Personify your product!

I was asked to speak to a group of marketing graduate students about how I used market research in my work as a product manager. As I recall I spent most of the lecture showing examples of various research we had done and how that research had helped us make necessary decisions. During this presentation two things popped out of my mouth which I had previously not thought about very much consciously prior to that day but which I have come to believe more and more strongly throughout my working life.

“A marketer should live the life of their product” or “embody their product”, “personify their product”…something like that…

In highly competitive industries marketing decisions must often be made very quickly. There will not be time to do in depth analysis on every issue but a marketer who is immersed in their product and who understands the industry dynamics of their business will make the right intuitive decisions when the time comes.