92. Product marketing’s secret role in SaaS success

The Unicorny Marketing Show

In this episode of The Unicorny Marketing Show, we pull back the curtain on a crucial, yet often overlooked, role in marketing: product marketing. Host Dom Hawes sits down with Leonard Burger to explore how product marketers act as the glue that binds sales, engineering, customer success, and strategy.

With product marketing well-established in the US but still emerging in the UK, this conversation digs into the core responsibilities that product marketers handle every day—simplifying complex products, aligning internal teams, and ensuring the customer’s voice drives business decisions.

Key points:

• Product marketing as the essential glue between departments.
• The phases of product marketing, from internal conversations to messaging and deployment.
• Product marketers’ role in bridging gaps between teams, including sales, engineering, and customer success.
• How side hustles can contribute to the core roles in marketing.

If you're curious about the wider role of product marketing, this episode will shed light on how it influences various parts of a business.

About Leonard Burger

Leo is a product marketing specialist by day and fintech geek by night. Currently active in fintech marketing, his professional experience spans across multiple industries and countries. Besides marketing he also has a passion for startups, innovation and venture capital.

Links

Full show notes: Unicorny.co.uk

LinkedIn: Leonard Burger | Dom Hawes

Website: Leonard Burger bio

Sponsor: Selbey Anderson

Other items referenced in this episode:

Product Marketing Misunderstood by Richard King and Bryony Pearce

The Customer-Funded Business by John Mullins

Chapter summaries

The Role of Product Marketing in Business

Dom Hawes introduces the episode, focusing on product marketing's role as a key connector between different business functions. Leonard Burger, the guest, is introduced.

Leonard's Journey into Product Marketing

Leonard shares his career journey, from starting as a pricing analyst to becoming a product marketer, and explains the unique responsibilities that come with this role.

Key Qualities of a Product Marketer

Leonard discusses the essential traits for product marketers, including curiosity and the ability to understand technical details while connecting them to broader business goals.

Defining product marketing and its core responsibilities

Leonard explains how product marketing evolved from the tech sector, especially in Silicon Valley, and its role in connecting technical and strategic elements within a company.

Product marketing misunderstood

Leonard talks about the misconceptions surrounding product marketing in Europe and discusses how positioning and messaging are the core responsibilities of the role.

The four-phase plan for product marketing

Dom summarises Leonard's process for successful product marketing: understanding the product, crafting a message, identifying the audience, and developing product demos.

Product marketers as the bridge between departments

Leonard explains how product marketing builds bridges between departments like engineering, sales, and customer success, helping everyone work cohesively toward product success.

The challenges of aligning product marketing with other functions

Leonard discusses the challenges product marketers face in aligning with other teams and the time it takes to show the long-term value of product marketing.

The importance of face-to-face collaboration

Leonard stresses the importance of maintaining regular, informal communication within the office to keep marketing aligned with other departments, especially in a hybrid work environment.

Internal marketing of products

Leonard highlights the often-overlooked role of marketing products internally, ensuring that everyone in the organisation understands the product's value and story.

Wrapping up: Product marketing as strategic marketing

Dom highlights that product marketing now covers many traditional marketing roles, focusing on cross-department connections and consistent messaging both internally and externally.