AMA: Titan VP of Marketing & Development, Alex Chahin on Consumer Product Marketing

Though there are many we could talk about, here are a few I’ve been reflecting on lately. 📈 Trend: The era of “build it and they will come” messaging is dead 👀 What’s next: Product marketers need to up their positioning game For a long time, it worked to market consumer tech products in a way that was very centered on what the business did. We built a thing, here’s what it does. Straightforward. This worked for a while because the innovations felt more meaningful and there was less noise in chan ...Read More

There’s no singular answer to this one. It truly depends on what your goals and ambitions are for your marketing career. For instance, some people just really like the type of work they get to do on B2C product marketing. The same goes for B2B product marketing. If you’re someone who gets the most fulfillment out of one more than the other and would find it a drag to do your best work if you couldn’t, it may make sense to go as far as you can in that space. In that sense, yes, it absolutely make ...Read More

To understand whether someone new to consumer product marketing will likely succeed in that role, I usually look for a combination of skills that are both directly and indirectly related to the job. Skills that are directly related to the substance of product marketing work: Consumer-mindedness: Have they ever worked with gathering consumer insights before? Have they ever had to translate that to an action the business should take? Are they hungry for data about consumer behavior to help them ma ...Read More

Among the places I’ve worked, this answer has varied considerably. It’s varied company by company, and it’s even varied within a given company at different stages. For instance, when I was at Lyft, early on there were products that consumer-focused PMMs helped do the sales enablement for because it was the fastest way to get it done. As the company grew, by the time I left, there was a large B2B product marketing team. A number of things could impact what the right answer is for your company at ...Read More

What an exciting opportunity this is for you! I’m thrilled that you’ve earned this chance. When I joined Hims & Hers, I was in this exact position where I got to build out the Product Marketing team from scratch. It was one of the most valuable learning experiences of my career so far. Your list of questions is great. If you’re able to get through all of these in the time you have allotted with the founders, that’s fantastic. You might find that the answers to these can be substantive, thoug ...Read More

There’s so much B2C product marketing -- just look around you! Think about the laptop or phone you’re reading this on right now. The bluetooth headphones you used to listen to music recently. The shoes on your feet. The credit cards in your pocket. The toothpaste you used to brush your teeth this morning. What convinced you to buy those things? Maybe it was the description of the audio quality for the headphones. Maybe it was the extra cavity-fighting and whitening power of the toothpaste. Throu ...Read More