Power Pal

Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown provides a methodology and playbook for growth hacking, including the team, process, and best practices to make it work. Growth hacking is the process to acquire and retain users with creative and often low-cost strategies, blending marketing, product development, and engineering skills.  Growth hacking takes the lessons of the Lean Startup (which focused on a lean approach to business model and product development) and applies it to customer acquisition, retention, and revenue growth. Part 1: The Method Building Growth Teams The book argues that the traditional organizational structure of companies with product, marketing, design, and engineering being siloed in their own departments results in a lack of communication and collaboration.  This lack of communication and focus makes it difficult to come up with creative approaches to drive user and revenue growth.  By creating a cross-functional growth team, you're able to m...

Product-Led Growth - How to Build a Product That Sells Itself by Wes Bush outlines a framework for how take a product-led growth approach to growing your SaaS business.  The book covers why product-led growth is of growing importance; how to choose between free trial, freemium, and demo approaches to your go-to-market; and practical tactics on how to understand your value, choose your pricing, and common tools-of-the-trade to guide users to experiencing value in your product.  Although it mentions other approaches, the book focuses entirely on making the free-trial approach work. Part 1: Design Your Strategy Why is Product-Led Growth of Rising Importance Product-led growth (PLG) is a go-to-market strategy that relies on using your product as the main vehicle to acquire, activate, and retain customers.  There are three industry changes happening that are driving companies towards PLG: Startups are more expensive to grow: customer acquisition costs (CAC) have gone up (for ...

Loved by Martina Lauchengco focuses on the product marketing discipline and is part of the Silicon Valley Product Group series of books.  The book outlines the four fundamentals of the role and includes several frameworks and examples.  The book is on the longer side, glosses over some subjects, and wanders a bit between topics (kind of like a series of unrelated blog posts), so I'll summarize the highlights here in my own way and take liberty in adding my own thoughts.  So don't take this as a direct summary, instead just me filling in some blanks. What is product marketing? Lauchengco provides a definition of product marketing: Product marketing's purpose is to drive product adoption by shaping market perception through strategic marketing activities that meet business goals. Fundamentals of the Role She outlines four fundamentals of the role: Gather and Share Customer & Market Insights Market Sense Product marketers need to develop a deep sense for the market and ...

Another book I found on a product marketing suggested reading list was Product Marketing Debunked by Yasmeen Turayhi.  The book covers provides a framework for commercializing products, with an emphasis on product marketing's role in creating effective go-to-market (GTM) plans for new or early-stage ideas.  It's a short read and split between outlining what roles product marketers typically play, including when they should be hired, and outlining a GTM framework for new products, including templates for typical deliverables and artifacts. Why You Need a Product Marketer & What They Do The goal of a product marketing manager is summarized as follows: deliver the right product to the target customer at the right time to ensure customer adoption Product marketers are responsible for customer research and validation from alpha to launch, the GTM plan, building the value proposition, competitive intel, and the marketing programs necessary to launch.  In the early days of ...