The Ultimate Guide to Product Marketing Roadmaps (with Examples)

A product marketing roadmap is a document that can refine your product-to-market journey and make or break your product’s market visibility. 

Now, that’s enough to know that having a product marketing roadmap isn’t up for debate!

If you mean business, then it’s time to make one. 

This article will go over:

• The value of a marketing roadmap and what exactly it is. We’ll cut to the chase, no dilly-dallying.
• A review of the many types of product marketing roadmaps and which to choose.
• A step-by-step guide on creating a meat and potatoes roadmap with serious strategy. 

What is a Product Marketing Roadmap?

Take a minute and close your eyes. Think about what it’s like to have to deal with product marketing – got the picture? A product marketing roadmap will help you deal with this pain in the you-know-where.

This kind of roadmap is a timeline-based plan that sketches out the path from the start of your marketing efforts until its final launch. It loops in any goal-critical tasks, go-to-market strategies (how you’ll get there), and workflow rundowns (what needs to be done by whom).

It acts as a great, all-encompassing guide, but remember that it’s a living document. It’ll evolve, change, there’ll be hypothetical white-out marks and scribbles all over it, and this dynamic nature will serve to tap into any changes in messaging and promo and pricing strategies.

The 5 Types of Product Marketing Roadmap

Let’s take a look at five types of product marketing roadmaps that you could use to bolster your strategy:

• Strategy Roadmap: Since the strategy is all about the why, this sort of roadmap pinpoints product goals. How do all your marketing initiatives tie into these goals – can you draw parallels between them and explain why they contribute to your overarching vision? Each market expansion or big update should directly align with a product growth objective.
• Features Roadmap: Every product usually comes with a smorgasbord of feature ideas – it’s only natural, as each team will have a rainbow of ideas to offer. The features roadmap lets each feature take center stage and undergo judging. Each feature should echo the desires of your customer base, backed up by market research and user feedback, and the roadmap will help you develop them to their fullest potential.
• Activities Roadmap: An activities roadmap is pretty much self-explanatory. It’s an operational timeline of any planned work activities required for all stakeholders. Suppose there are digital marketing assets due in Q1. In that case, anyone involved in the team responsible for that will know what activities they need to complete, their priority level, and when they’re due. 
• Audiences Roadmap: Most marketing roadmaps concern your internal team and what you guys need to do to champion your product. But also, it’s not all about you. With the audiences roadmap, you swivel your focus to the users and the buyers. While you might have one main audience base, this roadmap will help you drill down to distinct audience profiles and help you tailor your communication strategies accordingly.
• Storytelling Roadmap: Product marketing can be a dry process, but storytelling roadmaps infuse life and personality into your strategy. It’ll narrate why your product exists, the problems it solves, and how it’ll evolve but laid out through a story arc. It’s easy to end up with a dry document, but storytelling roadmaps craft a product saga that customers and teams can get behind.

Creating a Product Marketing Roadmap

Once you’re ready to whip up your own product marketing roadmap, you can follow these foolproof steps to do so:

1. Figure Out Your Destination: All maps need to have destinations on them, so you’ll have to start by defining yours. So, ask yourself what business goals your product aims to achieve with your customers. Are you looking to expand into new markets, boost sales, or improve your customer satisfaction? Use tried-and-true goal-setting methods like SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound) to lock down on concrete end goals.

2. Know Your Market: Step into your customer’s shoes and walk around. You’d likely get a good idea of their frustrations, sources of happiness, and a genuine empathy for them. Crunching data won’t be able to capture that customer experience quite the same. Define a few customer personas, use extensive market research, and see how you can market your product to the point where they’re thinking, “How did I live without this?”

3. Drafting Your Product Strategy: Now that you’ve got all your insights, your next move is to translate them into a strategy. Take the raw data you’ve extracted and think about the nitty-gritty of your launch: sales strategies, communication tactics, and channels you want to use to get your message across. Consider how you’ll set yourself apart from competitors, ensure your product offers tremendous value, and address your customers’ biggest pain points.
4. Gear Up Your Resources: Your roadmap needs to coincide with the real world. You’ll need to know exactly where your budget, time, and labor is going. With every task on your roadmap, add an accurate estimate of the resources it requires.
5. Get All Stakeholders on Board: Don’t forget you’re not a one-man band – each stakeholder has a role in your symphony. Whether it’s your sales personnel, product design team, or other executives, product marketing won’t succeed without them.
6. Predict Potential Hiccups: The journey won’t be a joyride, so don’t count on it. There are roadblocks relating to resources and potholes where the audience needs to change, and you’ll have to be able to predict these storms before they happen. With a risk management strategy that includes contingency plans to tackle threats and a way to respond, you’ll have a spare tire ready to go and know how to change it too. 
7. Start Your Engines: It’s ready, set, go time, where your strategies will start putting into motion and your roadmap starts its journey from A to B. Go at a steady pace and match the timelines you’ve set out, but stay nimble enough to deal with any detours or demands.
8. Review, Review, Review: Listen to your customers, staff, and intuition, and consistently revisit your map. It’ll need constant reviewing and nurturing to make sure you stay on the ball. Encourage a feedback-friendly environment with your team and keep that continual dialogue going – you won’t regret it.

The PM’s Hot Take

The product marketing roadmap isn’t about predicting the future and adapting to that potentiality – it’s about creating a future for your product and all its constituents. Base your decisions on insight and not instinct. While you might want to use your creativity and gut feeling to give you those lightbulb moments, any decision, big or small, should always be backed by cold, hard data. That way, your roadmap stays strategic rather than reckless.

Conclusion

The product marketing roadmap makes data your co-pilot. It lets everyone know the direction you’re driving in and keeps the journey grounded in reality.

Want to unleash your roadmap’s full potential? Fibery is an all-in-one innovative tool that lets you build your own workspace, with no code required. Try your free 14-day trial today and explore our blog for more product management articles.