💡Finding your path in Tech Marketing?
Your guide to the various roles in Tech Marketing
So, you decided to go into Tech Marketing. You checked online for more knowledge of the field. Boom 💥. Now you’re more confused than before. You see different marketing roles and unfamiliar terms like conversion, acquisition, retention, churn and analytics.
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We will explain those roles in today’s publication.
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Starting a career in Tech Marketing can be intimidating. Tech Marketing is quite different from other industries. The tech world is more dynamic, less predictable and growing at a much faster rate. Also, low barriers to entry gives room for stiff competition and market saturation especially in the African ecosystem where the Total Addressable Market is small.
I can assure you, given the right skills, you can build a lucrative and sustainable career in Tech Marketing.
Below is a picture of Tech Marketing at the different stages in the lifecycle of a product or tech company.
1. Product Marketing
At the core of every tech company is the product or service they provide as a solution. To build a functional product, companies must first determine the needs of the users and their pain points, pricing, product design, user demography and total addressable market. This is the first step in developing a product.
Product marketing focuses on conducting user research to determine the problem and develop a product to solve the problem.
Some of the responsibilities of a product marketer includes:
Working closely with product managers to build a suitable product
Analyzing and interpreting information gotten from market research
Defining customer segments
Creating messaging that gets a product’s benefits across to potential customers
Developing product and go-to-market strategies
Online and Offline marketing
Product marketing is the bridge between product development and marketing. As such Product marketers need to be involved with many aspects of the product development including product design and interface, product features and product launch.
2. Demand and Lead Generation
Now you have a product that has been tested in the market with a few users. It meets their needs and pain points. Next step is to drive traffic to the product for growth and conversion. That’s where Demand and Lead Generation comes in.
For B2B tech companies, Demand and Lead Generation focuses on acquiring new users and customers. Where there may not be a need for the team in a B2C company, they are essential for B2B companies. They work closely with the sales team to optimize a specific part in the marketing and sales funnel.
Responsibilities in this area include:
Data analytics
Social Media Marketing
Driving leads and users to the platform
Working closely with the sales team to understand user demand
3. Channels Marketing
Now that you have user adoption, it’s time to scale. With over 4.66 billion people connected to the internet, tech companies must optimize marketing per channel to scale user adoption and retention. Channels Marketers are subject matter experts for specific channels.
Large tech companies have Channels Marketers that utilize various channels to drive users to the platform. These channels may be web, email, SEO, Blogs and websites, etc. If you are looking to get into this area, my advice would be to generalize at the earlier stages and specialize in one channel where you are most knowledgeable.
Fintech companies with many product features can also have channel marketing teams. Payattitude is a good example. The product is available on the Web, POS, ATM and mobile application. A channels marketing expert could be employed to drive user adoption and growth on the various product channels.
4. Brand Marketing
Brand Marketing is most common for growth stage companies. At this stage, the brand is getting more popular and user adoption is growing. The need to communicate the brand’s message and culture then becomes imminent.
Brand Marketing entails communicating the brand as a whole to the users and general public. This is often done through print media, billboards, TV commercials, brand sponsorships and event marketing. The focus of Brand marketing is brand awareness and changing the public’s attitude to the company.
Brand marketers must express what makes their company different from others. Necessary skills to possess include:
Public Relations skills
Offline Marketing
Event Marketing
Expertise in traditional media
Communications
Branding is a game of consistency and repetition over a long period of time. Brand marketers must effectively communicate the message of the brand to their target audience. Products with large target audience must communicate well enough to suit all demographies in their audience
5. Growth Marketing
Growth marketing is relatively unique to the tech industry. Growth marketers focus on acquiring users and preventing user churn. The ability of a company to acquire and retain users is directly proportionate to growth in revenue. As such, growth marketing is extremely essential to the success of a tech company.
Responsibilities of a growth marketer include:
User acquisition
User retention
User reactivation
Growth analysis
A/B Testing
This team requires the most technical background of all marketing teams
Note: The names of these roles may differ depending on the organization. Smaller tech companies often merge some of these responsibilities into a single role.
How do I start?
Well, starting a career in tech marketing does not require specific qualifications or educational attainments. However, due to the increase in demand for tech jobs, you need to distinguish yourself from the crowd.
You can do this by:
Interning with tech companies
Studying courses online
Building your portfolio and experience
Joining a network of tech marketers
Attending tech events and meeting people in the industry
And lastly don’t forget to apply for as many opportunities as possible irrespective of the requirements. You never know which one would be successful.
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