The Importance & Future Of Product Marketing With Rory Woodbridge
I don’t talk publicly about Product Marketing enough but I do with many businesses, and often make the recommendation that if you cannot connect Marketing & Product departments together, you need the bridge that is Product Marketing.
Many companies currently struggle to manage how they communicate their features and customer stories, and over-rely on specific paid channels to disseminate a message, rather than understanding what the message should be, who to target, and how to target them effectively. This is where PMMs can excel.
I have been lucky, I have had many top Marketers work with me and in my teams, and a handful stand out as great PMM’s like my guest Rory on the most recent Marketing Unfiltered podcast.
Our chat is packed with actionable insights. I’d recommend looking out for the following sections:
How product marketing can bridge silos
Drive differentiation in an AI-saturated market
Create clarity across teams. Deploying these lessons will help leaders build more aligned, resilient, and customer-focused organisations, ensuring long-term success in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Here are my personal top 15 takeaways from my chat with Rory
Product marketing is a strategic bridge
It connects product, technology, commercial, and sales teams, ensuring unified messaging and direction.
Founders are the original product marketers
Early-stage founders naturally perform customer research, positioning, and storytelling, which should be embedded in the PMM function. Leadership buy-in is crucial
PMM should report directly to the C-suite leader who understands and values it most, not just default to Marketing or Product. The role is shape-shifting
Product marketing adapts to fill gaps where the business needs the most impact, from research to messaging. AI is transforming Product Marketing
As AI makes product replication easy, differentiation will rely on superior marketing, storytelling, and customer understanding. Radical simplicity is a superpower
The best PMMs push for the shortest, clearest way to communicate value, cutting through complexity. Customer understanding is layered
Use Rory’s structured approach: (TAM) total addressable market → segmentation → (ICP) ideal customer profile + personas. Positioning is a process
Effective positioning requires deep analysis of customers, competitors, and market needs, not just a quick workshop. Clarity across all touchpoints
Great PMMs ensure the website, sales deck, and social messaging are aligned, reducing internal friction. PMMs have full-funnel impact
Product marketing should influence everything from acquisition to retention and referrals, not just launches. I also recommend that PMM’s are a full funnel role in the future of MarketingPrincipal product marketer is on the rise
Senior individual contributors who drive impact without managing teams are becoming more valuable. As I call PMMs they are likely expert roles not specialist or generalist rolesPMM Consultancy model is growing
Many companies need PMM expertise seasonally, making consultancy a practical solution, especially in Europe. Customer reviews are gold
Both positive and negative reviews offer insights for messaging and product improvement, but are often overlooked. Performance Marketing’s over-reliance can be risky
Over-reliance on short-term, data-driven tactics can stifle creativity and long-term brand building, PMM’s can balance this. Smaller companies offer more impact
PMMs can shape the whole company narrative and strategy more effectively in businesses with 50 to 500 people, it’s not just up to the “Brand team” or another team that can police.
Please connect with Rory
Via his Site - theproductmarketer.co
Sub to his newsletter, it’s is packed with tips, tricks and practical advice https://productmarketer.substack.com/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rorywoodbridge/
Or contact him through his site - https://theproductmarketer.co/contact
If you enjoyed this interview, definitely subscribe to Marketing Unfiltered below where we send out our newsletter every Friday at 7am.
Full Transcript
Product Marketing - Marketing Unfiltered Danny Denhard & Rory Woodbridge
[00:00:00] Introduction and Guest Introduction
[00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Danny Denhard: Hi everyone. I've got, uh, Rory here with me today. Uh, when I asked a number of different people who should I talk to around product marketing, Rory's name come up a number of different times,
[00:00:12] Danny Denhard: uh, and someone I got on very well with, sung his praises. So Rory, I'd love for you to give a little intro to yourself, what you do and, and how you've got here.
[00:00:22] Rory Woodbridge: Um, and yeah, nice to be on Danny. Thanks for having me on.
[00:00:24] Rory's Background and Experience
[00:00:25] Rory Woodbridge: Um, so hi, I'm Rory. I run a consultancy firm called the Product Marketer, um, which works with companies, uh, across Europe and, uh, at the EMEA region, uh, on raising their product marketing game. And so working with them, uh, on unlocking insights, refining positioning, messaging, product launches, new product development, all kind of, um, with the aim of long term growth. Uh, how I got there, here was I think through a, a long stint product marketing, uh, at Google and YouTube. Uh, and then spent the last, uh, six or so [00:01:00] years more in the startup and scale up space with a mix of, um, B2C and uh, B2B players. Um, most recently now, uh, consulting, we've arranged those companies having been in-house for about 15 years.
[00:01:15] Danny Denhard: Perfect. So you, you've been there, seen it and done it all.
[00:01:20] Rory Woodbridge: Yeah, I've done a mix of things and yeah, and, and also like I've been there from I guess the early days of product marketing, at least in Europe, I'd say product marketing's maybe about 20 years old, if you like. Look stateside. Uh, it's really got popular in Europe, the, um, the last five to 10 years.
[00:01:37] Rory Woodbridge: Um, so I've been there for all of that, which has been, um, really satisfying to sort of watch it play out.
[00:01:44] Defining Product Marketing
[00:01:44] Danny Denhard: Should we dive into what product marketing is to you and how you, you sort of explain it to, to one of your parents or your friends who don't, don't quite get it?
[00:01:54] Rory Woodbridge: Yeah, totally. So, and like, I, I think, I think what's interesting about product marketing, some [00:02:00] or slightly worrying is, you know, you with.
[00:02:02] Rory Woodbridge: Social media management or SEO, we're not having those conversations are we? It's like a one time explanation, whereas, um, I think, um, at every company I've worked with, product marketing has been a little bit different. And so still in 2025, we're still having to do the, what, what is it? I think, you know, I I, if I was gonna describe it, I'd say it's like, it's a strategic function that finds a, a common language between your product and tech teams and your commercial marketing and sales teams to be able to communicate the value of your, your product, um, to make it make sense to your customers.
[00:02:39] Rory Woodbridge: I mean, like in a really short like way, I just call it like product message clarity. Like that's, that's what you're looking for. Like how, how that plays out is it's a team that is a bridge between like all the different kind of customer facing parts of your business, like sales, marketing, customer success, customer support, design.
[00:02:58] Rory Woodbridge: Product, [00:03:00] even engineering, you know, there, there's a team that's touching on all of that to make sure everyone gets the strategy. Everyone knows the customer, everyone is working towards telling the same story. Um, and yeah, which I guess might not make sense to my parents, I'd say, but I think this be like, what are you on about?
[00:03:19] Rory Woodbridge: But maybe someone who works in tech or marketing would, uh, would, would, would get it.
[00:03:23] Danny Denhard: I, I recently had to explain it or re-explain it to, to a founder. Um, and they, they couldn't work out whether, whether it was like a marketing role or whether it was like a product role or whether it was growth, because they've obviously had the free interchangeably, but I don't think they did and necessarily worked with like a, a proper product marketeer.
[00:03:45] Danny Denhard: So it's nice that you, you gave it a, you gave it a one liner.
[00:03:50] The Role of Product Marketing in Companies
[00:03:50] Rory Woodbridge: Well, and, and the thing, the thing is, 'cause it's a bit of like a shape shifting role, like the person that arrives and that usually, you know, they've got product marketing experience and they'll probably [00:04:00] be t shape, so they'll probably be good at a couple of things.
[00:04:02] Rory Woodbridge: But the idea of product marketing is also you, you fill those gaps. And so a company like might not have a user research or market research team, or like that team might not be experienced in doing all the commercial bits that you need them to. So product marketing might fill that gap. But then, you know, I've been at other places where you've got a really strong research function and that isn't, you know, product marketing.
[00:04:26] Rory Woodbridge: We waste a bit of time spending a lot of time there. And actually it's more like, you know, a messaging or a, uh, tying product development to commercial thinking kind of need. So you move, you, you shift to where the problem is or where the biggest business. Problem is where you personally or as a product marketing team can have the biggest impact.
[00:04:46] Rory Woodbridge: But the problem with that, it does add to a bit of confusion 'cause it means, you know, anyone who's worked with product marketer gets kind of different experiences of it.
[00:04:55] Danny Denhard: I tend to say I, I agree. I, I tend to say [00:05:00] when I set up teams and, and help in coaching, I tend to say if you've got a really strong product marketeer, they're probably gonna be a great Head of, for in and around the, in, around products itself.
[00:05:11] Danny Denhard: So I tended to used to, uh, assign a product marketeer as heading up the product and I was, you know, a bit like, uh, a GM essentially. And what I loved about that was they had a real instinct around how to market the product, how paid and social and SEO and that would, would fit in. And I, I. It goes and swings roundabouts.
[00:05:33] Danny Denhard: But I definitely think in today's market, we're gonna get back to that, that sort of area where I think product marketing is probably best set to, to own products or skews or, or product lines.
[00:05:46] Rory Woodbridge: It's, and it's, it's, it's kind of where the market's going. Like you're hearing those stories coming out of Apple and Airbnb, like Airbnb quite, you know, famously did it.
[00:05:55] Rory Woodbridge: I think, uh, Brian Chesky announced it, uh, um, fig Fig Jam a couple of years ago. [00:06:00] And with that justification of like, if you are building a product, you, you need to know what's going on in the market so you know how to differentiate and have an, have an exceptional story. But, but also, yeah, you need to know the story.
[00:06:14] Rory Woodbridge: You're gonna tell before anything, any code gets written, anything gets built. And so I th I think there's a really good case, you know, like, you know, not, not in every company, not in every product org, but, um, there's definitely a case for product marketers like leading a lot of that. A
[00:06:29] Danny Denhard: hundred percent. A hundred percent.
[00:06:31] Danny Denhard: Where do you think we are?
[00:06:32] Current State of Product Marketing
[00:06:32] Danny Denhard: What do you reckon the current state of players, where do you think we are with product marketing in, in 2025? 2026?
[00:06:40] Rory Woodbridge: Yeah. Well, I, I'd say like you have to say like Europe and the UK is different to the states. Like the States is like, you know, let's say 10 years ahead. Um, but that's also not to say that we are gonna go in the direction they're gonna go.
[00:06:56] Rory Woodbridge: Like the European tech ecosystem just probably isn't gonna [00:07:00] ever look like the US tech ecosystem because of regulation and the fragmented countries and so on and so on, and culture. So with that logic, product marketing probably won't ever look how it does in the States. Um, but what I would say, it's probably, it's probably gone from.
[00:07:17] Rory Woodbridge: Five. There was a big burst of recruitment in 2021, like when there was a lot of investment happening in, in tech back in 2021 and people were kind of like, ah, like we probably need a product marketing function, haven't worked with one before, but we need to spin one up. Like let's, let's, how do we, how do we get five 10 person team going to, but, but with a lot of kind of ambiguity and mystery around that, now we're at a point where I think a lot of companies have, um, developed a view on what they want product marketing to be.
[00:07:46] Rory Woodbridge: Those views differ per business. Um, but the, I I think, I think it does mean that the next, the next phase product marketing will be, it's gonna be more sophisticated, it's gonna be more understood, more [00:08:00] accepted. I think it will be invested in maybe with a bit more caution, I think you're looking to look at like smaller teams with big expectations around what they can deliver.
[00:08:10] Rory Woodbridge: Um, and, but I do, I do also think. Product marketing consultancy in the States has blown up and it's huge. And I, I do think that is gonna be a, a, a trend in Europe because it's, it is starting to happen. It's like, um, I, I, I made the leap, um, last year and it's, it's been fantastic. Uh, and I know sort of others are either sort of making that move doing the same just because of the.
[00:08:37] Rory Woodbridge: The, there's, there's, there's so many, like small and growing businesses, uh, in the UK and Europe, uh, with ai, like we're all aware of it every day. There's like new, exciting companies that we're all learning about. Those companies will have product marketing challenges. Like, like anyone has product marketing challenges, but maybe not the budget or the inclination to hire a seasoned PMM [00:09:00] uh, to come in full time.
[00:09:01] Rory Woodbridge: And they might not need to. 'cause, you know, you, you only need to revisit your value prop, like, what, once a year or you might be launching a major product, which you, you know, it's almost seasonal work. So I, I, I think there's a huge use case for it, and I think that's only gonna grow.
[00:09:18] Danny Denhard: Completely agree. My, my, my favorite like example is now where, as you said, AI can't escape ai.
[00:09:27] Challenges and Trends in Product Marketing
[00:09:27] Danny Denhard: The, with a lot of AI is we're getting to that point where I think a lot of products are gonna slow down from PLG, like product of growth. And I think a lot of companies are gonna have to invest quite heavily or very smartly into very good pmms who are gonna understand how to market the products or the product feature updates versus the product actually being able to do that.
[00:09:52] Danny Denhard: And although you'll probably bake it in and you'll do some internal and external work around it, I think one of the big, big shifts companies are gonna have [00:10:00] to put, get their head around is, is you're probably gonna have to invest in a very good PMM like you or a, you know, a product marketeer like you to help them drive change and drive, uh, smart adoption as opposed to this high churn world that a lot of them are living in at the moment.
[00:10:16] Rory Woodbridge: I totally, totally. And I think, I think, you know, um, AI is, is gonna, it is gonna help so many marketers, but I think it particularly is gonna help product marketers. 'cause when you talk to a product marketer about why they're frustrated or why they're not working or what they wanna work on, it's because somebody's dumping, uh, email marketing work on them, website copy.
[00:10:38] Rory Woodbridge: Um, they're going to 30 meetings a week and having to write up all the notes and action all the notes for all of that. And, you know, all, all of that kind of goes or gets like automated to a point of, like, you are, you are, you are just sort of editing and tidying something up. Um, so if, if people are using tools in the right way, I, I think you're, you're freeing up 20 [00:11:00] hours a week at least there.
[00:11:01] Rory Woodbridge: Um, and suddenly you've got, so pmms have got that time back that they've always. So, and you know that is when you go to like, what if, what if I spend that time researching an entire new product line we could be getting into? Or like, what is the best market we should launch this product in next?
[00:11:20] Danny Denhard: I completely agree.
[00:11:22] Danny Denhard: Completely agree. I'm gonna ask you the, the tricky question which people don't like asking, but I think as you are here, I should ask you the tricky one. Okay.
[00:11:32] Reporting Structure for Product Marketing
[00:11:32] Danny Denhard: We call it product marketing is probably a better way of framing it, but do you think product marketing should be reporting into marketing or should they be reporting into product or, as I've seen some savvy companies do, they've, they've put 'em under ops or operations.
[00:11:48] Danny Denhard: Where do you think PMMs should live or report through?
[00:11:53] Rory Woodbridge: Yeah, I'm not, I, I wouldn't be sold on ops or operations, but like, I mean, my, my cop out [00:12:00] answer would be, whichever leader in the C-suite, um, understands product marketing the best, uh, and or. Has the strongest opinion on it, like really values. It is like, I'm gonna spend time on this.
[00:12:13] Rory Woodbridge: This isn't gonna just be my, like a side of brain, oh God, I've got like, product marketing's gonna live somewhere. So, uh, like ideally someone who's worked with it before, passionate about it, has strong opinions. I've found, at least with European companies, that's more likely to be a marketing leader than a product leader.
[00:12:31] Rory Woodbridge: Um, but I've also worked with product leaders who really get it and, you know, want to wanna work closely. I, the way I view it when I've set up product marketing teams and businesses is like, you should be able to like, take that whole team, put them reporting in to the, the other counterpart, the CPO or CMO, and you know, things run pretty smoothly and people barely, um, notice the difference.
[00:12:52] Rory Woodbridge: Like what I would say though is I've also reported into, for like, extended periods, CEOs and chief revenue officers. [00:13:00] And that has been like, incredibly effective, um, for like making. Fast progress on the big stuff. You know, it's not always sustainable having something like product marketing report into that, like those senior functions.
[00:13:13] Rory Woodbridge: But what it does is it reflects that kind of neutrality and like that central point of, like, you, you do, you do get these challenges when you put product marketing into one team. Like, uh, it can either, you know, skew too heavily under the influence of the team it reports into, or it almost creates this sense of, not quite rivalry, but maybe tribalism of, ah, product marketing is part of marketing.
[00:13:41] Rory Woodbridge: It's like that they're not gonna get product, they're not gonna, you know, they're, they're, they're just gonna be thinking about brand or whatever, or vice versa. Product marketing is just a mouthpiece of for product. So it's, it's a tight rope.
[00:13:55] Danny Denhard: I was feeling the splinters when you were talking, it was like, should it be, where should it go?
[00:13:59] Danny Denhard: I've, [00:14:00] I've seen it work so well in, in Product because they can take the, the product mindset and apply it to, you know, to market, to like have a marketing, um, ethos and help reshape and shape how people think from a product perspective. And I, you know, personally at the moment, I lean more towards the marketing side because unfortunately the way that a lot of companies set up in, in Europe or EMEA it's very KR too heavy, KR driven.
[00:14:27] Danny Denhard: So very often they're, um, too shaped by the goals as opposed to actually what would make the company and the product or product features successful. So for me, I think it will, it will all depend, but it's definitely that triangulation role where you have to play as like the glue. Or like you said, no one wants to get in between two tribes, but you kind of have to bring them together and and centralize 'em a lot.
[00:14:50] Danny Denhard: So it's definitely something that, uh, I have high opinions on. Yeah. But it's all dependent on that, that individual company.
[00:14:59] Rory Woodbridge: It is, and it's [00:15:00] why it ends up being a really tough role and also a really tough team to manage and like have in your org as well. Because you are, they're typically, you know, like pmms often very smart people, very ambitious people, but they're getting pinballed around a business where e everyone's got a, a list of things they want product marketing working on.
[00:15:21] Rory Woodbridge: Everyone's got their view of the right work, they should be doing the high impact stuff, and you end up not being able to please anyone. And, and that's so, so you can be working really hard, doing great work, but, but to sort of be doing it effectively, you'd have to be doing like three different lists of like sales, marketing, products, wishlists.
[00:15:41] Rory Woodbridge: And so, uh, it's, um, yeah, it's, it, it is a really hard one.
[00:15:45] Differences Between Large and Small Companies
[00:15:45] Danny Denhard: You've worked in, you know, with some amazing companies, you know, away from what you are obviously your consultancy now. And you've obviously worked with, you know, some of the really big ones, so some of the FANG members, et cetera. Do you [00:16:00] see like a common theme?
[00:16:01] Danny Denhard: You've worked startup side and these huge, big businesses? Do you see like a common theme or do you see like a real difference to between the working styles, um, of them around product and, and PMM work?
[00:16:15] Rory Woodbridge: I think like they're, they're totally different, um, beasts. Um, like in, in, in many ways I'd say. Like you can find, um, fantastic
[00:16:25] Rory Woodbridge: product people and fantastic, um, like marketing people at like, regardless of size. Um, I think I like, I I would say like the, the caliber of product manager when I was at Google and YouTube for that period of like 2013 to 2019 was like world class. And I still use that as the benchmark of kind of like where the best product people I met in my career were.
[00:16:47] Rory Woodbridge: But I still, I still meet people of that caliber now. Um, I think on product marketing the challenges are wildly different. Like you, it's, you are at, at a company [00:17:00] like Meta or , Salesforce, you are, you, you are work and I haven't worked with either of these, but just sort of like that, that sort of size of you, you, you're gonna be working more likely like on a feature or like a kind of quite a specific product vertical.
[00:17:15] Rory Woodbridge: Whereas if you are working at a 50 person, a hundred person, you are, you're gonna get to work. On a company wide, sort of spanning, um, like, like thing, like I think even if you are the head of product marketing, um, uh, at, at one of these bigger companies, you're not the head of product marketing for that entire company.
[00:17:35] Rory Woodbridge: The company's too large, too complex to be able to get your arms around it and tell a clear story. It's, it is why it's so hard, um, when, when you're that size. But like the, the upside, the upside of these smaller companies is you, you can come up with like a full company wide narrative.
[00:17:51] Rory Woodbridge: You've got kind of, if, if you're under a hundred employees, probably you, you've probably got like one clear answer to who your customer is. Like one clear answer to [00:18:00] who the, the competition is. One clear answer to the, the value your product delivers. So, so that's like.
[00:18:06] Rory Woodbridge: Huge upside to that downside is you probably, like, you won't have all the resources to like pull off that, that execution in a way you would, um, at, at one of the larger businesses.
[00:18:17] Rory's Preference for Smaller Companies
[00:18:17] Danny Denhard: I have a feeling that you prefer smaller than larger businesses. Is that, is that fair?
[00:18:23] Rory Woodbridge: Um, the, these days, yeah. I had a, I had a great time working at like, um, so yeah, I was at Amazon and um.
[00:18:30] Rory Woodbridge: Google and YouTube. And then like most recent I worked at Monzo, like, which is in the thousands. Uh, and there's huge upsides there. And you are, you are working on products that like, are, are already, you know, changing people's lives. Changing the way people, um, like.
[00:18:45] Rory Woodbridge: Ma manage, manage their lifestyles or manage their money or, um, just like how, how, what shapes their day? I, I think for me, I, I like working on the uphill challenge, you know, of like the journey, the journey towards, um, like cracking something like [00:19:00] I, I, and I think may, maybe a lot of product marketers will relate because it comes back to like, problem solving and like, some of those hardest problems are in those like, early years.
[00:19:09] Rory Woodbridge: But, um, I, I, I do like being able to move fast. I do like that, um, that ability that we was just talking about of being able to capture the whole company's story and what you're doing with product marketing. Um, uh, and so, so yeah, I prob, I prob if I was gonna pick favorites, it probably would be, uh, small and medium sized businesses.
[00:19:31] Danny Denhard: If people are listening and they, they wanna hire, if you are, if you're in, in that sort of size range, Rory's gonna do an amazing job for you. From experience, I much prefer the 50 to two, 50 to 500 range as opposed to the 500 to 5,000 range.
[00:19:48] Danny Denhard: I think, uh, when you get, say big, you can't remember a lot of people's names, uh, and you just about, remember the org they work in or the business department they work in, I think it's kind of hard, especially in a [00:20:00] product marketing or product world or growth world to influence it as much and not have so many different opinions and so many different features you have to sort of push out.
[00:20:09] Danny Denhard: So yeah, that was my, that was my bias. Uh, I,
[00:20:13] Rory Woodbridge: I think so. And I, no, I totally agree.
[00:20:15] The Importance of Founders in Product Marketing
[00:20:15] Rory Woodbridge: And also like me in a consultant capacity, so like where it tends to work best is when I, when I come in and I am gonna be able to get time with the founders, the CEO, like the, the senior leaders, um, not just to be able to sort of like chat with them and try and influence and, and I see that work through, but also to get that absolute gold of like insights of like, okay, why did you start the company?
[00:20:40] Rory Woodbridge: Why did you, you know, what problem were you solving back in the day? Because, like, something I've written about recently is like, I, I think that founders are the original product marketers. Um, and, you know, they're, they're doing everything in those early years. They're meeting with customers, they're showing them the MVP product.
[00:20:57] Rory Woodbridge: They're going, does this, does this app product [00:21:00] solve this problem for you? They obsess over the competition. They're probably the ones doing the homepage. They're probably the ones building the sales deck 'cause they're the ones pitching it. Um, and so getting that download, that debrief from them makes for a much more successful consulting project.
[00:21:15] Rory Woodbridge: And I think, you know, just the reality is with a larger business, like often the, the founders moved on or the CEO's like here and isn't close to any of that as, as much so, so yeah, there's an extra benefit there.
[00:21:30] Danny Denhard: There's definitely a, there's a huge benefit that. I think people, uh, misinterpret is if you can even get five minutes with a founder or a founder, CEO and understand what, 'cause they're ultimately were the product leader, they were the marketing leader, and very often they're still, you know, chief product leader, still chief marketeer.
[00:21:52] Danny Denhard: It's just if you can't get the, you know, that the 20 bullet points that they go and tell a story, or if you [00:22:00] got 'em placed on one of the best podcasts in the world, let's still tell those like nuggets of information that's still so relevant, you still push, I think is, is so vitally important. And if you can get that say once a week, once a fortnight, I think it does generally make your product stand out far more.
[00:22:15] Danny Denhard: And because they've got that, that taste, that feel of the product or the marketing that if you, you too, you veer too far away from it. That's when I think some people become quite unsuccessful in, in, uh, in their marketing product or, or growth roles.
[00:22:31] Rory Woodbridge: I think that rarely happens, and there's often like a trend where the, the, the founder and or CEO has that product marketing role covered.
[00:22:40] Rory Woodbridge: Like to a point, like, you know, 30 people, it's still possible to get everyone in a room, get everyone aligned on things like the customer, the competition, the story. At some point that stops scaling and it's actually quite a while before someone notice notices that it's not scale scaled anymore. And then, [00:23:00] you know, you get to like 80, a hundred people and people go, oh, we should probably hire a product marketer by now.
[00:23:04] Rory Woodbridge: And at that point, you know, everything's got a bit out of hand and sales have one pitch and product are building for a different story and marketing are doing their own thing. So, I, I definitely see that at a bunch of places.
[00:23:17] Rory's Superpowers and Simplicity in Marketing
[00:23:17] Danny Denhard: What's one of your superpowers that you know, that you have that many other people sort of don't when?
[00:23:24] Danny Denhard: You know, when one, when one of your clients comes to you and says. What, what are you great at that other people don't know, or what's one of the secrets that, you know, that others just don't? Are you willing to sort of share any of those and to, to give people like a, a real, a real flavor of you and, and product marketing?
[00:23:40] Rory Woodbridge: I'm definitely an open book and like, I should actually, I, I should say, yeah, I do, I do like a weekly substack called the Product Market where I do just sort of, I, I share as much as I can because I think there is like a lack of, um, like solid product marketing content, um, out there.
[00:23:52] Rory Woodbridge: And so I do my best, um, to like, to share the method to my madness. But, um, I don't know. I [00:24:00] think that you really can't underestimate simplicity and like pro, probably like, like the, the secret I have is like, what I don't know is that like I, I keep it like really varied in terms of the, the kind of industries I work with.
[00:24:13] Rory Woodbridge: Um, uh, so I work with like FinTech, green Tech, hr, tech B2C, B2B, um, and what that means is, like typically with a new client, I, I won't be incredibly close to the industry. And I, and, and I, and I think any product marketer should do this, or any marketing leader should do this, is like embrace that period and like do a diagnostic, um, before you understand any of it.
[00:24:39] Rory Woodbridge: Um, because, because as soon as you're, you, you're in it, you're, you're, you're, you're infected by the, the what, you know, and you start doing the inside thinking and starting talking. The, the, the, the in-house lingo. Um, but like if you think about your customer, like if, if you're a tech product, there's a good chance that your customer doesn't even know your product category exists, let [00:25:00] alone you.
[00:25:00] Rory Woodbridge: And even though they, they know all the terms that you are buying for, they don't, they don't know any of this stuff. And so. I, I think, I think what I try and make the most of that, that my, my naive, ignorant brain, uh, pre, pre like, get, getting into it, to, to, to really do like a, like a full tear down that I'll keep to myself.
[00:25:21] Rory Woodbridge: Um, 'cause half of it might be, you know, unfair or irrelevant or, you know, um, and I, but I, I keep going back to that as almost that source of truth, um, of like, like, let's, let's not lose sight here. So that's, that's like one thing I do, but, but also, yeah, like I had a client, uh, kind de coin this term for me, um, a few months ago, which was like radical simplicity, um, of like, I will push for the most simple version of something to the, to the point that it maybe gets annoying, but like, for, for the, for the client.
[00:25:57] Rory Woodbridge: But like, you just can't underestimate the power of it. Like what [00:26:00] is the shortest way to say something like, does. Does that feature really need to communicate in that first sales conversation or does it really deserve its own product page? Or did you need 50 words to describe that thing versus 10? Um, and so, or, or like, do you need to build all five of those things or would it actually make sense to just like, focus on one or two and park those things?
[00:26:23] Rory Woodbridge: 'cause I, I think so much of strategy is about trade-offs and choices and sticking to your guns on those choices. One word would be simplicity and, um, and then, and, and really live living that value.
[00:26:37] Danny Denhard: Couldn't have, couldn't have said it better myself. I think one thing that's great about your substack is you, do, you, you share goals every episode, you know, every newsletter.
[00:26:46] Danny Denhard: And I think one, one core takeaway that I've noticed across my career with the best pmms or the best marketers in general is they can simplify and it can taking a load of information, [00:27:00] they can condense it down and they can pull it into, you know, two or three lines, or they could pull it onto one slide as opposed to a hundred slides and really understand what the cu, you know, understand that they're one step away from the customer versus I think what happens to a lot of.
[00:27:16] Danny Denhard: Marketing departments or product departments is you get two or three steps away. And then, like you said, within internal lingo, I think you get so, um, blinded by either goals or by actually this feature that you are, you are so obsessed around that actually you forget that the, that end customer exists or you forget that the customer actually needs to use it.
[00:27:38] Danny Denhard: I say things should be easy to learn, easy to use, easy to share, easy to personalize. Because if, if they're not gonna do those things in that order, it's very difficult for, for the customer to really enjoy it and be able to, to learn it and use it and, and want to use it continuously and bring, bring their network or their friends to it versus, uh, I think what a lot of [00:28:00] pmms or, or marketing leaders often, uh, forget is they get so sucked into this hole of we have to do this and this is the way we do it, and this is the, the brand guidelines. I think actually that simplicity and those few steps that you were, you were referencing them are critically important and the best ones always do understand it, stick to it and, and, and drive it forward.
[00:28:24] AI's Impact on Product Marketing
[00:28:24] Danny Denhard: Do with, obviously with AI being the, the technol, the technology that's probably gonna drive us for, for a number of years moving forward. It's obviously got a critical, is a critical role from, from products and critical role from marketing. But do you see, how do you see product marketing playing the, the critical role within adoption curve or, or the moving from the early adopters to the, to the laggards?
[00:28:49] Danny Denhard: What, what do you see or what do you think, what do you think is gonna happen?
[00:28:53] Rory Woodbridge: Yeah. Um, well, I think, I think first will be like making it make sense to, to the, the people outside [00:29:00] of the, the, the bubble, um, out of the tech bubble. Because I, I, I, and I work with, I've worked with a number of AI products and companies and, and like being able to like, get, get really nice exposure to like, market research in this space.
[00:29:12] Rory Woodbridge: And like one word that comes up a lot with the more mainstream consumers is o overwhelmed and overwhelming is like the, uh, a word that they associate with it. And, and, and often in a good way, you know, it's not that they're scared of ai, it's more like. This awareness that there, you could, there's infinite possibilities of what you can do with it, but God, like where do I start?
[00:29:34] Rory Woodbridge: And I think, I think product marketing can play a key role like industry-wide on, on, on this, like making it accessible, you know, finding those use cases per cohort of consumer and, um, find finding those like gaps beyond, you know, I think we, we've entered the norm of chat, GBT being a great place for like, if you, if you need a recipe or you, you know, all of that.
[00:29:58] Rory Woodbridge: But like the, the, the [00:30:00] next thing that's coming around, like the, the proper agent stuff, you know, the chat GBT agent where you can tell it to find me a restaurant, book me a restaurant, and all of that. Or manage my calendar. That's that. Like, I, I think there's a bunch there along with trust as well. 'cause like the, the next, the next, um, phase requires a lot of like, I'm gonna give you permission to access my.
[00:30:21] Rory Woodbridge: My, my, my Google account or my, my calendar and, and all of that and my passwords. And that's, that's gonna be pretty eerie for people and then I think the other thing product marketing is gonna be like, really like, called up on to, to help with is like differentiation because, um, we are gonna be looking at absolute saturation of product categories, even like new product categories that you and I can't think of right now.
[00:30:43] Rory Woodbridge: Once they get going, they become sat, uh, saturated because, um, products like lovable now mean that anyone who can think of an app can build 80% of an app, um, quite quickly. And, you know, it, it is, it's never been easier like, but by [00:31:00] a long way to, to start a, a tech company or like have an idea and, and start like testing it.
[00:31:05] Rory Woodbridge: So I, I think yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna see. Huge saturation. And the winners, as they often are, will be those who master, um, like market marketing, like more generally distribution, like, and yeah, like a clear, compelling marketing story. I
[00:31:26] Danny Denhard: think I nodded my head off then. I was like, there's not a lot to said.
[00:31:31] The Importance of Differentiation in AI-Driven Marketing
[00:31:31] Danny Denhard: I, so I've got a, an AI for Executives podcast coming out with someone who's been in AI since 2018 and we did a whole episode last week around, um, why it's gonna be more and more critical that you get your, your marketing and your brand and your product marketing nailed. And one thing you said is, you know, differentiation and as I said and I've written about a number of times, is when AI enables anyone to one [00:32:00] click copy their competitor, what is it's gonna make you stand out and stick in, in, in someone's mind. And that's gonna be driven by pmms, that's gonna be driven by brands. It's gonna be driven by experience. So yeah, if, if, if people don't, uh, are worried in the space, they're, you know, the three core areas I, I recommend. And it sounds like we're very aligned.
[00:32:23] Danny Denhard: Aligned in that.
[00:32:24] Danny Denhard: Yeah. No, absolutely.
[00:32:26] Key Areas of Focus for CMOs and CPOs
[00:32:26] Danny Denhard: What with, with a lot of the work that you do, and obviously you help CPOs and CMOs, and we were talking, uh, just before we hit record on, in, on, um, the marketplace you're helping at the moment. What are sort of three to five areas that you help most, you know, with the, the department lead, you know, the CMO or CPO, they're three or five thing, three to five things that you help most with that, that some people probably don't necessarily think of or wouldn't, wouldn't include in a job spec?
[00:32:55] Rory Woodbridge: Yeah, no, of course, of course.
[00:32:56] Understanding the Customer Deeply
[00:32:56] Rory Woodbridge: I think like one is probably understanding the [00:33:00] customer in a, in a way that like is deep and organized. Uh, you, you know, like, um, and I mentioned at the start, like product market, meaning like finding the common language, like finding common language for the whole company to talk about the customer and not just like rushing to do like personas.
[00:33:17] Rory Woodbridge: Uh, Mike, the marketer, and this is who we build for. You know, it's, uh, like I, I I talk about, um, like customer understanding a bit like a, a, a Russian doll. 'cause there's like these, these things that go in each other. And I start, I start with the tam and understanding that full opportunity. Then I look at segmentation, then I look at, um, ICP, like based on tangible attributes.
[00:33:38] Rory Woodbridge: And then, then you get to the persona and stuff. But it's, it's a process. That'd be one.
[00:33:44] The Art of Positioning
[00:33:44] Rory Woodbridge: Um, uh, I think two would be like the act of positioning and like, so I think a lot of people talk about positioning as like a thing you can kind of do on a Tuesday afternoon, like over an hour or two and some, some, some, uh, some whiteboarding.
[00:33:57] Rory Woodbridge: Like it's for product marketers. [00:34:00] Positioning is a, an intentional process that follows a number of steps. There's kind of like two approaches that you can take. There's like a, an old school approach and there's an, um, approach by someone called April Dunford who's like, fantastic. Both are really good. I, I actually sort of like, I sort of like picked between them as, um, based on like what, what the right need is for the business but I think product marketing can really help with that. And the process requires you to then go fully understand, um, your customer, the competition, the needs of the external market, the needs of your existing customer base, and then what your product can deliver, and then make some really hard choices so that you don't end being for everyone with a product that solves everything and you're gonna be the fastest, cheapest, smartest, easiest, you know, like, uh, what are you gonna major in? Um, and so I, I think you can add a lot of value and I think particularly consultants can, um, because of the fact you can be pretty objective, pretty scientific, not get pulled into the politics of something like that.
[00:34:59] Rory Woodbridge: And [00:35:00] make a pretty objective recommendation.
[00:35:02] Storytelling and Product Launches
[00:35:09] Rory Woodbridge: And then I think, I think the third thing, like a consultant or a product marketer in general can, I think, yeah, is like the, the storytelling of be it a new product launch feature, launch a new product line or like you are revisiting. The, your, your overall value prop because your customer base has matured or, or, or so on, or the market's changed.
[00:35:22] Rory Woodbridge: And I think coming up with something that's like interesting, marketable, uh, set up for longevity, but actually like, isn't just like pulled out the air and gone, okay, like we, you know, we wanna be this for uh, uh, we want to tell this story. It's like, based on. Customer feedback, customer insight, the actual value of your product.
[00:35:42] Rory Woodbridge: Um, so I think, I think those are like, yeah, something. 'cause you know, it's, there's so much of what we're known for is like launches and like, uh, like a founder or a head of marketing will go, okay, this thing's shipping in six months better or hire a product marketer for that. But, but you know, [00:36:00] that's, that's like a, you know, a one off thing and it will be important.
[00:36:02] Rory Woodbridge: But like the, the value you're gonna get from someone is someone who's like beds in long term and does that foundational work, um, before getting to any of those, like, let's ship that. Because once you're in that mode, you, you, you tend not to be working on the highest priority stuff. You're in the P2's, you're like, you're not, you're not on the top stuff.
[00:36:21] The Full Funnel Role of Product Marketing
[00:36:21] Danny Denhard: I call product marketing a full funnel role. Now I've, I've got a number of them, probably eight or nine, which I, uh, referenced in marketing Unfiltered number 40. Basically it's the future of the marketing Department is gonna be, you know, very different or it's gonna be. An evolution versus a revolution, but as you said, distribution earlier on and, and sort of it trade now, I think product marketing's gonna be a full funnel role and it's gonna sit across.
[00:36:50] Danny Denhard: Mm. Whether you think, you know, you have an engine loops or, or funnel, actually think it is, it's gonna be from the top of the top to the bottom or the bottom. It's gonna [00:37:00] be helping to reduce churn, it's gonna be help with retention, it's gonna help, uh, with referrals. So for me, um, I think that's one thing that people really overlook with product marketeers and pmms specifically, and really good ones think that way anyway.
[00:37:15] Danny Denhard: They're just often not unable to, to work across, across the full funnel because they're at, um, product launch or, or launch V2 a lot of the time. So a lot of things that you said completely resonate. And if I, if I had a recommendation not to steal yours, but if I had a recommendation, it would be to make PM's full funnel and sit across it all because they can.
[00:37:38] Danny Denhard: They can see things that others don't and they can be objective. Whereas brand often are brand police, they police over police the brand versus they don't coach the brand, which I think PMMs tend to do a little bit better in today's market.
[00:37:52] Rory Woodbridge: I, I think all product marketing plays that like key role in making the brand stick as well because, you know, a good [00:38:00] PMM can speak a product manager's language about things that person cares about.
[00:38:04] Rory Woodbridge: And it's not just like, we have to do this because that's the brand. You know, that fi finding that middle, middle language and then si similarly. Yeah, I think, I think the risk with brand is that it becomes too detached from the, the what the product's actually solving, the value the product delivers, even like what the customers are valuing about it and it becomes this aspirational thing.
[00:38:27] Rory Woodbridge: And so I think a product marketer, if it's listened to, can just, you know, help ground a brand team a bit, give it that credibility that then unlocks that buy-in from the rest of the business.
[00:38:37] Danny Denhard: It is this, is this interchange, this interwoven role, which mm-hmm. I think is the common theme, which, uh, unfortunately I don't think a lot of people truly see or get to see within marketing orgs, especially if you haven't worked with a, a very good one.
[00:38:51] Danny Denhard: I think actually it, it kind of gets downplayed too much, but maybe that's, that's my bias in, in having that background and knowing the [00:39:00] power of pmms.
[00:39:03] Rory Woodbridge: Totally. And I mean, I think 'cause because there's this whole like challenge of like how, you know, there's, where does it live? Product marketing, and then it's like, what does that role look like?
[00:39:12] Rory Woodbridge: Like do you tie it to product line? Do you put 'em in a squad? Uh, do you tie it to, uh, you know, industry vertical persona type? Um, and so, and like, I, I think I, I found most successful, it ends up being like a hybrid and you've got like a sort of a mix of rules for, for that. But I think, I think like one thing, and this is like, um.
[00:39:32] Rory Woodbridge: I, I think on the rise, but more of a theory right now.
[00:39:35] The Rise of the Principal Product Marketer
[00:39:35] Rory Woodbridge: I couldn't say it's definitely gonna happen, but I think there's gonna be a rise of like the principal product marketer or like a staff product marketer, someone who's very senior but doesn't want to go down that head of director route. Like 'cause a, there might not be, you know, enough like space in the team for that, but be in the way that, you know, not, not all engineers want to be be managers like at the end of the career, but they, they just wanna do high impact work.[00:40:00]
[00:40:00] Rory Woodbridge: I think that's, product marketing's that kind of role as well. It attracts that kind of person. You could almost imagine, um, that, that see like that principle product marketer role, having the remit of like kinda product, product line agnostic just is, is thinking about that, that full funnel as you describe or kind of thinking about the real bigger picture to make sure that that's that silo even product marketers, if you put 'em in a team, they end up doing all these different things. You need to bring them together. Um, and, and that's not always easy for a head of product marketing some 'cause, 'cause that person's being a manager and managing upwards and sideways and everything.
[00:40:35] Rory Woodbridge: So I, I think that'd be really interesting and I'd be a big, um, advocate of that, uh, emerging as a role.
[00:40:41] Danny Denhard: Completely, completely. I, I think often people see generalists, they see specialists, and then they see like ICS and managers and they think it's, it's two up and, two across D depending on how you look at it.
[00:40:55] Danny Denhard: I actually think product marketing can be what I call more of an expert role. It is [00:41:00] that expert that can come in and be highly respected, can help, uh, everyone else understand it. They can coach people around them, but they can really focus on their job as opposed to focus on being a manager and a player and the reason why I think these expert roles might come out is like in America, they're calling 'em super ics. But I think actually what we're gonna be able to see more so in with pmms, I think is this real ability to maniacally focus on getting the best work out as opposed to having to manage multiple people in their team.
[00:41:37] Danny Denhard: And really good pmms probably do two people's job anyway, but they're, they're very good at triangulation. They're very good at connecting the dots. They're very good at bringing their colleagues in on a journey versus I think others who, whose career path very much is a manager or an ic. So this super ic, this, this expert, I think could [00:42:00] be a great, uh, a great evolution for, for pmms.
[00:42:04] Rory Woodbridge: Totally. Totally.
[00:42:06] Danny Denhard: If, if you could change one thing in, uh within marketing in the marketing world or the marketing setup, is there something that you, that's always been a bug bearer that you think could, could be changed or you'd love to change it?
[00:42:20] Rory Woodbridge: Hmm. Yeah. I mean, I, I like other than that broader, like, wouldn't it be great if everyone understood the function a bit better and um, and had a appetite and brain space for understanding better?
[00:42:30] Rory Woodbridge: 'cause that's, um, some, sometimes the challenge I think, uh, it's having, you know, if, if, if, if you've got kind of directors of all the other marketing functions, making sure you've, you've got product marketing, um, staff accordingly and there's balance there. And then I think it's doing whatever you can to, to not have those scope creep roles, like, like, like work streams coming into product marketing as well. Like be it CRM work or, or website [00:43:00] copy or project managing the launches. You know, sometimes product marketing just fills a gap where there should be a program manager on the technical team. Um, you know, so like, I think, I think having all that, that fixed and, but beyond that, I, I think, you know, I think it's heading towards like a really good direction, especially with previously mentioned, um, AI capabilities that, that it is removing, it is probably removing the big bug bearer of like all the kind of either not our job work or less impact, but it's urgent.
[00:43:35] Rory Woodbridge: Less important rather than, not urgent, but very important. Which I, I, I think, I think so many roles have that battle, but, but yeah, product marketing definitely does, but like that, that excuse is going, I think
[00:43:47] Danny Denhard: the more, I think the more it. It matures again in a more momentum that's needed within the PMM world and within the marketing world.
[00:43:55] Danny Denhard: I can see that aligning really well. And the best CMOs that [00:44:00] I've ever worked with helped out or, or consulted with, really understand that actually they have to evolve and, and create org design for, for much longer than, than the average person does. And I think that's by environmental factors. But very often the, the best marketing leaders or or product leaders to that matter really understand that it's, they're on the 18th to 24 month journey and that they have understand what, where their skills gaps are, but also where the people, the leadership, and where the direction of the company and the industry is going and shape it that way.
[00:44:33] Danny Denhard: So for me, that's exactly that.
[00:44:37] Quickfire Round: Tools and Tactics
[00:44:54] Danny Denhard: Before we jump into some, uh, quickfire round, you did a, um, you shared some great tools, um, on one of your recent newsletter. Is there three, three tools in your, your tool stack or your toolkit that people, either you, you would recommend it to everyone or happily keep to yourself, but you'd happily share today?
[00:44:59] Rory Woodbridge: No, I mean, I, I, [00:45:00] I, yeah, like, like I say in the article, I think it's like choosing your LLM of, uh, choice of like your, your go-to and like committing to getting that work in. And, uh, I, I, I use that in a, in a variety of ways. I use it to, like, I use, so my mine is chat, GBT, and I think for one, the deep research function is like worth, worth the money alone really in terms of like getting, getting a first pass of understanding something very quickly, um, and deeply.
[00:45:27] Rory Woodbridge: Uh, but then beyond that, um, using it to sort of as that sparring partner like to, to like when you haven't got someone to, to like spar with, be it viewing as someone who. Is playing the role of the stakeholder or your support person and just, you know, just using it to riff with. I, I think it's incredibly useful for a product marketer, which along with being a very collaborative role, can also be quite a lonely role when it actually get comes to getting down to the work.
[00:45:54] Rory Woodbridge: Um, beyond that, I think, I think like granola, incredibly incredible [00:46:00] UK based company, like amazing team, um, that like just so good for productivity and so good for that use case of like yeah. Product marketers just in so many meetings. And, uh, not only does it take that job away of writing it up, I, I think it writes up notes better than any, any, well definitely than I could.
[00:46:19] Rory Woodbridge: Uh, so like, I think, yeah, so, so I definitely recommend that. And then I think a fun one that I'm, I am actually starting to use like more in my content creation for like my, my, my. Newsletter and website. There's one called, um, re REVE, which is just like an, it is an image creation, but it's like really neat, really fast as well.
[00:46:39] Rory Woodbridge: Um, and just like very interactive, very useful. So I'd, uh, yeah, that, that's a fun one to play with and it's, yeah, kind of like for, for when you flexing that creative muscle.
[00:46:50] Danny Denhard: Thanks for sharing those. I, I, you know, I think, uh, I had, I didn't know about Reeve until, until a newsletter, so it, that's Tammy on and Granola's, [00:47:00] uh, one just if people haven't used it or haven't seen it, it's a great note taken app. Uh, doesn't struggle with knowing who's spoken on what, understands if you don't necessarily in some of the other apps, if you don't say the next actions are, or the owner is, it's very good at, summarizing it and putting it together in, in a shareable, um.
[00:47:19] Danny Denhard: File or, or you know, it's got shareable URLs and it's, you can share it across multiple different Slack teams, et cetera. So it is, it is very good. Um, ready for a quick fire round.
[00:47:31] Rory Woodbridge: Go on then.
[00:47:32] Danny Denhard: Cool. Uh, let's gonna try, is there one, is there one metric that people overlook the importance of?
[00:47:40] Rory Woodbridge: I, well, uh, my, my opinion is that people spend too much time on metrics for product marketing and that it's a bit of a distraction because I don't think there is a high impact metric that product marketing can own on its own.
[00:47:54] Rory Woodbridge: And I, I'd actually rather put product marketing on the hook of, can you deliver this by this state to this [00:48:00] quality? Or, or, or some something. But, um, I mean, I guess, uh, me metrics that you could put product marketing as a co-owner, like, might be something around product adoption might be something around like win-loss rates if you are, if you're sales led.
[00:48:12] Rory Woodbridge: But I would, I'd definitely be thinking about if we part the metrics conversation, like what would be a great outcome for this team or person in six months time?
[00:48:23] Danny Denhard: Uh, good luck on some of the startups, accepting, excepting that one. Um, if you had one, if you had one marketing tool to get off a, uh, a desert island that you're stranded on, which one tool would you use?
[00:48:38] Rory Woodbridge: A marketing tool? Uh, and what is in? So I've got one and, um, that, that, that, that and that. That's all I've got to do my marketing with.
[00:48:46] Danny Denhard: Yeah. To, to, to get off the desert island.
[00:48:50] Rory Woodbridge: A to get off the desert island with, oh, well, I think, no, I mean, it's a bit, it feels like a bit of a cop out, but I think yeah, like, probably, probably chatGPT probably tell me how to do everything. Probably [00:49:00] in a couple of years. It'd probably build it for build, build the boat for me. Uh, like 3D print it out, it would come collect me. So, uh, I'll, I'll do that. Uh,
[00:49:10] Danny Denhard: great. I thought you were gonna say LinkedIn or something, but, uh, happy. Okay.
[00:49:15] Rory Woodbridge: I could search, search for that kind of like Yeah.
[00:49:17] Rory Woodbridge: 10, 10 things. Uh, BCB SaaS can teach you about getting off an island. Yeah,
[00:49:23] Danny Denhard: exactly. What's, uh, what's the tactic that people most overlook?
[00:49:28] Rory Woodbridge: Um, I, I, I like coming back to customer reviews, um, just for it. It's something that, you know, you say customer reviews in a meeting and everyone's like, oh yeah, totally, we should look at those.
[00:49:38] Rory Woodbridge: But almost it's, it is so hard actually for carving out the time. I think there's gold both for, on the bad side, like bad reviews. You can obviously learn a lot. The good stuff though. Great for like, getting the creative cos going on your messaging and like what, uh, like getting into the nuance of what people really like about you
[00:49:56] Danny Denhard: Couldn't agree more.
[00:49:58] Danny Denhard: Is there a common theme that you'll see in [00:50:00] time and time again that's hindering companies that you work with or competitors?
[00:50:06] Rory Woodbridge: Uh, pro probably like the owning of positioning. I think, you know, like, like we touched on, I think like lar large businesses, it's like positioning, maybe a messaging lives with brand and I don't, I don't like, and I, and I love brand teams, like I love working with brand teams, but I don't think, um, I like, I think, I think product marketing in the past five years has really like developed a great like process and best practices on, on this stuff.
[00:50:31] Rory Woodbridge: And I, and I think a company can make like much faster, stronger progress on that area when it's, when it's given to product marketing.
[00:50:39] The Future of Marketing and Product Marketing
[00:50:39] Danny Denhard: If there's one area you could change in marketing or product and it could, you could change it, what would it be?
[00:50:49] Rory Woodbridge: Yeah. I dunno how controversial this is, but I think, I think it'd be like the, the status of performance marketing in that I just feel performance marketing is like the black box of marketing. It [00:51:00] takes up. The, the huge chunk of the budget is kind of all everyone's interested in, but also, you know, not, not everyone gets full transparency on it.
[00:51:10] Rory Woodbridge: And I, and I, I sometimes think it's like it takes away some of the joy and creativity of the marketing. I think we end up not talking about the long term, um, stuff that like, you know, will differentiate you, you know, when we're talking about AI products and like what we can do there, you know, there's a short, short term gains to be on, like who's can have, who can run the most effective AdWords or, um, like TikTok campaign.
[00:51:33] Rory Woodbridge: Um, but it ends up being very, you know, like short, short termist pretty transactional. I, I, I think. It's also where marketing maybe is the most exposed. You know, when we go, got AI is gonna replace us, you know, when, when we're not creating the space to have creative thinking and ideas that only a human, a talented human could come up with, then there is a case for replacing us.
[00:51:57] Rory Woodbridge: If it is just a, like, you know, [00:52:00] this is the optimal time length and slice it here and slice it here and do it by that. But I'd be interested to see your thought on that. Thoughts that, on that one as a, as a broader marketing leader who's a, who's a bit, a bit less biased.
[00:52:10] Danny Denhard: No, actually I, I agree. I think there's, uh, what I call head heart, gut head is the data is there, say like 80 to 90% there.
[00:52:20] Danny Denhard: It's the easy choice. You're gonna do it. And I think that's what happens a lot of time in performance. I think there's heart where the data is 50 to 60% of the way there, but you know it's gonna work. So you work really hard to, to bring it out. You create compelling content. You can, you create a great campaign based off heart.
[00:52:39] Danny Denhard: And you're gonna say the data's, you know, the data might be slightly off, but we're gonna make this work. We're gonna work really hard to do it. And I think that's where pmms are very good at understanding that. And I think performance marketeers struggle a little bit to say in that area. And I think where most automation's coming in is, is the 80% and it's the easy choice because it's gonna get signed [00:53:00] off.
[00:53:00] Danny Denhard: It's the CFO friendly choice. And then I say gut, which is where we used to be, say 20 years ago or 10 years ago, the data isn't there or we don't have access to data. And actually we know that this is where people, what, what people need, where they need to go. Therefore, we're gonna create something that's brilliant.
[00:53:20] Danny Denhard: We're gonna do as much as we can to. To learn about the space or, or create the space and then build a, build something that's amazing or creative or remarkable. And what that then enables people to do, especially in and around that, is to understand actually we are in this spot where we've got something. We know we're gonna be completely different and we're gonna drive something forward where we're all aligned on it versus where I think often the easy, easier decisions at heart and at head can actually create such, like you said, short-termism or even tribalism around that. We can only spend there and it, [00:54:00] my theory is when I coach CMOs, they've been conditioned into, and marketing leaders in general, depending on title, they've been so conditioned into performance only, which hint that does, it really does make every other.
[00:54:15] Danny Denhard: Department a little bit jealous. They can't, they have to think short term because they're almost just having to feed the algorithmic changes versus actually answer customer problems, build a brand, build experiences that's connective. So that's not a short term, that's not a, that's quickfire answer, but, uh, I agree.
[00:54:34] Danny Denhard: And also I think where performance lacks often is every once, once one thing is proven to be successful, everyone copies. Whereas marketing before used to be, you can copy, but you make it different or you make it original. And I think that's where, where we've lost a little bit of the magic.
[00:54:54] Rory Woodbridge: Totally. And it's, and it's, and it's not to question the value of that, that function at all.
[00:54:58] Rory Woodbridge: It's more just, you know, [00:55:00] everything in moderation. And when, when a trend goes to, to any extreme, it's, it's too extreme. And, and I, I think that's sort of where we're at in, in some, some parts of the industry.
[00:55:11] Danny Denhard: I think we've often forgotten that where things used to trend and trend for a long time, they don't anymore.
[00:55:17] Danny Denhard: And the way that the tools and the apps work now is, is micro trends. And they, they're trending in certain bubbles. So actually what happens is you, a lot of teams veer towards the trends that they see versus actually understand what the customer wants, where they, where they need to go, and what they, what they truly want, want to see or, or haven't even thought about seeing before.
[00:55:40] Danny Denhard: So I think these are core areas that, that if you are listening now or watching now, that that will give you something to, to really think of and, and, you know, challenge your inner Rory to say, actually this is what, you know, make it simple. This is what the customer, customer needs or, or what they've implied they wanted, [00:56:00] but they're not actually, not actually getting.
[00:56:01] Danny Denhard: And I think that's where marketing's gonna play a, a vitally important role in this over AI optimized world, which some people are already living. Now, so yeah, completely, completely agree.
[00:56:14] Final Thoughts and How to Connect
[00:56:14] Danny Denhard: Um, if the, is there a question I should have asked you that I didn't? And if so, what would, what is it?
[00:56:21] Rory Woodbridge: Um, no, you mean you've asked a a lot and it's been honest.
[00:56:24] Rory Woodbridge: It's been great. So, uh, not, not even, I mean, so one, one I get asked a lot is like, what does good look like? What does great look like? And I think that's becoming a trend with like CMOs and marketing leaders. They've, they've now they know, they don't know product marketing inside out, but they know enough to be able to be like, okay, like, I, like, I want to know what good looks like and that they can sense when, when, when a PMM isn't strong.
[00:56:47] Rory Woodbridge: I think for, for me, there's not, not like one brilliant answer for it, but I would like, the, the word I always come back to is, is clarity. Is this person bringing in and has examples of, you know, if you're [00:57:00] interviewing, of introducing clarity across all those customer touch points. Does your website match up with your sales deck versus like your, what, what's going on on your socials?
[00:57:09] Rory Woodbridge: Um, and we talked about success metrics earlier and does that then lead to like less rumbling internally? Because u usually what comes outta that lack of clarity is like teams getting a bit pissed off with each other and like that kind of, that that will go in on sales getting annoyed because product isn't shipping anything that actually customers are asking about in sales calls.
[00:57:33] Rory Woodbridge: Uh, marketing getting frustrated 'cause they've just spent a lot of money on a brand campaign that like isn't supported at all by, by product or like, or product getting very confused that marketing is doing stuff that isn't tied to the core customer. Like if, if all of that noise isn't happening or is being reduced, then I think you've, you've got probably, you, you've probably introduced a great product marketer and product marketing's starting to have impact.
[00:57:59] Rory Woodbridge: I should ask [00:58:00] that question, shouldn't I? Very, very in for next time.
[00:58:04] Danny Denhard: Yeah, exactly. This is been incredibly valuable. I I can imagine this is one of those that people go away, uh, and come back to and listen again and again. Or they use their LMM of LLM of choice to, to download the notes. And of these things, what, where should people connect with you?
[00:58:22] Danny Denhard: Uh, how can they, uh, be useful to use it? Is it the substack or is it LinkedIn or all of it?
[00:58:29] Rory Woodbridge: Yeah, I mean, I'm, I, I'm on LinkedIn. Um, if you're a product marketer or a marketer looking to learn more about product marketing, uh, it's product marketer.substack.com. But, um, you can just search for that. Uh, if you are thinking about working with a consultant or like, um, like in interested in collaborating, like actually on your business, then hello@theproductmarketer.co.
[00:58:51] Rory Woodbridge: Um, uh, or the product marketer.co, um, for the website. But, um, but yeah, so yeah, I'm, I'm very easy to get hold of, I think.
[00:58:58] Danny Denhard: Great. Thanks for all your, [00:59:00] your, all your time today and everything have been a show note in the sup in the support and newsletter. So, um, any of that being one click away. So thanks again today, uh, for today Rory, and, uh, I think you are gonna be, uh, an invaluable asset to, to many.
[00:59:15] Danny Denhard: Oh, thanks Danny.
