Marketing That Creates Change & Leading The Teams That Make It Happen

Average marketing creates noise. Great marketing creates change.

I got a chance to speak with Sudha Ranganathan from the LinkedIn marketing team. She gave us insights on marketing that makes a difference and how to lead the teams that make it happen.?

Here’s a 5 minute summary of our 30 min conversation from April.

Raul: Sudha, welcome to dogoodwork.io and thanks for being here! Let’s start with a simple question to kick things off. How do you define customer-centric marketing?

Sudha: A simple, yet powerful question! I would define customer-centric marketing as helping target customers understand how a proposition (brand or product) can help them get their needs met. The focus is on the customer, their needs, and bridging the gap between what you can offer and what they need. And doing that in a simple, differentiated and consistent way over time.

Raul: Interestingly, this feels like we’re starting from customer needs vs. starting with your product and finding a need it can meet?

Sudha: It is common, especially in companies with strong R&D teams, to get very excited about marketing a product innovation by showcasing product features. But this can mean a missed opportunity to reframe our proposition in a customer-centric way i.e. through the customer’s problem statement.?

Usually this reframe involves starting with how the customer’s life intersects with the category, jobs they’re trying to get done across their journey and ask yourself – “what can my business offer them that will help get those jobs done?”?

This reframe both helps you market an existing product powerfully, AND generates ideas on new product innovations to address other needs along the same journey.

Raul: Alright, so let’s say we have a marketer reading this, and they have a product or feature idea which can potentially help users in many possible ways or even one where the product’s application is still somewhat ambiguous. How can they start applying this reframe you’ve mentioned above?

Sudha: Let’s split that into 2 parts.?

1) How can product marketers influence the product roadmap??

2) How can a GTM (go-to-market) focused marketer (e.g. who works on brand or sales enablement) position an existing brand, product or feature in a compelling way??

For Product Marketers: Starting with these foundational questions can be helpful:?

• “What is the most expansive definition of the category my business plays in?”?
• “Within this category, what are the jobs that my target customer is trying to get done?”
• “Which of them are unserved or underserved?”?
• “How can I serve one more of these jobs through a new or existing product?”

Let’s look at Coca Cola (CPG) or Apple (Tech) as examples. When Coca Cola aimed for an expansive category definition, they likely expanded their product sandbox from aerated beverages to *all* beverages, perhaps eventually including food? And they now have a whole spectrum of use-cases and jobs-to-be-done giving them the chance to produce (or acquire) juices, teas, water, snacks. And they can identify the ‘edge’ of their category as the point where they start to stretch their brand too far.

Similarly, with Apple, you can see how this thinking helped them expand from their core proposition, the iPhone, to other adjacencies like phone-care (cases), listening devices (earphones) and most recently, hands-free listening devices (airpods).?

For GTM Marketers: Starting with these foundational questions can be helpful:?

• “Which unserved or underserved customer needs in this category does my product address?
• “How do I communicate this in a way that’s concise, compelling, consistent and differentiated?”

As an example, Febreze’s fabric refresher launch in the 90s had a tepid start despite great product technology, because consumers didn’t quite know what to do with the product. As part of their post-launch evaluation, the team asked themselves “When in their lives do consumers need to refresh fabrics?”. This led to uncovering customer use cases that only Febreze could address i.e. odor elimination from often-used, but hard-to-wash fabrics such as curtains, couch covers and sneakers. Relaunch marketing featured these use-cases and positioned Febreze as the alternative to ‘washing non-washable fabrics’ which led to a turnaround in sales.

Raul: This notion of discovering where the edges of the category lie and finding where your product meets needs between those edges is truly powerful! And I recall that Febreze also did a nice job connecting their product to daily habits by positioning it as a ‘delightful treat’ to signal the end of cleaning.?

That said, there’s a difference between the assertion that “I know my customer needs XYZ and my product solves it” and a hypothesis-driven approach of “I wonder if this COULD be a good solution to the customer’s needs”. How do you balance these?

Sudha: That’s a great question! Customer research can be a powerful tool here to help you test and iterate on solutions to address customer needs. It is not only helpful to understand how well solutions meet customer needs but also to evaluate whether they work in the ‘flow’ of existing customer habits. Which brings us to a critical point - good product development has got to balance confidence and humility. Confidence that you’re testing relevant solutions. And the humility to rethink these with customer feedback.??

Raul: And, once you’ve launched and marketed this product, how do you know what is the right time to scrap an idea or even pivot it to help it work better?

Sudha: Coming from a research background, I’ve noticed that strong ideas will usually elicit a reaction of delight e.g., “I LOVE that!”, vs. one of tepid, obligatory interest e.g., “Sure, that’s cool”, during consumer testing. I’ve witnessed this first hand several times in my career and very often, these tepid reactions during customer interviews have translated into poor market results.??

That said, when evaluating market results from launches, you want to ensure you’ve ‘activated’ all critical levers to help that product succeed before you conclude that the product is the problem.?

Common launch levers include:?

• Awareness: Do the right customers know this exists?
• Perceptions: Do they see your product as being a compelling, distinctive fit for their needs vs. competitive offerings??
• Value: Do they perceive your offering as being good value for the price?
• Accessibility: For online products, can consumers discover them easily? For offline products, is it on the right shelves in the right stores?

If you haven't activated one or more of these levers sufficiently, then it is too early to conclude your product isn’t working. It simply means customers don’t know, aren’t compelled by, or haven’t had access to the product. And if you HAVE activated them per plan, and are still not seeing commensurate results, then it’s time to go get some customer feedback on the product so you can refine it appropriately.?

Raul: That is a very useful framework to assess, discuss, qualify and decide what our next move is in a product launch.?

My next question has to do with the organizational culture backdrop that enables all of the things we discussed above - being customer centric vs. product centric, balancing confidence with humility, taking the time to assess levers of launch success before jumping to conclusions etc. What would you say are the cultural ingredients that can enable teams to do this well??

Sudha: I’ll borrow inspiration here from a fantastic book by Daniel Coyle that’s called ‘Culture Code’. It delves into 3 components that drive high performing teams. (And do note, that is NOT the same as teams containing high performing individuals.)?

1) ? ? Psychological Safety: An environment where team members feel like they belong and can provide candid input on ideas without fear of repercussions. And recipients see that input as helpful vs. as personal criticism. E.g. At the Disney Pixar production house, there’s a huge emphasis on candid feedback both from internal stakeholders and test audiences to refine a movie before it launches.??

2) Vulnerability:? An environment where team members are encouraged to show up with humility and be open when they don’t get something right. Mistakes are seen as a path to learning and growth, not as a sign of failure.?

3) ? ? Purpose: Clarity on the ‘WHY’ for the team and ‘WHAT’ north star everyone is working towards. You could have great psychological safety and vulnerability, but everyone isn’t moving towards a single purpose, then all that goodness is wasted on chasing multiple, sometimes disparate goals.

Raul: I love that! You’ve spoken about what drives great team cultures and why. Can you speak to how a team can bring these to life??

Sudha: Great question. In my opinion, the leader carries a greater responsibility and sets the tone through their own behaviors, so I’m going to focus my responses on what leaders can do.?

1) Psychological Safety:?

• Leaders openly appreciate employees who offer up constructive inputs, helping others realize there’s a positive consequence to offering feedback.?
• Leaders foster active belonging across diverse employees e.g. inviting introverts, junior employees, and employees from minority groups to chime in rather than defaulting to hearing opinions from a few vocal employees.?

2) Vulnerability: Leaders role model this by openly sharing their own missteps, taking responsibility, focussing on accountability (not blame) and finally, distilling lessons learned. This encourages other employees to follow suit, creating a strong growth mindset culture.?

3) Purpose:?

• Leaders succinctly articulate the ‘Why’ for the team i.e. how they uniquely contribute to the business.?
• Leaders regularly (over)communicate this to the team and to partners, ensuring their north star is not only clear, but also widely understood.

Raul: What I like about that is not only stating why the team exists, but also tying it back to the company mission so everyone sees how their work can make a difference.?

In conclusion, what I loved about this conversation with Sudha was that it illuminated insights about customer-centricity in a way that is accessible even outside of the marketing function. I also found it particularly powerful that strong team cultures are the foundation that enable customer centricity, leading to powerful marketing and product innovation.

I hope you get as much out of this conversation as I did!?

Feel free to share your own reflections on customer-centricity and strong team cultures in the comments below!?