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

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. Throughout my career so far, I’ve already worked on B2C product marketing for credit cards and shampoo and medication and therapy and beyond. All of these products require a lot of the same kind of B2C product marketing work as tech products do. You need to deeply understand the user, translate their pain points into business action, position and message the product, and know where your customers spend time or look for information. Rideshare apps and deodorant alike need these marketing exercises to succeed in the market. Now, I will acknowledge that even though these marketing skills are being used in many companies, they’re not always strictly labeled “product marketing.” In the example of consumer packaged goods (like Unullever, Procter & Gamble, etc.), the title might be Brand Manager instead of PMM. But many of the skills overlap regardless. I’ll also acknowledge that tech product marketing can feel very B2B heavy, but there are many companies that blend tech and B2C marketing well. If you’re looking for ways to build that skill set but are finding tech B2C opportunities limiting, look for DTC ecommerce companies that could fit the bill -- they usually offer a physical good that needs strong PMM work powered by a compelling digital experience.

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 channels. Now, however, customers have many options (and ever expanding), and they’re less willing to spend time trying to figure out how your product solves their problems. PMMs need to do deeper positioning exercises to understand their precise target, their top problems, and how to talk about their product in a way that gets at the WIIFM (“what’s in it for me”) for customers far faster. 📈 Trend: There’s more competition for consumers’ attention at every turn 👀 What’s next: Product marketers need to diversify channels and better understand the customer journey There are now so many outlets and channels competing for attention. From TikTok to streaming platforms and new entrants like BeReal, there are less reliable places to put your bets for marketing dollars. This means you need to expand beyond bread-and-butter channels like Facebook/Instagram and Google to find other avenues that work. Try more experiments with channels and tactics than you have in the past to see where you can strike gold. You also need to better understand how customers make buying decisions. Where do they look for information? What makes them confident in that choice? Google recently reported that Gen Z is using Google Maps less and less to decide where to eat, shop, and explore in cities and is using TikTok more and more. 📈 Trend: The unfavorable economic environment is affecting consumer outlook 👀 What’s next: Product marketers need to speak directly to this and build trust with consumers faster The looming fear of a recession is already affecting consumers’ attitudes and how they think about purchases. If and when a recession does come, it will assuredly impact what customers are willing to spend money on, how long they think about purchase decisions, and how price sensitive they are. Marketers should anticipate this by taking a look at their messaging frameworks and making sure they speak directly to concerns. For instance, it may be a good time to start talking more about savings, value for money, and superior product quality. On top of this, customers will become less willing to part with their dollars overall. That means increased skepticism when evaluating new products. Work to build trust as quickly as possible in your marketing materials to help counteract this. It could come in the form of adding social proof, using authority figures, doing product testing, and beyond.

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 makes sense to develop a deep focus and expertise in either B2C or B2B product marketing. The more knowledge and experience you have, it’s more likely you’ll do better work, have more impact, and get recognized for it. The counterargument is that oftentimes to operate at the most senior level in marketing organizations, you’ll need a working knowledge of both B2C and B2B marketing. For instance, even heavily consumer-oriented products like the meditation app Headspace had to crack B2B distribution to fuel growth. The good news is that, yes, many of the skills are transferable. After all, you’re still trying to understand an audience, identify their needs, position your product accordingly, and figure out what channels will best reach them. The exact execution may vary between B2C and B2B, but the underpinnings are shared. It’s also worth noting that, for better or worse, hiring managers will often use past experience as a quick heuristic to determine if you’d be a good fit. It’s a quick heuristic, and oftentimes people need these kinds of rules of thumb to make a complex hiring process easier to manage. That means if you’re trying to break into B2C and only have B2B experience, you may find it harder to get those interviews. To hedge against this, if you want to broaden your skillset, look for opportunities to work on the other area within your current company. See if someone more senior in that craft can help guide you on that project so you’re absorbing as much as possible. This will help you increase your marketability and storytelling whenever you do want to make the leap. A long answer short: Do the work that best motivates you, and lean into learning opportunities as they arise.

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 a given point in time. * Relative importance: How important is B2B or B2C marketing relative to the other? Are they equally important modes of distribution for the product? If so, it likely makes sense to have dedicated PMMs on each to get the full impact out of them. If your company is largely B2C with occasional or opportunistic B2B work, it probably makes more sense to have PMMs own a product or category end-to-end and take on the periodic B2B work that comes up. * Team capacity: Oftentimes the pragmatic side of things has to play a role in deciding this. Do you have headcount to expand this, or can it wait until there is headcount on the team and reamped up? Or do you need to make do with what you have. If the latter, you probably can’t dedicate PMMs to one or the other but have to share that work within a product focus. * Cost of context switching: How expensive is it to the team to switch back and forth between B2C and B2B audiences and marketing activities? If there’s a decent amount of overlap in the messaging and strategies, the cost of shifting gears throughout the day and weak to get in the audience mindset may be pretty low and sustainable. If they’re very different though, it could be worth carving out dedicated scope for B2C and B2B. I’ve seen many PMMs report increased inefficiency in their work and the impact they’re able to have as they have to juggle too many audiences and workstreams. Ultimately, to summarize the above, solve for the needs of the business at the given time, understand the tradeoffs of different approaches to decide, and be open to it needing to change in the future.

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 make better decisions? Can they empathize with what customers are experiencing? * Marketing fundamentals: Have they ever worked in a marketing function before that could translate well (e.g., a GTM team, partner marketing, consumer marketing)? If they haven’t, have they had to work on large, complicated cross-functional projects where many people need to be rowing in the same direction? * Storytelling ability: Can they tell compelling stories about work that they’ve done, the problem it solved, and the impact it had? Can they help you understand something you know very little about quickly? Can they get to the heart of why something would be valuable to some audience (ideally externally, but even internal audiences can help provide a signal here)? * Ability to influence: Do they have a track record of making cases to cross-functional teams and getting buy in? Can they convince others that their idea is worth paying attention to and prioritizing? Skills that are not specifically related to product marketing work but key to strong performance: * Adaptability/resilience: Can they be flexible when changes happen (whether in market conditions, competition, projects being worked on, or what they’re staffed on)? * Curiosity: Are they always wondering what could work better? What thing to offer customers next? What experiment to try? Why one thing worked and another failed? * Critical thinking: Are they able to take inputs and not just execute against them literally but take them and make it 10X better? * Bias toward action: Do they have a tendency to make things happen rather than sit and wait?

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, though, so you may need to prioritize the highest leverage questions that will give you the most information in helping you decide whether you should pursue the opportunity or not. If there’s only one line of questioning I would encourage you to add into the mix, it would be to get an understanding of how the founders view product marketing and the impact it can have. For instance, do they seem to be expressing that product marketing is a strategic function that can add a lot of value, or is it more tactical around launches? Do they expect product marketing to just come in at the end to coordinate marketing materials for a GTM, or do they believe that PMMs need a seat at the table early in product development to yield the best outcomes? What do they think makes great product marketing? What companies do they think do it well? Some of these you’ll have to ask indirectly, because if asked directly you’ll probably get an unhelpful “sell” answer that’s what you want to hear but is less reflective of how the company actually operates. You need to ask these types of questions because it’ll have a big impact on your personal and professional fulfillment in this role.