The Secret of Winning in Product Marketing? Get Out of the Office

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🚀 The secret to winning in Product Marketing? Get out of office!

Stop relying only on internal reports and secondhand insights to understand your customers.

But isn't market research enough?

"But isn't competitive analysis and sales feedback enough to shape messaging and strategy?" you might ask.

No. ✋

Here's why staying close to customers matters:

❌ Your messaging won't resonate if you don't hear real customer frustrations first hand

❌ Your competitive positioning will be weak because you're missing how customers actually compare solutions

❌ You'll miss critical product adoption barriers that only surface when users interact with the product in real environments

I learned this the hard way!

Early in my career, I relied too much on internal data and assumptions to build marketing strategies.

And at first?

It seemed fine. 👍

We had a strong product specs. 🤩

Sales team were excited. 📈

Until it wasn't. 😱

When I finally visited customers, I saw,

🚨 Work arounds they created to deal with usability gaps
🚨 Missed opportunities to differentiate based on real pain points
🚨 Messaging that didn't address what truly mattered

It was clear: The most valuable insights don't live in spreadsheets. They live in the field.

The key realization 🔑

💡 Great product marketing starts where the customers are.

If you're not regularly engaging with them on-site, you're guessing, and not strategizing.

How do you know if you're close enough to customers?

Ask yourself,

✔️ Have I visited at least one customer this quarter?
✔️ Do I understand how customers actually use our product in real environments?
✔️ Have I spoken to service team and customer support team about recurring issues
✔️ Can I confidently say why a customer chose or rejected our product?
Have I documented and shared customer-driven insights with R&D and Sales?

Customer engagement isn't "Nice to have" its a competitive advantage.

If you ignore it, you're not just missing insights, you're risking product-market fit, weak messaging, and lost deals.

Make it a priority, because the closer you are to customers, the stronger your impact will be.

Do you think product marketing teams prioritize direct custome interaction enough?