5 Product Marketing Programs that Add Immediate Value

Revenue Optimization & Customer Satisfaction

The role of a Product Marketer entails the management of programs that add immediate value for your organization and your clients. Based on industry expertise and personal experience, these 5 initiatives lead to greater revenue, customer satisfaction, and compounding benefits - especially when executed in unison.

5 Product Marketing Programs

Instruction Guides & Tutorial Videos

Step-by-step instruction guides help clients implement and utilize solutions properly, leading to optimal user experiences and empowering Customer Support Representatives to resolve issues more efficiently. Although heavily sought after by buyers, these user manuals are oftentimes outdated or absent altogether. In a study conducted by the animated video software vendor Wyzowl, 8 out of 10 customers report deleting an app due to a lack of understanding of proper usage.

Product Marketers can scale the publication of technical documentation by following 5 necessary procedures:

1. Select a product or feature that requires instruction
2. Follow the sequential order of a user workflow
3. List and document each step chronologically
4. Capture each clickthrough with a screenshot highlighting necessary actions
5. Repeat Step 3 and Step 4 until the workflow is complete

New automation solutions like Tango.us eliminate the need to manually transcribe the process altogether. However, most people prefer visual learning, and thus, video instructions.

The same survey by Wyzowl also cites that 74% of people have watched a video to understand how to use a new app or website better. Instruction guides can also be repurposed as makeshift scripts for tutorial videos that follow the same steps. Effective product demonstrations would include a voiceover and synchronized screencast of the tool in action.

Persona-Based Positioning Statements

Positioning Statements articulate the unique purpose and value of your solution for its intended audience. Buyers consider little more than 2% of these marketing messages to be effective in their respective markets and against the competition, according to the publication MarketingExperiments. The associated agency and research institution MarketingSherpa claims that 54% of businesses fail to optimize their Positioning Statements - a huge missed opportunity.?

Review the Positioning Statements for each solution in your portfolio, and evaluate their merit. Rewrite these phrases to fulfill 4 of the following criteria:??

1. Name of the solution along with its product category
2. Definition of the function and value-added benefit in terms of quantifiable metrics
3. Address the user persona within your target market
4. Reference to its core competitive differentiator

Document these Positioning Statements in a central repository to standardize messaging for your solutions and for incorporation in the product-specific copy published by your organization. Be sure to avoid 6 common messaging pitfalls when drafting your copy:

1. Explanations with abbreviated buzzwords such as “AI,” “ML,” and “NLP”
2. Assuming self-proclaimed titles like “Industry’s #1,” “Best,” “Top,” “Award-Winning,” and “Category-Leading”
3. Applying generic adverbs including “Easily,” “Fully,” and “Always”
4. Use of the following radical action verbs: “Innovate,” “Transform,” and “Disrupt”
5. Addition of the non-descriptive filler words, “End-to-End” and “All-in-One”
6. “Cost-Effective,” “Affordable,” or other references to pricing

For examples of effective positioning statements and validation of best practices, reference 10 Do’s and Don’ts of Drafting Positioning Statements.?

Competitive Analysis & Battle Cards?

Counterintelligence on industry rivals enables Product Managers to develop innovative, differentiated solutions while empowering Sales teams to win competitive negotiations with customers.?

Not sure where to get started? Here are 5 steps to kickstart competitive analysis:

1. Identify and research competitors based on the target market or similarities in solutions
2. Determine and verify the production of common feature sets, including integrations, for all competitors
3. Record publicly available information on competitors - such as pricing, number of customers, amount of users, ratings, employee size, funding, years since founding, web traffic, and other verifiable details pertinent to your business
4. Note the production or lack of development for common feature sets along with additional insights in a competitive matrix comparing each vendor?
5. Distribute findings amongst teams through shared documents, periodic announcements, and live presentations?

This competitive matrix serves as the basis for battle cards that compare your organization’s offering to that of another, which can then be used to train Sales Reps on the distinctions between them. Ideally, battle cards summarize key learnings and feature quick dismissals to discredit the opposing solution provider.?

Last year, consulting firm Crayon questioned 1,000 professionals that benefit from competitive intelligence. 61% of respondents state that these insights have a positive impact on business, up from 52% of participants with affirmative results in 2020.

The same survey shows that more companies generate revenue when sharing competitive intelligence amongst their team weekly as opposed to a daily, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. Therefore, best practices call for informing colleagues of new developments every 7 days - reporting on product launches, feature updates, mergers and acquisitions, or other industry news - through routine briefs or office hour sessions.?

User Interviews & Customer Case Studies

User interviews help teams understand the experience, challenges, and suggestions pertaining to their solutions. First-party insights are essential because qualitative feedback cannot be captured in a product analytics dashboard. According to the education institution Interaction Design Foundation, these field studies with customers increase return on investment by 400%.?

Ask your users questions that are the most pertinent to your business, but these are 10 suggested inquiries:?

1. How did you learn about our solution?
2. How does your team utilize our solution?
3. What objective are you trying to achieve by using our solution?
4. Which features do you believe are the most beneficial, and why?
5. Have we met or exceeded your expectations? Explain why
6. Which features didn't meet your expectations, and why not?
7. What impact does our solution have on your business?
8. How would you describe your experience using our solution?
9. How would you suggest we improve our solutions to optimize your results?
10. ?How likely are you to recommend our products and services to your peers?

When conducting interviews with 15 top users, our organization reached record-high customer satisfaction and user acquisition, growing each metric 7% and 3% respectively in only 1 month.

Favorable client testimonies can be leveraged as inputs for external marketing assets. Case studies tell stories about the issues faced by the organization, solutions implemented as a result, and the measurable impact felt amongst the team. Not only do reviews drive demand amongst buyers, but they also build credibility through social proof.?

When published online, case studies are 58% more likely to convert users and generate 61% more revenue per visitor, as stated by content marketing producer Marketing Insider Group. These success stories continue to be the most effective way to increase sales.

Feedback Collection & Feature Requests

Software review sites provide a wealth of crowdsourced details related to the user experience. Comments found on G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, and elsewhere may include feature requests that could potentially benefit other clients. Teams that monitor these ratings resonate more with the voice of the customer, at a time when only 1 in 5 products achieves its intended objective, as reported by the experience analytics company uxcam.?

To further enhance customer satisfaction, synthesize popular suggestions from various sources, including user interviews. Product development apps like Canny.io and ProductBoard act as suggestion boxes through which both staff and clients propose, then endorse capabilities for consideration. An aggregate list of recommendations weighs customers’ demands alongside potential value ascribed by stakeholders while introducing a method to prioritize items on the product roadmap.

Product Marketing for Go-To-Market Strategy

By developing content and conducting research following these guidelines, Product Marketers can transcend operational duties to generate revenue, influence product roadmaps, and guide go-to-market strategy.