D2C Caffeine - Issue No. 14

Evoking a feeling of excitement about a product..Giving customers a reason to buy a product..

Achievable through outstanding PRODUCT MARKETING.

It starts with - The internal team(s) getting a clear understanding of the product’s unique value propositions (USPs).

Followed by - Emphasising the customer pain points that the product solves for customers.

Basically...Product Marketing lies at the crossroads of:

1. Marketing

2. Sales, and

3. Product Management

Behind every successful product, there is some exceptional product marketing.

But...

It's the process followed in order to introduce a new product to the market by taking into account various factors such as -

• Identifying the product’s target audience

• Promoting the product to the end-users/prospects/customers etc.

• Creating product positioning

• Focus on differentiating from competitors

• Product messaging where the sales team collaborates with the marketing team to optimise and achieve product success

Formulating the go-to-product market strategy depends on things like buyer persona, positioning, communication, channels targeted and more - analysed to the smallest of details and followed for product launch, content marketing, brand stories, website management etc.

Acquisition - Advertising in order to build awarenessEngagement - To ensure that people who learn about the product, buy itRetention - For retaining prospects by providing customer satisfaction, guaranteeing the customer to return

Note: The difference between product marketing and the other marketing is the attention paid toward the specific product rather than the company or brand itself.

Stage 1: Growth Strategy/Roadmap

Step 1 - Roadmap planning.Here you visualise the evolution of your product. You analyse and capture data such as..

• What problems the product solves

• How it addresses them

• Who faces these problems etc.

And the product manager connects the link between the roadmap and the other teams.

Step 2 - Customer validation. 

Consumer testing activities give way to better optimisation of product and its features.

And the customer validation phase allows prediction of market value for the product based on initial reactions.

Step 3 - Future proofing. 

The final step is to prepare for what is to come by anticipating competitor moves based on yours.

For example: Apple saw Pixel phones focusing on a standout camera feature and released their IPhone which now stands to be the benchmark for all mobile cams.

Stage 2: Product positioning & messaging

Step 1 - Customer and market research. 

• Understand your product’s place in the market

• Its demand, and 

• The target user

This step focuses on the basics like buyer personas,customers’ demographics, motivation, behavioural patterns etc. 

Step 2 - Competitor analysis

Here you identify your (real) competitors, learn what their strengths and weaknesses are - to perform a thorough analysis. 

This step involves the product managers, design and analytics departments too. 

Step 3 - Customer segmentation. 

You need to divide the customers into groups based on product-specific characteristics - location, age, gender, buying habits etc. 

Doing so will help create better and more successful communication campaigns, targeted or hyper-targeted for the product’s purpose.

Step 4 - Develop a positioning strategy. 

At this point, you basically decide which attributes are most important to the product’s customer base and just go with it.

Attributes such as:

• Performance

• Ease of use

• Price

• Reliability, or

• Customer support

Your product is bound to excel at 1 (or more) of the above attributes - with the help of the market research (refer Step 1), analyse data to create your perceptual map and proceed.

Stage 3: Product promotion & customer acquisition

Step 1 - Launch of the product. 

Once the product messaging and positioning is in the clear, it is time to push the product to the market. 

The launch can happen in several categories -

• Major product launches advertised through PR/events

• Minor ones for new and improved features via socials, blogs, or streams

• Incremental launches with newsletters

Step 2 - Asset management. 

Product Marketers build the assets in collaboration with other teams to have a database of existing content in the form of - blog articles, campaigns, videos, emails etc. We call it Product Information Management (PIM).

Step 3 - Sales. 

The product & sales teams are integrally linked.Product Marketers help sales through the product roadmap.The sales team provides insights gained directly from the customers.Sales team provides the raw information, which is then refined based on the roadmap, research and other factors.

That’s the end of our talk on 'The PRODUCT MARKETING approach of today'...

See you on the next coffee date!

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