A common mistake I see technology startups make is assuming that their vision will prove out if they can hold on a bit longer. Just because founders set out to solve a real customer pain point doesn't mean their initial approach will be long-lived. Yes, building a pipeline of sales and a revenue stream from customers is the goal, and achieving this goal can take time. But also no, keeping your blinders on with a maniacal development focus isn't always the path to success. Sometimes too much grit, grind, and perseverance can actually damage your company's prospects, and it usually comes from only listening to engineering about possible directions.
Finding the right balance of "stay the course" and "let's try new things" is necessary, and it starts and ends with talking to your customers and prospects. And not only the happy customers and exciting new logos. You need to be regularly reaching out to the quiet ones to find out if they are (still?) happy or not, and most importantly, why they feel that way.
Product marketing can help! Most people think product marketing's job is to take the shiny new feature and tell everyone about it - go outbound. That's only half true. Product marketing should also be a "voice of the customer" and communicate inbound back to the product org.
Why? Aren't product managers responsible for setting roadmap? The answer is that product marketing can read signals others might not see. Product marketing can:Â
Try featuring new topics on your website and in social media
See metrics on which ads are hitting and rapidly test new ones
Measure blog post popularity and engagement like how much was read
Experiment with nurture emails and evaluate what topics create action
Do live interviews not just for testimonials but to learn how people feel
"Speed date" new messages at events, etc.
If you aren't harvesting all these buyer intentions signals from your product marketing team, you're probably at risk of losing your product market fit and message market fit. Best case, you'll miss out on a product cycle. Worst case, you'll be too late to recover momentum.
Want to get better and avoid missing a potentially devastating market trend? Reach out to me and let's talk about how I can help build these mechanisms for your team.
Comments