Meet Emmanuel Dan-Awoh, an SEO & Growth Marketing Manager with vast experience. We sat with him to figure out why product marketing skills became so crucial to his work and how discovering Treford’s product marketing program and taking a step forward helped him level up his performance at work.
When SEO and Digital Marketing Skills Hit a Strategic Wall
Emmanuel was thriving as an SEO specialist working with a marketing agency. His expertise in acquisition marketing, search engine optimization, and PPC campaigns had served him successfully across multiple roles, including projects with Canadian agencies.
But when he stepped into a growth specialist role at FormPlus, a promising SaaS product, he discovered a critical skills gap that traditional digital marketing training hadn’t addressed.
“We were successful at driving acquisitions and increasing the number of users,” Emmanuel explains. “But they weren’t converting from the free plan to the paid plan. My experience with PPC, Facebook ads, SEO, and CRO wasn’t sufficient to provide the clarity I needed to achieve those conversion objectives.”
The problem was clear: Emmanuel could bring users to the door, but he couldn’t get them to stay and pay. He was missing critical skills in user experience mapping, customer journey analysis, and feature positioning—skills that separate good marketers from strategic product marketing leaders.
Why Other Programs Fell Short
Recognizing his skills gap, Emmanuel invested in multiple professional development programs. He enrolled in growth product management program and several other marketing courses, including demand generation programs. Despite the time and money invested in these courses, something was still missing.
“I wasn’t really confident in my ability to unpack the key attributes of the customer, understand how the product’s value proposition intersects with customer needs, and use that knowledge to modify marketing touchpoints to capture customers who would convert from free to paid plans.”
The programs he tried were teaching tactics, but Emmanuel needed strategy. He needed to understand the deeper mechanics of how customers think, behave, and make purchase decisions.
Finding Africa’s First Virtual Product Marketing Program
Emmanuel discovered Treford’s product marketing training through Khadijat, a product marketing professional whose LinkedIn content caught his attention. Initially interested in a different certification (which has huge cost implications for professionals in Africa), he noticed Khadijat’s endorsement of Treford’s program.
“I was surprised. I never knew there was an African edtech platform that offered professional product marketing training like this.”
Before committing to the marketing bootcamp, Emmanuel told us he tested the quality of Treford’s courses by taking free courses on the platform. A product management course he took convinced him of Treford’s instructors’ expertise. To him, the course fee was reasonable enough for working African professionals to enrol in.
When Theory Met Practice
Three weeks into the Product Marketing Program, He experienced his clarity moment during the live user engagement session. The assignment required him to:
- Analyze user engagement touchpoints for a chosen product
- Build customer segments based on those touchpoints
- Visualize interactions between touchpoints and segments
- Design targeted campaigns for each segment at specific touchpoints
“That assignment was when I began to understand things I didn’t understand in the past about previous challenges in product marketing. I didn’t really know I was supposed to create flowcharts of the user’s interaction with all touchpoints within the product, then use those flowcharts to decide on relevant metrics and what to look out for to achieve the overarching goal.”
This wasn’t just another marketing exercise; it was the strategic framework Emmanuel had been missing. For the first time, he could see the complete customer journey and understand how to optimize for conversion, not just acquisition.
Building Strategic Thinking Muscles
The real learning happened when Emmanuel applied classroom concepts to real case studies.
“The value wasn’t necessarily from the class itself, but in attempting to use information from the class to tackle the case study assignment. “I had to draw on everything I know so far and it’s been really helpful. I’ve improved my ability to think around those kinds of problems in a more efficient way.”
This hands-on approach of the program is what Emmanuel calls the most intense but favourite part of the bootcamp, which resulted in the strategic thinking skills he now has. He said each case study became a live environment where he could test his growing expertise.
From Tactical to Strategic Marketing
Emmanuel’s transformation through Treford’s product marketing program went beyond learning new tools or tactics. He developed the strategic mindset that separates senior marketing professionals from junior ones. He can now:
- Map complete customer journeys with precision
- Identify the right metrics for each stage of the funnel
- Create targeted campaigns that speak to specific customer segments
- Bridge the gap between product value and customer needs
According to him, the program gave him an opportunity to challenge himself in a controlled environment, in a simulation.
Why Emmanuel’s Story Matters for African Marketing Professionals
Emmanuel’s journey from SEO specialist to strategic product marketing professional illustrates a common challenge facing marketing professionals across Africa today. Technical skills in SEO, PPC, and analytics are table stakes.
The real career advancement happens when you develop strategic thinking, a leadership mindset and customer psychology insights.
His success proves that the right learning environment—one that combines expert instruction with practical application, can accelerate this transformation in weeks, not years.
How to Advance your Marketing Career
Join Treford’s next Product Marketing Program and transform from a tactical executor to a strategic marketing leader. Africa’s premier product marketing certification program is now enrolling professionals ready to level up their careers.
See more stories from professionals in the Treford community → Alumni Stories