Product Marketing Audit SKILL.md

This is the exact file agents read, including the credit header and licence notice. Save it as product-marketing-audit/SKILL.md.

---
name: product-marketing-audit
description: "Audit the product marketing function end to end: positioning, messaging consistency across website, ads, sales deck and demo, ideal customer profile, customer insight, win-loss, competitive intelligence, pricing and packaging, launches, sales enablement usage, customer proof and partners, scored with evidence and turned into a 90-day plan. Use whenever someone asks for a product marketing audit, why win rates are falling, why sales and marketing tell different stories, where to start as a new PMM, or a review of positioning, messaging and go-to-market."
license: CC-BY-4.0
metadata:
  author: Afeez Adebayo
  author_url: https://afeezadebayo.com
  author_linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afeez-adebayo/
  author_x: https://x.com/za_icon
  source: https://afeezadebayo.com/skills-md/marketing/product-marketing/product-marketing-audit/
  category: marketing
  subcategory: product-marketing
  version: "1.0.0"
  created: "2026-10-10"
  updated: "2026-10-10"
---

# Product Marketing Audit

Product marketing sits between product, sales and marketing, which is why it so often drifts. Positioning gets written once for a fundraising deck and never revisited. Messaging differs between the website, the sales deck and what account executives actually say. Nobody can name the ideal customer in one sentence. Launches happen as announcements rather than go-to-market motions. Sales asks for battlecards that never arrive. The result is a product that may be good, described in a way that doesn't help the right buyers choose it.

This skill audits the whole product marketing function in one pass: positioning, messaging, ideal customer profile, customer and market insight, competitive intelligence, pricing and packaging, launches, sales enablement, customer proof and partnerships. It scores each area, finds the gaps that cost the most revenue and hands each finding to a specialist skill. It is the entry point for the Product Marketing and GTM set.

## Operating principles
1. **Start from the buyer.** Every area is judged by whether it helps the right buyer understand, choose and buy.
2. **Consistency across touchpoints.** The website, ads, sales deck, demo and onboarding should tell the same story.
3. **Evidence over opinion.** Win-loss data, interviews and usage data beat internal debate.
4. **Positioning before messaging.** Words can't fix an unclear market category or target customer.
5. **Enablement is measured by use.** Content sales never opens doesn't exist.

## The ten areas
| Area | What to check | Typical finding |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Positioning | Category, target customer, alternatives, differentiators, value | Positioned against everyone; no clear best-fit customer |
| 2. Messaging | Value proposition, pillars, proof, consistency across channels | Website talks features; sales talks outcomes; ads talk price |
| 3. Ideal customer profile | Firmographics, buying triggers, personas, disqualifiers | ICP describes who the team wishes would buy, not who retains |
| 4. Customer insight | Interviews, jobs to be done, reviews, usage data | No interviews in the last year |
| 5. Win-loss | Why deals are won and lost | Losses blamed on price without evidence |
| 6. Competitive intelligence | Competitor tracking, battlecards, differentiation | Battlecards two years out of date |
| 7. Pricing and packaging | Value metric, tiers, plan fit, discounting | Most customers on the wrong plan; heavy discounting |
| 8. Launches and GTM | Tiering, readiness, cross-team plans, measurement | Every release treated the same; no post-launch review |
| 9. Sales enablement | Decks, talk tracks, objection handling, training, usage | Content stored in five places; reps build their own decks |
| 10. Customer proof and partners | Case studies, references, reviews, partner programmes | Case studies with no numbers; partners untrained |

## When to use, and when not to
Use it when a new head of product marketing joins, when win rates fall, when sales and marketing tell different stories, before a repositioning, before a major launch and during annual planning.

Don't use it to write positioning from scratch (`positioning`), to plan one launch (`product-launch`) or for website conversion work (the Conversion Rate Optimization skills).

## Inputs to ask for, in one message
1. Company, products, pricing and revenue model; target segments.
2. Current positioning statement, messaging documents and the homepage, pricing page and sales deck.
3. CRM data: win rates, deal sizes, sales cycle, loss reasons, by segment.
4. Customer research from the last 12 months: interviews, surveys, reviews, NPS comments.
5. Competitor list and existing battlecards.
6. Launch history and enablement materials, with usage data if available.
7. Retention and expansion data by segment.

## Workflow

### Step 1. Gather the story as told
Collect the positioning, homepage, pricing page, sales deck, demo script, top ads and onboarding emails. Note how each describes the product, the customer and the value.

### Step 2. Check consistency
Compare the category, target customer, main value and proof points across every touchpoint. Mark contradictions.

### Step 3. Test positioning against data
Do the best-retaining, highest-value customers match the stated target? Does win-loss data support the claimed differentiators?

### Step 4. Review customer insight
When did the team last talk to customers and lost prospects? Are jobs, triggers and objections documented?

### Step 5. Review competition
Are competitors tracked? Are battlecards current, used and accurate?

### Step 6. Review pricing and packaging
Value metric, plan distribution, upgrade paths, discount levels and price-related losses.

### Step 7. Review launches and enablement
How launches are tiered and measured; where enablement lives, how often it's used and how reps rate it.

### Step 8. Review proof and partners
Case studies, references, review site presence and partner readiness.

### Step 9. Score and plan
Score each area 0 to 3; rank fixes by revenue at stake and effort; build a 90-day plan.

## Scoring rubric
| Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | Missing or contradicted by evidence |
| 1 | Exists but outdated, inconsistent or unused |
| 2 | Solid, documented and mostly used |
| 3 | Evidence-based, consistent everywhere and reviewed regularly |

## Consistency check template
```
| Touchpoint | Category used | Target customer | Main value claim | Proof shown | Matches positioning? |
| Homepage | ... | ... | ... | ... | Yes / Partly / No |
| Sales deck | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Top ad | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Demo script | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
```

## Signals that positioning is the real problem
- Long sales cycles with many "no decision" outcomes.
- Prospects compare you with a category you don't belong in.
- Win rates high in one segment and poor everywhere else.
- Sales reps rewrite the pitch for every deal.
- Low conversion from demo to opportunity despite good traffic.
When several appear, fix positioning before messaging or enablement.

## Edge cases and judgement calls
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| Early-stage startup with few customers | Focus on positioning and customer insight; skip heavy enablement |
| Product-led company with little sales | Emphasise onboarding, in-product messaging and pricing pages |
| Several products or segments | Audit each product-segment pair separately |
| Enterprise sales with long cycles | Weight win-loss, enablement and proof more heavily |
| Recent acquisition or merger | Audit both stories and plan a unified narrative |

## Handoffs to specialist skills
- Positioning: `positioning`
- Messaging: `messaging-framework`
- ICP and personas: `ideal-customer-profile`
- Customer research: `customer-research-interviews`
- Win-loss: `win-loss-analysis`
- Competitors: `competitive-intelligence`
- GTM planning: `go-to-market-plan`
- Launches: `product-launch`
- Pricing: `pricing-packaging`
- Enablement: `sales-enablement`
- Proof: `case-studies-customer-proof`
- Partners: `partner-marketing`

## Worked example
A B2B analytics company saw win rates fall from 28% to 19% in a year. The audit found the homepage positioned it as an "all-in-one data platform", the sales deck as a "BI tool for finance teams" and ads as "cheaper than Tableau". Win-loss interviews showed it won when finance teams needed fast month-end reporting and lost when it was compared with broad BI suites. Battlecards were 18 months old and rarely opened. The plan repositioned around finance reporting for mid-market companies, rebuilt messaging and the sales deck around that story, refreshed battlecards with win-loss evidence and set a quarterly review. Win rates in the target segment recovered over the next two quarters.

## Output format
```
# Product marketing audit: <company>, <date>
## Summary (biggest gap, biggest opportunity, first moves)
## Consistency check across touchpoints
## Area scores
| Area | Score 0-3 | Key findings | Evidence |
## 90-day plan
| # | Action | Area | Revenue at stake | Effort | Skill | Owner | Re-check |
```

## Common mistakes
- Rewriting messaging before fixing positioning.
- Relying on internal opinions instead of win-loss and interviews.
- Measuring enablement by content produced rather than used.
- Treating every launch the same.
- Ignoring how sales actually describes the product.

## Questions to ask before you recommend changes
- Which customers retain and expand best, and why did they buy?
- Why do you lose deals, according to buyers rather than reps?
- What does each team say when asked what the product is and who it's for?

## Self-check before you answer
- Did I compare the story across every major touchpoint?
- Is positioning tested against retention and win-loss data?
- Is each finding backed by evidence?
- Does every action have a skill, owner and re-check date?

## Further reading
- April Dunford, Obviously Awesome (2019) and Sales Pitch (2023)
- Product Marketing Alliance resources: https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/

---
Created by Afeez Adebayo, Marketing, SEO & Growth Expert
Website: https://afeezadebayo.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afeez-adebayo/
X: https://x.com/za_icon
Source: https://afeezadebayo.com/skills-md/marketing/product-marketing/product-marketing-audit/

Licence: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). You may copy, share and adapt this skill, including for commercial use, as long as you credit Afeez Adebayo and link to the source URL above. Keep this notice in any copy or adapted version.