Why Product Marketers Need to Unlearn Everything

Five unconventional principles that will define the future of product marketing in an AI-saturated world.

Photo by Vighnesh Dudani on Unsplash

There's a moment of clarity that comes when you realize everything you've been taught is getting in your way.

For me, it happened 3 months into my role at demand.io, a product-led company that had achieved steady growth without external funding.

The Product Marketers Who Wouldn't Call Themselves Marketers

For the last 5 years, I've avoided calling myself a marketer. The term had become so saturated with connotations of manipulation, of tricking people into parting with their attention and ultimately their money. I more and more felt closer to product development and delivering outstanding customer experiences than to marketing tactics.

The Shock to the System

Working at Demand.io as a product marketer comes with a profound shock to the system – a shock that intensifies with experience. The more a seasoned professional you are, the more you arrive carrying heavier baggage, treasured principles treated as gospel because they've been validated throughout lengthy careers.

I operate with 2 distinct sets of knowledge:

1. "Best practices" – the codified tactics of growth hacking and conventional marketing wisdom

2. "Proprietary thinking" – own techniques and mental models rooted in first principles and systems thinking

What's revealing is which actually drives sustainable success. The best practices – those "proven" tactics that advance careers and win industry awards – often become liabilities in a rapidly evolving landscape. Yet proprietary thinking, for which I have been misunderstood or even penalized in traditional organizations, is increasingly becoming the differentiator that matters.

When Conventional Wisdom Becomes Your Limitation

The product marketing world overflows with certainties:

• Always optimize for funnel conversion

• Maximize impressions and reach

• A/B test everything

• Follow the data, not your intuition

• Scale quickly, optimize later

These mantras have created a marketing landscape where differentiation is nearly impossible. When everyone follows identical playbooks, they produce identical results – a sea of indistinguishable campaigns competing for increasingly scarce attention.

The contrarian stance isn't about being different for difference's sake. It emerges from recognizing a fundamental truth: product marketing, like AI, contains the potential for both tremendous value creation and the dangerous stripping away of humanity.

As we stand on the edge of AI transforming how products are marketed and sold, the most forward-thinking visionaries are questioning whether the conventional wisdom will lead us toward human-centered innovation or algorithmic manipulation.

The Contrarian Marketing Principles That Will Define the Future

After recovering from the initial system shock, I've identified 5 contrarian product marketing principles that will increasingly define successful approaches in the coming years. These aren't reactive rebellions against the mainstream – they're carefully considered alternatives built on more human-centered foundations.

1. Slow growth is sustainable growth

While the product world obsesses over hockey-stick growth curves, I now see the value in steady, sustainable expansion. This isn't just about avoiding burnout – it's about ensuring that every new customer receives the full value of the offering.

When you're not chasing arbitrary growth metrics to satisfy investors, you can focus on what actually matters: creating genuine value for every person who engages with your product. The companies racing toward unsustainable peaks often experience devastating crashes, while those building for sustainability develop resilient businesses capable of weathering market fluctuations.

In short, I’d rather have 1,000 customers who love us than 100,000 who barely know who we are.

2. Trust before transaction, always

The conventional funnel drives toward conversion at all costs. My new approach inverts this entirely – actively discouraging transactions until there's confidence the product can deliver transformative value.

This means content, user experience, and the entire approach prioritizes building trust through demonstrated value delivery before ever asking for anything in return. It's not just about giving away free content as a lead magnet – it's about genuinely serving people whether they become customers or not.

I believe the entire customer acquisition model should be rebuilt around this principle. When implementing a "trust before transaction" model, conversion rates might drop initially, but retention rates and lifetime value metrics will skyrocket. Ultimately, you'll spend less on customer acquisition because trust-based relationships naturally generate referrals and word-of-mouth growth.

3. Attention is sacred

Human attention isn't just another resource to be harvested – it's perhaps the most precious commodity in existence. Where conventional marketing seeks to capture and monetize attention through increasingly invasive means, the contrarian approach treats it with reverence.

This manifests in everything from content strategy to product design. We shouldn't create content to maximize engagement metrics – we should create it to genuinely improve lives, knowing that meaningful value is the only sustainable way to earn attention.

In practical terms, this might mean:

• Sending fewer, more valuable emails instead of maintaining a relentless cadence of irrelevant spammy news

• Creating depth-focused content rather than clickbait

• Designing product experiences that respect focus rather than interrupt it

• Measuring success by time saved rather than time spent

I imagine a notification system built from the ground up based on the principle that each interruption must provide at least 10x the value it extracts in attention. Usage metrics might initially drop, but satisfaction scores and retention rates would hit all-time highs.

4. Reject efficiency when it compromises effectiveness

The drive toward marketing efficiency – automation, templated approaches, and scalable tactics – often undermines what actually works. The contrarian approach deliberately embraces "inefficient" approaches when they create superior experiences.

This might mean personally responding to customer questions and building a community rooted on genuine care and empathy for the user, instead of building an automated flow, or crafting individualized outreach instead of deploying mass campaigns. The ROI calculations look terrible on paper – until you factor in the immeasurable value of genuine human connection.

Imagine replacing a fully-automated onboarding sequence with a high-touch, human-led approach that doesn't scale on paper. The result would likely be a significant reduction in time-to-value for new customers and an increase in expansion revenue. What looks inefficient through the lens of traditional marketing metrics can prove extraordinarily effective when measured by business outcomes.

In a time where generative AI can produce endless personalized content at scale, I recognize that genuine human interaction becomes even more valuable precisely because it can't be automated.

5. Optimize for second-order effects

While conventional product marketing focuses on immediate outcomes (clicks, conversions, sales), the contrarian approach optimizes for second and third-order effects – the long-term ripples created by each interaction.

A slightly lower conversion rate today is meaningless if it creates loyal advocates tomorrow. An "inefficient" high-touch approach that seems wasteful in the short term becomes invaluable when it generates organic growth through word-of-mouth and community building.

This principle transforms how we should approach metrics. Instead of optimizing landing pages solely for conversion rates, we should measure the quality of customers acquired through different channels. Instead of maximizing app downloads, we should focus on the percentage of users who experience our product's core value proposition within the first session.

I have completely removed the concept of funnels to intentionally slow down the process, adding educational content and self-qualification steps that might reduce immediate conversions.

Building the Anti-Marketing Product Strategy: The 4S Influence Map

These principles are shaping a different approach to connecting products with users. Rather than conceptualizing people as targets to be acquired through a linear funnel, I've developed what I call the 4S Influence Map – a framework that reflects how people actually engage with brands and product information in a fragmented attention economy:

Streaming (Consuming content)

This mode represents deep, intentional engagement with content. The user has committed some degree of focused attention, whether they're watching a video, reading an article, or listening to a podcast. In Streaming mode:

• Attention Characteristics: Highest quality attention, but limited duration

• Content Strategy: Educational content that delivers immediate value, teaches something meaningful, and creates genuine insight

• Format Considerations: Long-form content (5-15 minutes) that rewards sustained attention

• Psychological State: Learning mindset, open to new ideas and perspectives

• Activation Points: Lead with immediate value, end with natural next steps rather than aggressive CTAs

Streaming touchpoints might include YouTube tutorials, in-depth blog posts, podcasts, newsletters, and educational webinars. The goal isn't to extract immediate action but to deliver disproportionate value that creates trust and positions your product as the natural solution.

Scrolling (Discovering)

This mode captures the passive, low-commitment discovery state. Users are in "browse mode," quickly consuming short snippets of content with minimal cognitive investment. In Scrolling mode:

• Attention Characteristics: Fragmented, easily disrupted, pattern-interruption seeking

• Content Strategy: Visually arresting, intellectually intriguing, scroll-stopping moments

• Format Considerations: Ultra-short-form content (3-15 seconds) that delivers a single powerful insight

• Psychological State: Seeking novelty, entertainment, and pattern breaks

• Activation Points: Interrupt patterns without demanding high commitment; offer easy engagement options

Scrolling touchpoints include social feeds (Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn), curated content hubs, and personalized recommendations. The goal is to create a moment of intrigue that earns the right to move the user to a higher attention state.

Searching (Actively seeking information)

This mode represents active problem-solving. The user has identified a need and is actively seeking information or solutions. In Searching mode:

• Attention Characteristics: Focused but impatient, outcome-oriented

• Content Strategy: Direct, efficient answers to specific questions with clear pathways to deeper exploration

• Format Considerations: Scannable content with clear hierarchies and immediate access to answers

• Psychological State: Problem-solving mindset, evaluating options against specific criteria

• Activation Points: Solve the immediate need first, then expand to related solutions

Searching touchpoints include search engines, help centers, community forums, comparison pages, and solution finders. The goal is to deliver the most efficient path to solving the immediate problem while establishing your broader relevance.

Shopping (Evaluating and transacting)

This mode represents active consideration and decision-making. The user is evaluating options and preparing to make a choice. In Shopping mode:

• Attention Characteristics: Deliberate, comparative, detail-oriented

• Content Strategy: Clear differentiation, transparent information, risk reduction

• Format Considerations: Side-by-side comparisons, detailed specifications, proof points

• Psychological State: Risk-assessment mindset, seeking confidence in decision

• Activation Points: Remove friction, address objections proactively, create clear decision path

Shopping touchpoints include product pages, pricing pages, testimonials, case studies, live demos, and checkout experiences. The goal is to validate the user's decision and reduce any remaining friction.

What makes this framework powerful is understanding that users don't move linearly between these states. Someone might discover your product while Scrolling, immediately jump to Shopping, then return to Streaming educational content before making a decision, and later engage in Searching to solve specific implementation questions.

Each touchpoint across these modes must be optimized around 4 critical factors:

1. Attention match: Does the content format and delivery match the quality and duration of attention available in this mode?

2. Contextual relevance: Does the content directly address the user's context and stage-appropriate needs?

3. Trust calibration: Does the content build appropriate trust for this stage and platform?

4. Identity alignment: Does the experience reinforce the user's self-perception or aspirational identity?

This approach demands far more nuance than conventional marketing. It requires deep empathy, constant listening, and the humility to recognize that no customer journey follows a prescribed path. We need to meet users where they are, not where we wish they would be.

My entire go-to-market strategy is now reorganized around this framework, to create unified experiences across all touch-points.

My aim is to create seamless experiences that feel less like being marketed to and more like being genuinely understood.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

The Unexpected Outcomes of Contrarian Product Marketing

What happens when you build a product on marketing principles that reject conventional wisdom?

Based on my observations and insights, the results could be transformative:

Sustainable business models: Organizations free from the pressure to deliver unsustainable growth can develop more resilient business models with healthier unit economics.

Reduced acquisition costs: When you optimize for second-order effects like referrals and word-of-mouth, acquisition costs naturally decline over time instead of escalating as markets saturate.

Talent magnetism: Product and marketing teams aligned around human-centered principles attract professionals tired of manipulative tactics, creating cultures where people can do their best, most meaningful work. We don’t need to be saving lives to be able to do good in the world.

Customer partnership: Perhaps most notably, this approach transforms the customer relationship from a transactional exchange to a genuine partnership. When your entire approach revolves around value creation rather than optimization tactics, people respond with a level of loyalty that automated marketing sequences can never generate.

For years, many of us have treated marketing as a game of psychological manipulation dressed up as 'best practices.' I believe when we finally have the courage to stop treating people like conversion metrics and start treating them like humans we genuinely want to help, everything will change – not just our results, but how it feels to come to work every day.

The Future Belongs to the Contrarians

As AI increasingly commoditizes traditional marketing tactics, the ability to execute standard playbooks becomes worthless. Anyone can generate conversion-optimized copy, build sophisticated automation flows, or deploy targeting algorithms. These capabilities are rapidly becoming table stakes, not competitive advantages.

The true product marketing advantage now lies in what machines cannot replicate: deeply human connection, intuitive understanding of unstated needs, and the courage to reject conventional wisdom when it fails to serve people.

The contrarian path isn't about being different for its own sake. It's about having the courage to question assumptions, to prioritize human values over mechanical optimization, and to build products and marketing that enhance rather than diminish our humanity.

That's the contrarian advantage that will define the next era of product marketing. And in this noise-saturated world, the contrarians will be the ones who win.

These principles represent my evolving perspective on where product marketing is heading, based on my observations and experiences. While these approaches may seem radical today, I believe they will become the dominant paradigm in the coming decade. The companies brave enough to challenge marketing orthodoxy now will be the ones writing the playbook others follow tomorrow.