Zach Kunkel is a storyteller, a strategist, and a dad of two boys under four. It’s not on his LinkedIn profile, but his biggest lessons in product marketing often come from parenting. Whether it’s prepping his son for swim lessons or launching a new feature, he sees the same challenges: creating clarity, building confidence, and making sure everything’s ready when the big moment arrives.

Zach leads solution marketing and go-to-market strategy at Bandwidth, a global CPaaS provider. His role sits at the intersection of product, sales, and customer success—a space where empathy, competitiveness, and storytelling is the job.

And in this edition of One Expert, One Topic, Zach talks about how product marketing connects people, product, and purpose—and why “done” doesn’t mean much if no one knows what you’ve built.

About The Series

This is the twenty-seventh installment in the One Expert, One Topic series, where field experts select a topic and share essential insights using Matt Abrahams’ What/So-What/Now-What format. Delivered in written form, it gives you time to absorb the topic at your own pace—and guides you on where to go next.

What

Product marketing, as Zach puts it, is “the voice of the product to the market.” That includes prospects, customers, analysts, and even internal teams. Product marketers work closely with product management and engineering to understand what’s being built—and then turn that into a story that breaks through the noise and converts.

At Bandwidth, Zach’s team owns go-to-market strategy from idea to launch. That means sales enablement, content planning, analyst briefings, launch events, fact sheets, and pitch decks. They also handle competitive research and market analysis—answering questions like: Where is the market going? Who’s our ideal customer? And what do they actually care about?

One of Zach’s favorite concepts is Markitecture: leveling up the complexity of 30+ products and features into something customers can understand, buy, and use.

So What

Most companies treat product marketing as an afterthought. But if you care about internal alignment, customer understanding, or strategic clarity, you need product marketing from day one.

Zach puts it bluntly: “Done” isn’t done when engineering finishes a sprint. It’s done when you’ve defined your target customer, trained the sales team, priced the offer, built collateral, and launched with purpose. Great products fail all the time—not because the tech is broken, but because the go-to-market plan was an afterthought.

Product marketing steers the business narrative.

Zach sees product marketing as an API—receiving input from across the business, shaping it, and sending it back in a way that connects. It’s not just about shipping a product. It’s about launching it with intent, momentum, and clarity.

Now What

If you’re in sales, product, or engineering, loop in your product marketing team earlier. Share what you’re hearing. Ask what they need. Invite them into strategy conversations—not just launch decks. Because whether you’re preparing for a product launch or your kid’s first day of school—getting the story right makes all the difference.

For those who want to learn more, you can connect with Zach directly on LinkedIn to keep the conversation going. He recommends April Dunford’s answer on how she defines Product Marketing. He also invites folks to join the Product Marketing Alliance. 

Because whether you’re preparing for a product launch or your kid’s first soccer practice, how you frame the moment—and who you bring along—makes all the difference.