I confess… I am rapidly coming to depend on AI tools like ChatGPT4o and Canva to assist in a wide range of ideating, research, analysis, designing, planning, writing, and editing tasks. Product marketing-related projects that used to take days now take hours, and hours turn into minutes. As someone who enjoys strategic projects and tolerates administrative and repetitive work, it’s been transformative.

Many peers in Product Marketing have enjoyed a similar productivity boost. Professionals in heavily resource-constrained organizations often operate in a state of draconian triage, working only on the highest of top priority projects. Now instead of reaching only 10-20% of the most urgent work, they’re able to extend to more like 40-60% of their critical workload. It’s a game changer and an opportunity to expand professional value.

With so many technology and financial services companies making deep cuts into Product Marketing teams over the past 18 months, is this an attempt to get by on fewer headcount by leveraging efficiencies from AI platforms?

For at least a few technology companies, the answer was: Yes.

But for most of the product marketing teams hit hard by recent workforce reductions, I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding amongst major business consulting companies advising on RIPs, as well as some company Finance professionals for whom Product Marketers are merely cost lines on a spreadsheet.

While Product Marketing jobs started appearing more frequently a decade ago, McKinsey just released a study last month describing Product Marketing as a “new profession”. We face a disconnect on so many fronts.

Product Marketers (PMMs) typically come into the profession from Marketing, Product Management, Consulting or Sales experience. They normally have an MBA and a business background. To be successful, a PMM needs to have high emotional intelligence and the ability to communicate through all available means. They need to fluidly navigate between tactical enablement projects and strategic initiatives. They launch new products, but are often involved with the full GTM from ideation to post-launch growth. A PMM needs to deeply understand their customers and be able to dive into data analytics as well. As a conduit between Product, Sales and Marketing, PMMs relentlessly focus on optimizing sustainable growth. It’s a multi-faceted, complex role, but when executed well facilitates significant additional revenue.

If you’re a Product Marketer looking to raise both your value and visibility, here’s my advice:

1. Measure Direct Financial Impact and Communicate it to Leadership.
   Even if you feel that your value as a PMM is understood, track hard numbers like launch metrics, as well as any influence on revenue. Tableau has great AI to bring out insights from your CRM data.
2. Transparently Share Project Lists Among Stakeholders.
   Highlight completed work, active projects, and the full backlog. This ensures that various requesters of PMM deliverables (Sales, Marketing, Product, etc.) understand the fuller PMM workload and not just their requests.
3. Invest Not Only in the Core AI Tools, but in More Specialized Types of AI.
   By now, everyone has their favorite Content/Copywriting Tool (ex. ChatGPT, Jasper, Copy.ai) and Graphics Generator (ex. Canva, Firefly). There are new tools for:
   1. Competitive analysis (ex. Crayon and Kompyte)
   2. Personalization and customer engagement (Dynamic Yield and Optimove)
   3. Data Analysis and Market Research (ex. Continuous AI, Tableau and Crimson Hexagon)
4. Stay Current with Advances in Product Marketing.
   Our profession continues to evolve rapidly. One of the best sources of best practices is the Product Marketing Alliance. Join as a member to access their resource portal and if possible, attend one of their conferences.

Thanks to rapid improvements, AI today is a highly valuable productivity toolset for Product Marketers. That said, it has a very long way to go before replacing the need for emotionally intelligent and strategically-minded product marketers.