Product Marketing: Moving the Needle (ProductCamp Boston 2016)

Product Marketing

“Moving the needle”Larry Concannon

Connect to me at www.linkedin.com/in/larryconcannon

April 2016

Background Northeastern U. - engineering, coop Sales engineer - G2000 company, Montreal Harvard MBA Product Management Product Marketing B2B Software, SAAS, Internet Startup, emerging growth….

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..Two dimensions of success: product and go-to-market

Living hell

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..Weak product and ineffective go-to-market is a living hell

Living hell Frustration

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Many tech companies find they are in the frustration quadrant: our solution is truly the best but we are not winning in the market

Temporary

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Fantastic GTM can only make up for a weak product for a short period of time; a better product with good GTM will emerge

Temporary Nirvana

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Of course, everyone wants to be in the top right quad

Temporary Nirvana

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Determine where you are by product and as a company

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*(Product Management)

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Product Management is responsible for moving to the right; Product Marketing for moving up. Together: up and to the right!

Dig, Set, Spike

EngineeringQADocumentationOperationsSupport

B2B tech based companies are like a volleyball team with three hits. Behind the scenes is the Development team creating products with no fame or fanfare. The “dig”. Not glamorous, but this is the foundation for everything else.

Dig, Set, Spike

SalesSales engineering

EngineeringQADocumentationOperationsSupport

At the other end of the spectrum, Sales is the offense - spiking and scoring. They get the fame of closing deals but they also get immediate market feedback (blocks to the face).

Dig, Set, Spike

SalesProduct MktgProduct MgmtMarketing

Development

Product Marketing, Product Management and Marketing are in the middle, coordinating this process. Communicating on both sides. The “set”….

Did I mention that you are multilingual while Dev and Sales speak different languages?

SalesSales engineering

Product MktgProduct MgmtMarketing

GreekGerman Multi-lingual

EngineeringQADocumentationOperationsSupport

Move the needle… Run rate

Current productx

Current target marketsx

Current marketing/sales strategies/tactics

Grow with the market (rising tide floating boats)

“Run rate” is an old manufacturing term for the day to day productivity of a factory. In tech, it is selling your current product to the current target markets the same way you do now.

Move the needle… Run rate

Current productx

Current target marketsx

Current marketing/sales strategies/tactics

Outperform the market

Launch new products

Target specific markets

Mktg/sales enablement

What can product marketing do to exceed run rate? To move the needle?

Product Launch Cross departmental team Epic (Jira) Launch date: press release, product page,

social media, etc. Sales training, sales engineering training,

presentations, collateral, etc. Positioning/messaging (the key to success)

Launch goals

What are the goals of this launch? Qualitative

Ex. establish the company in a certain market Negate a competitor’s advantage Gain competitive advantage over competitor(s)

Quantitative Leads generated in the target market Deals closed in next 4 quarters after launch

The customer’s problem Concise definition of the customer’s problem/opportunity. What business problem does this product category solve

for customers in general (primary demand)? Define the problem - the tactical and strategic levels.   What is the result of what we will deliver - the expected

outcome business for the customer? How does the customer define/measure value?

How do we articulate the value in the customer’s terminology? Can we quantify the value?

What is the cost/downside of not buying anything at all?

Target Market• What is the target market for this product?

• Size • Growth

• Are there certain types of customers that would especially be interested in this product:

• Verticals – primary and secondary?• Organization size – SMB, mid-market, enterprise• Certain business characteristics? High labor costs, irregular

schedules, geographically dispersed?

Base level positioning statement"For (definition of the target customer) who (statement of the business problem that the customer wants to solve; in the customers lexicon), our product is a (category of the product) that (the overall value statement: the product’s key benefit for the customer). Unlike (definition of the competition), our product (distinctive competence)."

From “Crossing The Chasm”, Geoffrey Moore.

Meta Message(Overall theme of the product’s value to the customer) What is the product’s distinctive competence (major theme, the “meta message, the one most important point you’d want the customer to remember about the product). This can be an easy to remember slogan/statement for everyone to remember. Focus is on the overall lasting business benefit of the solution.

www.corporatevisions.com

Power Positions(Value statements that are important to the customer and which we can say we are unique: the best, fastest, lowest cost, etc; 2 to 4 for the product)

• Power position 1 – a simple two-sentence “value statement” that defines why customers value this attribute and what about our solution is distinctive with respect to this power position• Proof: how can we prove it

• Power position 2

• Power position 3 www.corporatevisions.com

Resources

Pragmatic Marketing Boston Product Management Assoc.

Free Monthly meetings

Sirius Decisions Corporate Visions

ThanksI believe that Product Marketing is about ten years behind Product Management in terms of how well defined and understood it is in organizations. Product Management has a process for creating the product roadmap and working with development (agile, scrum, tools (Jira)…).

Product Marketing is not as well defined and many of us are developing our processes as we do the job. All the content development and marketing automation in the world will not make up for off-target positioning and messaging…

Larry Concannon

(www.linkedin.com/in/larryconcannon)