsiveness 

• Tools: Scrum boards, Monday.com 

4. Feature flagging: Enable controlled rollouts and targeted feedback 

• Tools: Optimizely Free Feature Flagging, Split 

5. Metrics dashboards: Align goals and track combined success 

• Tools: Tableau, Google Data Studio

Three takeaways 

Improved product-marketing communication isn't just nice to have—it's your growth engine.   

1. Use data to bridge the gap between product and marketing.
2. Involve marketing early in the product development process.
3. Leverage tools and experimentation for better alignment and decision-making. 

Want to learn more? Check out the product experimentation guide.