Is Your Product Marketing Broken? The Reason Why is Hiding in a Guns & Roses Album

Tell us if this sounds familiar: You spend months (maybe even years) completely revamping your product. And yet, when you finally release it to the world… crickets.

So who’s to blame?

Is it the marketer who couldn’t properly convey why this new release was so revolutionary? Or is it the product team who lost sight of what the customer really wants? Or both?

As it turns out, Guns & Rose's infamous album Chinese Democracy suffered from many of the same problems. Let’s dig into that album and other topics related to product marketing to get some answers.

Where can product marketing go wrong?

As we’ve already established, product marketing doesn’t always go smoothly. In fact, if you’re reading this article chances are you’ve had at least one experience where it falls flat on its face. So, what happened?

Here’s where product marketing often fails:

The messaging is wrong

Sometimes marketers think they know why customers want or need a new feature—but often times they’re just plain wrong. They promote the feature and tout all these benefits that they perceive to be important, only for the campaign to flop.

In this case, it’s not the feature that’s the problem, it’s the message. The marketers never did customer research to determine what the true benefit was. Or, perhaps the product team never properly explained why they were building the feature in the first place. As a result, the customers weren’t excited about the release—even if it’s something they actually wanted.

No one asked for the product or feature

Bad product marketing isn’t always the marketer's fault. They can shout from the rooftops all they want, but if the product doesn’t actually provide any value to customers there’s not much they can do.

Just like the problem with messaging, this is caused by not listening to the customer. In this case, it’s the product team that thinks they know best. They make assumptions about their users and hand marketers a new product that nobody asked for. When this happens, it shouldn’t be any surprise when the campaign fails.

You’re not all on the same page

When you’re releasing a new product or feature your entire business needs to be in sync. What is the new release? Why are you building it? What are the primary benefits for the user? If every area of your business can’t answer these questions there are going to be problems.

When product, marketing, and sales teams don’t collaborate, messaging can become disjointed, leading to confusion among customers. Additionally, siloed teams miss valuable insights. For example, product development may overlook critical feedback from sales, resulting in features that don’t align with customer needs.

“I do think sometimes it gets lost in translation from going from product into marketing. The products team is very excited about X, Y, and Z functionality, and it's like gibberish to the rest of us. I feel is where we can kind of miss the mark a little bit, not only internally but then externally.”

Stacy Dally, Director of Revenue Operations, Leadpages

Customer feedback is ignored

Beta releases give product managers and developers valuable feedback on new releases. But this feedback is also critical for marketers. Unfortunately, marketers don’t always take advantage of this feedback as much as they should.

Without input from customers or sales teams, marketers may continue using ineffective messaging, which puts them at risk of being out of touch with customers’ needs. Staying up to date with the most recent customer feedback ensures that marketing stays adaptable, allowing teams to pivot and refine strategies based on what’s working—and what’s not.

Focusing on features over benefits

It’s tempting to show off all the fancy new features of a product. And while this should certainly be part of your marketing strategy it shouldn’t be the sole focus. Remember, it’s not just about what you’re offering—it’s also about why your customers should care. When customers can’t see how a feature benefits them, they lose interest and move on to more relatable options.

Only showcasing features also limits the emotional connection with customers. People buy based on how a product solves their problems or improves their lives, not because of its specs. By failing to highlight the real-world impact of features, you miss the opportunity to show value, which might cause some customers to overlook the release.

You’re too slow

Marketing isn’t always about the concept or messaging. Sometimes, it has as much to do with timing as anything else. It sucks, but often the person that’s first to market will get all the glory.

If a product launches too late, customers may already be using similar alternatives, making it harder to differentiate or convince them to switch. Delays can also lead to missed opportunities, especially if the product no longer addresses current market trends or customer needs. As consumer preferences shift, what was once a groundbreaking feature may become irrelevant.

Chinese Democracy: A classic case of failed product marketing

We could use a number of product releases as great examples of why product marketing fails—but let’s turn to the music industry. If you’re a fan of rock, or even music in general, you’ve likely heard about Chinese Democracy. This was the infamous album that was hyped up for 14 years, only to disappoint fans everywhere upon release.

So, what happened? Well, a lot of the mistakes we just discussed apply to Chinese Democracy.

The band’s inconsistent messaging contributed to the problem. Over the years, release dates were repeatedly promised and then missed, eroding trust in the brand. Meanwhile, the constant changes in band members made it feel less like the iconic Guns N' Roses and more like a solo project from frontman Axel Rose, which is not what fans of the band were looking for.

More so than anything though, the prolonged development is what really killed the album. By the time it was finally released, public interest had significantly dwindled. Simply put, the music industry had moved on. The long delay created expectations that were impossible to meet.

“I think there's this idea that we have to accept that we're always not right. And I think Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses thought they were right the whole time, and they refused to accept the fact that others might look at it differently.  And our product marketing is quite similar. Like, ‘I have this great story just locked up. They're going to love it when it hits the market, because why wouldn't they?’ But it doesn't always work that way.”

Ryan Truax, VP of Marketing, Leadpages

How to fix your product marketing

Okay, so now we know what can go wrong with product marketing and the negative results of not doing it right. So, how do we fix it? If you ask experienced product marketers, you might hear some of the following advice:

• Know your audience: Understand your target customers’ pain points, needs, and behaviors. Tailor your messaging to their specific challenges to build excitement and increase engagement.
• Create a clear value proposition: Make sure your product’s unique selling point is clear and concise. Your value proposition should explain why your product stands out in a crowded market.
• Refine your messaging with feedback: Regularly collect and analyze feedback from customers and sales teams to fine-tune your marketing strategy.
• Use competitor research: Keep an eye on competitors’ strategies to understand what works and what doesn’t in your industry. Also use your research to identify opportunities for differentiation.
• Test and optimize: Continuously test different messaging, channels, and formats to find what resonates most with your audience. Be prepared to pivot if your original messaging doesn’t resonate with your audience.
• Develop consistent messaging across channels: Ensure that your product’s message is consistent across all marketing channels—web, email, social, and sales. Consistency builds trust and reinforces your brand identity.

All great advice. However, there’s another approach that you likely haven’t considered but could be just what you need to revitalize your product marketing.

Want to dive deeper into product marketing? Check out episode 1 of our new podcast On the Record for an in depth conversion on the topic.

Are smaller iterative releases the solution you’ve been looking for?

Bigger isn’t always better. Sure, a massive product update looks impressive—but what if you could achieve the same results with a small release that takes a fraction of the time?

Here are a few reasons why this strategy can solve a lot of your product marketing problems:

Small updates can have a big impact

It’s often surprising what customers care about. Marketers get jazzed about the big stuff—the flashy new UX, the exciting new tool that’s super trendy, or the state-of-the-art technology that’s powering the latest feature. Meanwhile, customers have been asking for a small and simple update for years that’s continually overlooked.

The truth is, if you just listened to your customers and made the simple changes they’ve been asking for you’d probably get just as big a reaction from them (maybe even more). And instead of bundling smaller updates into larger releases, give customers what they want now and release them bit by bit. That way, you can give them the attention they deserve and always have something to talk about. Which brings us to our next point.

Keep the momentum going

The other problem with big releases is that they leave you with large amounts of time where there’s not a lot to talk about. It also gives the impression that your product isn’t evolving. Sure, your team might be working overtime developing a slew of awesome new features—but if there’s a year between releases it might seem like not a lot is happening.

Wouldn’t it be better if the marketing team always had something to, well… market? Sure, smaller releases might not seem as big a deal as the larger ones. But like we already established, they’re often a bigger deal than you think. Plus, the right messaging can get users excited about virtually anything, and that’s exactly what you pay your marketing team to do.

More engagement

The longer your product stays the same the more stale it gets. Sometimes, users need a reason to come back to it. A new update or release, even a small one, does just that. It encourages customers to keep logging in to try out the new features and reminds them why they signed up for your product in the first place.

If you’re frequently updating your product, users are also more likely to check in with you. They’ll want to stay up-to-date with what you’re working on, which will likely lead to more engagement on your social channels and emails.

It gives you more opportunities to get feedback

Customer feedback is arguably a marketer’s most valuable asset. Not only do you find out what they like and dislike, you also get to hear how they talk about these things. This is critical, as it allows you to craft a message that speaks their language, giving you a much better chance of resonating with your audience.

If you batch all your updates together you’ll still get feedback—but it will all be after the fact and likely too late to act on. By making incremental updates and getting feedback as you go, you can start incorporating feedback into future releases and continue to hone your messaging.

“I think one of the things that we can do to get a better feedback loop is smaller, iterative releases, which gives you a chance now as a marketer, to go out and talk to the customer before we're shouting from the rooftops that we've changed the industry. Because oftentimes we have an idea of what we want to do, what the endpoint is. But that might not be the right answer. And so these iterative releases help us get to something much bigger.”

Michael Sacca, CEO, Leadpages

It’s less risky

We started this article with a scenario you’ve likely found yourself in before. The big massive update that you and your team have poured a lot of time and resources into, only to be met with silence upon release. Now you’ve essentially wasted months on something that’s not delivering the results you expected.

This is where smaller releases offer their biggest advantage. If you only spend a few weeks or a month on something there’s not as much riding on it. If it doesn’t make a big impact it’s not the end of the world. Plus, you can collect feedback and do better on your next release. So in theory, every release should get better and align closer with what your audience is actually looking for.

It gives customers hope

The longer you go between releases the more your customers will wonder if they’ll ever get the updates they’ve been asking for. Sometimes, even a partial update is better than no update at all.

Could this approach have fixed Chinese Democracy?

Taking 17 years to make an album is never ideal. However, perhaps the end result would have been better if they had taken a more iterative approach.

By releasing singles during development and garnering feedback, they could have adapted to current music trends, rather than taking over a decade to release an album that felt like it was two decades old.

It also would have done a better job of setting expectations for the album, which turned out to be a cautionary tale of how to overpromise and underdeliver.

Would this have completely saved Chinese Democracy? Tough to say, but it certainly couldn’t have made it any worse.

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