Product strategy: This Substack is the first product
I need a product to market. Let's build one together.
As it turns out, it’s not the product marketer who creates the product strategy. The product manager does. But since this is a scrappy one-woman show, I’m going to do it myself so I’ll have a foundation for building a go-to-market (GTM) strategy off of.
Below, I’ve created a very basic product overview and explored:
What the product is
What form it will take
Why it’s useful (and for whom)
Product definition
A collection of practical exercises and theoretical knowledge on product marketing management.
Value proposition
Acquiring knowledge, skills, and inspiration by following the personal upskilling journey of a content marketer, from learning the basics to becoming a trusted voice in the PMM space.
Creating a repository of tried and true practical knowledge using free and affordable resources, books, expert interviews, and personal experience.
Product features
On-demand content collections following a chronological journey
Subscription button to enable the audience to follow along
New content notifications flow (via email)
Useful resources sections showcasing helpful material used to put together each content piece
Next steps suggestions (what to read/watch next)
Audience
Main: Content marketing professionals (such as content writers, content managers, content leads, etc.) look for upskilling opportunities and possible new job titles that allow them to build on top of the core skills they acquired so far (such as storytelling, brand and product messaging, marketing knowledge, etc.).
Secondary: Beginner to mid-level PMMs trying to fill knowledge gaps or just curious about how other people approach PMM. PMMs interested in helping out by sharing knowledge and providing feedback.
Main audience pain points include:
Validating interest in topic (product-market fit, I guess?)
Of course, I already knew there was interest in the topic because I’ve been obsessively watching YouTube channels teaching product marketing.
But just to show off a little…
As a content marketer, I’m using my skillset to my advantage to validate ideas and discover interest in topics related to my product (hello SEO). To see if people are interested in switching to a PMM career, I plugged the query “ from Content Marketing to PMM” into Google and looked at the SERPs.
The first ranking position (right under the AI overview) is a Reddit post, indicating the intent favoring personal experience, SME advice, and human input. Same goes for the third position: a blog exploring the career pivoting journey of Nizam Yusuf, a real person, from Head of Content Marketing to a Product Marketing Manager role.
This gets 7 monthly visits, according to Ahrefs. Not great, but interest is there, which is good. Plus, traffic means shit following the rollout of Google’s AIO. All websites are seeing a dramatic traffic decrease. What’s more interesting for me is the keywords this piece is ranking for and the monthly volume these have. I only care about the interest in the topic being real. Although zero-volume keywords still bring value and sometimes pretty good traffic, at this stage of the project, I want to know that what I’m doing has the potential of being visible and helpful.
The second position, however, approaches the same story differently: not that personal. Instead of following a single person’s journey, it features a collection of subject matter expert quotes. This validates my plan of doing SME interviews, among other content formats. Traffic is there (although low), and keywords show interest. I’m happy.
Discovering that there’s actual organic interest will influence my content delivery and distribution strategy, meaning SEO is worth the effort. (Not as of now, though. Content strategy comes later in the process.) Plus, Substack is indexed by Google.
MVP GTM Channel
This might seem a bit backwards, but before going full-on into GTM frameworks, resources, and best practices, I have to launch the product so I have an outlet to document my learning journey.
I need to decide where this product will initially live.
I’ll do this with the knowledge I have because I don’t want to get sidetracked into infinite research loops (for now). I just made a table with my main options and things I’d like to take into account to discover the winning channels.
Options include:
Substack
YouTube
Personal website
Linkedin
Based on my current knowledge, I judged each option based on:
Whether my audience is already there or not
If the channel supports all content formats I plan to create
The time and skills required to produce the content format and learn the ins and outs of each channel
The visibility potential as of now
Why I’m not launching this on YouTube or a personal website
Because I don’t know how to edit videos, don’t have proper equipment (yet), and don’t plan on producing only video content, YouTube is not the way to go.
Almost the same goes for a personal website—although I have the skills to create one, I don’t want to waste time on overthinking design and starting to build an audience organically, battling established brands and AI overviews for ranking. Considering the high search volatility, traffic drops, and overall uncertainty in the content marketing world, I don’t think now is the time to create and rank new websites.
Why Substack and LinkedIn are the winning GTM channels (for now)
The winners are Substack (shoker as you read this on Substack, I know) and LinkedIn. I’m going to write on Substack and do some social pushes on LinkedIn. That’s it. That’s the plan for launching the MVP.
Now, let’s briefly look at how things are going on Substack in terms of product marketing: Is there interest? To answer this, I just typed “product marketing” in the search bar and looked at the subscriber count to the first results.
Conclusion: Yes, there’s interest around the topic. Yay me.
Next steps in order of priority
✅ Post 0: Introduce myself and the product
Now that I know what I’m doing and I have a basic plan, I need to write an introductory post to inform my audience about:
Who I am and what I do
What this Substack (aka *the product*) is about
Why you, my audience, should follow along
If you’re thinking of pivoting to a PMM job, the steps below could double as a roadmap for your own journey.
✅ Do a thorough competitor analysis
In the book I’m reading about positioning, the author says a common pitfall behind product failure is building in a void, ignoring the competition.
I need to check who my competition is, what they’re doing, and figure out how I can differentiate myself.
✅ Figure out name, positioning, and messaging
Share the notes I took while reading the positioning book and apply them to my product.
✅ Create a sales deck…for myself
After I figure out positioning and messaging, I want to create a standardized intro for all of my Substack posts through which readers can quickly understand what’s going on without reading post 0.
I’ll also need a spot-on cold pitch for when I reach out to people on LinkedIn for SME interviews.
✅ Outline the GTM plan and define success
Decide how to distribute and grow this Substack based on positioning, competitor insights, and chosen channels.
Define objectives, KPIs, and milestones.
Lots to do! If you’re curious to see where this whole journey is going, follow along and learn with me.