The Deck Nobody Will Ever Open Again

Somewhere in your shared drive is a deck nobody will ever open again. I'd bet money on it.

That's basically what I told a marketer named Gerardo Dada when he interviewed me back in 2014. He asked what marketers still get wrong. I gave him a line I still believe: over 50% of product marketing efforts get wasted. I just don't know which half.

I stole that structure from John Wanamaker, the department store guy who said the same thing about advertising a century ago. Applied to product marketing, I think it's actually worse. An ad at least runs or it doesn't. A product marketing asset can exist forever, sit in a folder named "Messaging_FINAL_v3_reallyfinal.pptx", and do absolutely nothing, for years, undisturbed.

The only tell I've come to trust: if sales isn't using it, it was wasted. Doesn't matter how sharp the positioning, how many stakeholders signed off, how many hours went into the deck.

I still don't have a clean way to know in advance which half it'll be. Mostly I just try to shorten the feedback loop, fewer big launches, more quick checks with the people actually in front of customers, before investing in the polish.

What's sitting in your product marketing right now that nobody but the person who made it has ever opened?