If you are growing your company, or are thinking about starting a company — in any industry — you need to understand your market; you need product management. If you desire to improve your company’s success, you need product management. Whether your product is a product, services, solution or other type of offering, you need product management. Whether you call it ‘product management’ or use some other name, you need the discipline to of understanding your market instilled in the company. To succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy, you need to understand your market.

Product marketing makes an important contribution to knowing your markets (for the company) and having success with product releases. My friend Kim Gusta wrote a recent post on the importance knowing your buyers has on understanding the market. She says: “Product marketers have the buyer knowledge to create really good content…. Without this essential knowledge, the organization creates generic content that doesn’t engage anyone.”

Regardless of how you go about it, you have to know your market and message your product in a way that compels customers.

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The Product Management Perspective: As product managers you already know the importance of understanding your market. Get involved in your local product management association and/or product camps, and help spread the word.