Product Marketing, Simplified: A Customer-Centric Approach to Take a Product to Market

by Srini Sekaran

" A must-read for anybody that wants to learn about the art and science of this role."
— Jeevan Patil, Head of Product Marketing, Cisco Meraki
"Whether you're starting out or are a product marketing leader already, this book will really help you [..] make an impact. "
— Anuneet Kumar, VP of Product Marketing, Salesforce


A comprehensive guide to product marketing — from messaging to influencing the product roadmap. Learn how to launch products, deliver value to the right customer, and grow your business.

Whether you're looking to become a product marketer, a product manager, or an entrepreneur, this is the handbook you need to learn how to deliver value and take a product to market the right way.

Product Marketing, Simplified

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

203 pages, Paperback

Published July 19, 2020

Reviews

[Claire]

I just so happened to want to learn more about product marketing and stumbled across the book. I haven't read any other product marketing reads yet so I have nothing to compare to, but I thought this was a perfect short read. I learned a lot about what product marketing entails and defining a go-to-market strategy. I will definitely be using some of these templates with my team.

[Jonathan Vu]

I like how marketing theory, product management and sales was simplified and made non intimidating. I think it stays true to its cover—making product marketing simple. I liked the examples and the piece on jugaad or unconventional thinking and outcome oriented mindset.

[Joy Zhang]

Fantastic read! Liked that there are real examples and pretty tight (e.g. no tangents). Succint primer on PMM and even product management.

[Melis Atalay]

Best summary of the common frameworks and methods we use in marketing👏🏼

[Katrina]

4/5 overall as it is what is says - PM work simplified. As someone already in the field it didn’t really enhance anything I knew already. This would be an excellent book for someone just getting into marketing that wants to learn foundational concepts but I would look elsewhere if you’d like to learn more about positioning or Go To Market strategies.

[Vivian Schaeffer]

I like the jugaad section and how there are specific examples for every recommendation throughout.

[James]

Overall it was pretty decent. I haven’t read any other books specifically on Product Marketing, and it does a good job providing an overview of what the role involves (and doesn’t). Draws from more authoritative sources on marketing, sales, and product in many places, to good effect. Ties it all together in an easy to read package that provides a useful overview to someone less familiar with some of the basic tenets of marketing.

Three stars because it is only “pretty good.” Could have used better editing. The chapter page numbers in the Table of Contents are about 4 pages off the mark. I noticed a number of typos while reading. In many places he’ll present two different ideas in a short paragraph that seem to have no relationship to each other. “Personas” are kind of out of vogue, but he presents them as state of the art. (In fact an HBR article he references later in the book by Christensen criticizes personas and instead offers “jobs to be done” - Sekaran talks about jobs to be done but doesn’t carry over that criticism of personas into his book.) There are many places where he’ll make a statement like “in this stage of the marketing funnel you’ll want to do these three things” but not really substantiate or explain why we should believe these are the right things. Perhaps if the author was a famous guru in the field I’d blindly follow without asking questions but because he’s not I read it more skeptically. It creates a contrast between the parts where he’s referring to a luminary in the field, and the parts where he’s just saying stuff without substantiating why.

It was still a worthwhile read for me.

[Peter Myantis]

Simple and to the point. Best section is jugaad (chapter 10).

[Andrew]

Found a few solid frameworks for customer segmentation and persona building. This book is for a reader who is looking for a 'get started' guide to PMM work.

[Dane]

A great helicopter ride through the practice.

[Zainab]

Wow