Product Marketing 2019 - Regalix · 2019-10-24 · Maximize value Product and customer bridges EOL process Customer satisfaction roduct marketing plays an important role throughout

The CMO Guide

Product Marketing 2019

www.regalix.com

April 2019

2 The CMO Guide to Product Marketing 2019

Introduction

There was a time when a good product was all one needed to gain traction in the marketplace. That’s not the case today. Technology disruptions, reduced customer loyalty, increasing customer demands, oversupply and intense competition, among other things, have transformed the marketplace.

Consider the following statistics: According to Harvard Business School professor and renowned author, Clayton Christensen, more than 30,000 new products are launched each year, and 80 to 90% of them fail for a variety of reasons. Other studies report over 58% of consumers have tried a new product in the past three months that either didn’t exist or that they hadn’t heard of a year ago. Alarmingly, up to 99% of tech startups will fail within 12 months, according to leading UK experts.1

To succeed today, product companies must ensure that thousands of moving parts work together as a cohesive whole. From choosing to solve the right problem to solving it in the right way, businesses have to formulate the perfect combination of user experience, value proposition, technology and marketing to ensure they have a winner on their hands. Moreover, according to a recent Forbes article, 89% of companies today compete primarily on the basis of customer experience – up from just 36% in 2010.2 Companies need more than a well-planned and brilliantly executed product to survive in this volatile market, proving that the famous adage, ‘just because you build it, they will not come,’ holds true even today. This is perhaps why businesses are increasingly relying on product marketing to create differentiation in the marketplace. According to a study done by Regalix, ‘State of Product Marketing 2019’, 83% of organizations invest in product marketing. With a deep understanding of the industry and a deeper understanding of customers and users, Product Marketing Managers (PMMs) are emerging as the custodians of vital opinions, information and data, all of which are integral to businesses as they prepare to step into the future.

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.

Peter Drucker


The emergence of product marketing as a vital function

Product marketing as a discipline has been around for many years. Yet, experts, as recently as a year ago, were still writing blogs and articles setting the record straight regarding a PMM’s role and how it differs from what product management or regular marketing people do. While PMMs continue to take products to market, the role they play today carries a lot more significance.

According to a 2016 Cintell report on B2B buyers, high-performing companies are 2.3 times more likely to research their buyers’ drivers and motivations.3 The power of ‘knowing’ the customers and the environment in which they operate has given PMMs the strategic advantage that companies need today to build better products, script realistic roadmaps and deliver truly memorable customer experiences. They are most suited to understand the voice of the customer, or ‘customer-ese,’ with the added advantage of being able to translate it for the rest of the company. As the Regalix ‘State of Product Marketing 2019’ report states, “The role of the product marketer hasn’t changed over the years, but the scope of work has.” Traditionally, PMMs were hired with the primary purpose of taking a product to market. Today, PMMs influence the scope and direction of what companies produce, how they build, how they sell and how they support their customers.

Figure-1

MarketingOpportunity

ProductDesign

Build Launch(growth)

Sell(maturity)

EOL(decline)

Product lifecycle and product marketing

Maket planning

Customer segments

Opportunity analysis

Marketing requirements

Competitive landscape

Customer requirements

Use cases

Buying criteria

Pricing and packaging

Positioning

Advisory council

Early adopters

Customer references

Proof points

Influencers

Media outreach

Salesenablement

Eliminate friction

GTM Tactics

Lead generationoptimization

Win/Loss

Customer retention

Up-sell &cross-sell

Maximizevalue

Product andcustomer bridges

EOL process

Customer satisfaction

Product marketing plays an important role throughout the product lifecycle

Source: ‘Defining product marketing’ — Gerardo A Dada4

Product marketing plays a crucial role in weaving a narrative that draws teams together. It’s almost as though PMMs are the new agents of change. Playing a truly cross-functional role, PMMs exert influence over several significant decision points. They are closely aligned with internal teams, including engineering, sales, support


and strategy. PMMs also have the unique privilege of honing a company’s collective effort to a singular focus – the product story. And when the entire team believes in the product and its narrative, a company can hope to create the highest level of impact possible in its business outcome.

Marketing starts before there is a product. Marketing is the homework the company does to figure out what people need and what the company

should make.

Philip Kotler

Key trends Inc. magazine asked Mozilla’s CMO which role was the most critical hire in marketing. Jascha Kaykas-Wolff responded saying, “Without question, product marketing. If I were a marketer restarting my career, I would start in product marketing.”5 Even as product marketing becomes more strategic and central to the business, there are several challenges to be overcome. Here are some of the key trends that are shaping the future course of the discipline and how companies can address them:

Changing buyer behavior

The internet has made it easier, and at the same time, more difficult for businesses to sell their products and services. Buyers are more informed and aware than ever before. Easy access to reviews, industry reports, data and other information, through social media and other channels, gives buyers the information they need; so much so that they don’t engage with vendors until they are nearly ready to make a purchase decision. According to a Gartner report, technology buyers prefer to spend 65% of their time gathering information and checking out reviews from external sources before they engage with a vendor sales rep.6

Product marketers are, therefore, compelled to track down these potential customers and tell them their story even before they know who those customers are. Knowing the audience profile, their digital habits and purchase behaviors and understanding the customer journey would help marketers communicate more meaningfully with their potential customers. According to a Regalix study, 32% of organizations spend less than 10% of their product marketing budget on digital marketing today. Organizations need to perhaps invest more in the digital space in


the coming years, given the increasing amount of time that buyers are spending online researching their purchase.

Picture this:

Buffer, a social media management platform, uses detailed audience profiles to help them visualize their target audience when developing new features for their product. These profiles also help ensure that their blog, their primary marketing tool, addresses every concern and need that their target audience might have. Buffer has developed a step-by-step guide to building a marketing persona (figure 2). Many of the features that have been added to the application have evolved over the years as a result of these personas. Buffer claims that it helps them deliver better customer experiences.

Product marketing plays an important role throughout the product lifecycle

Figure-2

Source: Buffer7

Rising customer expectations

It is befitting to repeat an oft-quoted axiom here — ‘customers don’t buy products, they buy solutions to the problems they face.’ Customers who want their mobile batteries to last longer, for instance, aren’t overly concerned about how the seller achieves it. To be able to address specific customer problems, businesses must have a clear understanding of who their customers are and what problems they face.

In fact, taking this thought even further, Gartner research shows that conversations that offer customers a new way to think about or improve their business — what Gartner, refers to as “customer improvement” — tend to be effective at driving both retention and growth. These conversations enable marketers to provide customers with new perspectives on how they might operate their business (i.e., new ways to make money, save money, mitigate risk or manage inventories), which customers have yet to execute themselves. When these types of customer improvement


conversations are leveraged, sellers can also reduce the likelihood that buyers will consider a competitor when renewing or purchasing again.8

Picture this:

Apple has perfected the art of translating features into customer benefits. Steve Jobs was a legend in introducing new products in ways that got customers excited about them. Remember how he introduced the iPod back in 2001? “With iPod, Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music players that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go.” He addressed the one thing that users care about — being able to listen to their favorite songs whenever and wherever they want. Apple continues that tradition even today. Rather than introduce features, they talk about benefits.

Figure-3

Source: ‘Key talking points of Apple’s new OS’ - Apple Inc.9

Longer sales cycles

The B2B buyer’s journey is rarely a solo, impulsive action. There is much deliberation and discussion at every stage of the buying process. The vendor company must address multiple stakeholders, each requiring specific information and proof of value depending on their goals and responsibilities. According to a 2017 Harvard report, the number of people involved in B2B purchases had climbed from an average of 5.4 in 2015 to 6.8 in 2017.10 There are undoubtedly even more stakeholders involved today. These stakeholders come from a variety of roles, functions and geographies, making the purchase decision complex and long drawn. It is no longer enough that businesses market to the CEO or key decision maker. They need to understand the purchase process, develop personas for each stakeholder within the customer organization, address their concerns and market to them individually.


Picture this:

To combat the long sales process, Jamie Shanks, social selling expert and author of the book, “Social Selling Mastery - Scaling Up Your Sales and Marketing Machine for the Digital Buyer,” suggests using ‘learning paths’ to design individual journeys for each decision maker.11 Each learning path will provide helpful insights focused on untangling issues related to each individual within the buyer’s team.

Figure-4

Source: SalesforLife12


Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster

David Ogilvy

Being visible matters. It raises awareness and increases opportunities for meaningful interactions, ultimately leading to a sale. On the internet, being visible means being accessible to customers and potential buyers wherever they may be, regardless of whether it’s a website or a social platform, a laptop or a mobile.

With customers being present at multiple touchpoints, businesses must ensure that they provide a seamless customer experience across all channels and devices. Typically, customers conduct product research using their mobile devices, while reviewing product literature and connecting with the company could potentially take place over a laptop or workstation. Multiple channels bring in problems of presenting a unified voice to the customer, and marketers should ensure that there is consistency in their messaging across all channels.

Videos are 52 times more likely to appear on the first page of Google search results than text articles.28


Figure-5

Customer touchpoints and the most effective channels at every stage

Discover

Explore

Buy

Ask

Use

Engage

Browse

Hear

Research

Peerreview

Share

CompareLearn

Trust

Advocate

Decide

Transact

Share

Research

Mobile Web Company website Events Sales Peers

Social Email Print

Source: SnapApp13

Rise of the subscription economy

The rise of the subscription economy is down to buyers who want to spend on productivity tools and applications that can be scaled up or down based on their needs without making substantial investments in the backend infrastructure. As Tien Tzuo, CEO of cloud-based solutions company Zuoro, in his book, ‘Subscribed’, writes, “Subscription businesses are proliferating because billions of digital customers are increasingly favoring access over ownership.”14

Consider this: While in 2015, 24% of all spending on enterprise applications was on SaaS-based solutions, that figure is projected to grow by 50% to account for 36% of application spending in 2020. In a 2016 study conducted by Altman Vilandrie & Co., 100% of the growth experienced by application firms analyzed was attributable to SaaS.15

While SaaS offers big opportunities to product companies in terms of flexible pricing, ease of expansion and the ability to launch quick and frequent updates,16 it also


brings with it many challenges, one of them being a higher level of churn. Without legacy investments to worry about, customers now have the power to change suppliers at the click of a button on their computers, making customer churn an overhanging threat that businesses have to deal with.

The ‘mobile’ customer

The emergence of mobile in business will be a game changer. Mobile penetration globally is at an all-time high, with an estimated 63% of the world accessing the internet through mobile. A majority of all emails in 2018 were read on mobile devices.17 Further, 50% of B2B search queries are made on smartphones; that’s expected to grow to 70% by 2020. According to a 2017 Boston Consulting Group report, mobile drives or influences an average of over 40% of revenue in leading B2B organizations.18 However, businesses don’t seem to have successfully leveraged the mobile platform as yet. Product marketers should seriously look into how they could use the mobile platform effectively as part of their product marketing strategy, and create content in a format that can be conveniently accessed on a mobile platform.

The need for personalization

Much of the data on the internet today has been created only in the last few years. There’s so much noise on the internet these days that communication fatigue is a real concern. A recent study by Gartner, for instance, seems to indicate that increased access to information — from product reviews to pricing comparisons — has left many buyers feeling overwhelmed.19

So, how do businesses connect with their customers in this noisy environment? Personalized content is key. Studies have shown that 98% of marketers interviewed overwhelmingly agree that personalization helps advance customer relationships, with 74% claiming it has a “strong” or “extreme” impact. Nearly 9 out of 10 marketers state that their customers and prospects expect a personalized experience.20

To be able to deliver a personalized experience, businesses need to align their content strategy with the customer journey and the audience persona. Interestingly, according to the Regalix study cited earlier, ‘tracking the customer journey’ tops the list of challenges that marketers say they face in product marketing. This needs to be resolved. As the report goes on to say, ‘marketers need to invest more time in unraveling this (the customer journey) puzzle or turn to technology that would help them do so.’


Picture this:

Brainshark is a B2B software provider that helps businesses create and share content for sales enablement, marketing and training. To engage potential customers early in the decision process, Brainshark offers a variety of ‘freemium’ products. The company had trouble converting freemium users into paying customers. They analyzed usage of their tool and discovered that the problem wasn’t that people weren’t signing in to the tool, but that they were either not using it at all or were using it superficially. The company decided to post helpful messages within the app to encourage existing users to use the tool better and to drive engagement. Brainshark started with messages inside their product interface and then expanded to ads and pop-ups on their site. The messages provided tips and educational messages to help users optimize ‘MyBrainshark’ based on their typical usage and objectives. Messages included “Did you know…” tips. The company also posted ads telling users about the benefits of particular features and pointing them to webinars or detailed documentation for more information.

“Personalized messages can drastically increase engagement,” said Arthur Gehring, Vice President of Demand Generation at Brainshark. “They provide value to both, the business and the user.” Gehring reported a number of measurable benefits:

• Registrations increased by 15%

• Free trial sign ups for the enterprise product increased by 150%

• Sales pipeline grew by over $1.1 million21

Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.

Seth Godin

Message retention for videos stands at 95%, whereas it’s only 10% for text.29


The ‘social’ customer

Customers are becoming more ‘social.’ Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram have had an incredible impact on how information is distributed and consumed. While social’s impact on B2C markets has been tremendous, B2B marketers are still figuring out how to harness its full potential. A recent report by Forrester explores how social can be the glue that binds marketing and customer support, thereby creating a seamless digital channel for customers to interact with businesses.22 The possibilities are endless. According to the Regalix study, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are the most popular social media platforms among businesses when it comes to launching a new product. Going forward, social media could very well be the place where customers and businesses discover each other and forge a relationship. Product marketers who are preparing themselves for such an outcome will reap the benefits.

The increasing consumption of video

According to a Cisco whitepaper, video traffic will account for 82% of all global internet traffic by 2022, up from 75% in 2017.23 In response to a study done by Wyzowl on video marketing, ‘The State of Video Marketing 2019’, 87% of businesses said they use video as a marketing tool, and 68% of people they surveyed said they’d most prefer to learn about a new product or service by watching a video.24

Videos have a specific way of entertaining, captivating and engaging customers. With access to 4G (and now 5G) and high-end devices, people are increasingly turning to video content over written text. Businesses today cannot afford to ignore video. From live videos during product launches to product demos and explainer videos, video content plays a crucial role in capturing attention and communicating product stories compellingly.

Among organizations that have surpassed their lead and revenue goals, 71% of them have documented buyer personas.30


Key technology drivers Here, we present two key technology advancements that exert significant influence on product marketing.

Augmented Reality (AR)

AR makes it possible to put virtual products in the hands of customers. While applications of AR tech in the B2C space are plentiful — Ikea, Home Depot, Jaguar and others come to mind — B2B product marketers are still looking for ways to incorporate the technology in their campaigns. Experts predict that AR investments will reach $60 billion by 2020.25 A large piece of the AR pie is expected to come from B2B markets.

AR transforms volumes of data into images that are overlaid on the real world. Its applications in the enterprise setting are plenty. AR can add pizzazz to staid, one-dimensional marketing material such as sales brochures. It can help demonstrate product value in a way that video and text simply cannot. It can help marketing and sales people showcase their entire range of products while sitting in their offices, without having to lug any equipment around. AR accelerates the sales cycle. Moreover, with AR, product customizations can be done virtually with active inputs from the customer. Perhaps one of the biggest draws for AR is the fact that customers can physically interact with the product even at the design stage, which will help them visualize the features and benefits of the tool. While AR has often been touted alongside its cousin, Virtual Reality (VR), it is believed AR will be far more widely applied in business than VR.26

Picture this:

Accuray, an oncology company, needed to show potential buyers all over the world its products in order to generate sales. However, since their products are rare machines the size of MRI scanners, the task of transporting them wasn’t easy. Normal videos and brochures cannot show the advanced features of the products in compelling ways. Using AR technology, Accuray created a way for people to see what’s inside each of their machines. Hovering an iPad or iPhone over a printed image of the machine projects information about the X-ray radiation, refined beamlines and fast imaging technology used to deliver treatments. These images enabled the company’s sales team to have meaningful conversations with their customers.27


Top-performing B2B marketers provision 42% of their marketing budget just to content.31

Analytics and artificial intelligence

Analytics and AI provide PMMs with the insights they need to make smart decisions. Data tells stories when properly analyzed — stories about customers, their motivators, purchase journeys, preferences and more. PMMs need to make sense of the customer data they have to create authentic and realistic customer personas, perform market segmentation, create journey paths, analyze product usage, deliver personalized experiences and more. Asking the right questions is paramount to finding the right answers.

Data has always existed in some form or the other. In the past, consolidating and analyzing data at scale to determine patterns had been too tedious a process for humans to carry out. With advancements in analytics, product marketers are now able to parse large volumes of data, form connections and relationships and distill key truths such as trigger points, areas of interest, synergies in relationships and the like.

The practice of clustering customer behavior to predict future behaviors started in 1998, when Jussi Karlgren, a Swedish computational linguist at Columbia University, produced a report on ‘digital bookshelves’. Today, personalization and recommendation engines are everywhere, and with good reason. Customers expect their experiences to be personalized. Marketing has become so nuanced that it is impossible to paint multiple customers with the same brush. Personalization leads to increased revenue and customer loyalty. Predictive analytics and machine learning, a subset of AI, help businesses deliver such personalized recommendations.

ConclusionIt is getting increasingly difficult to create differentiation in this highly volatile and competitive market. Amid swirling uncertainties, technology disruptions and customer demands, businesses must work harder and smarter to be visible, gain attention and maintain their position in the market. The next few years are not going to be easy. It is going to get more difficult to reach and keep customers, which is why product marketing is going to become the fulcrum of every business. Drawing on insights derived from deep listening, creative ideas born from data and with a firm handle on all things related to the customer, product marketing will become key to the very survival of the modern product company. Go forth and conquer, product marketers!


References:1 http://blog.linktexting.com/tips-product-marketer/

2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2018/07/15/customer-experi-ence-is-the-new-brand/#ee8702d7f528

3 http://cintell.net/benchmark-2016-resourceaccess

4 https://www.slideshare.net/gerardodada/defining-product-marketing

5 http://www.inc.com/sunil-rajaraman/want-to-be-a-successful-marketer-this-top-cmo-shares-his-secrets.html

6 https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/sales-must-trusted-resource-b2b-buyers/

7 https://buffer.com/library/marketing-personas-beginners-guide

8 https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/what-sales-should-know-about-modern-b2b-buy-ers/

9 https://www.apple.com/macos/mojave/

10 https://hbr.org/2017/03/the-new-sales-imperative

11 https://www.salesforlife.com/blog/long-sales-cycles-require-learning-paths-to-align-the-buy-ing-committee

12 https://www.salesforlife.com/blog/long-sales-cycles-require-learning-paths-to-align-the-buy-ing-committee

13 https://www.snapapp.com/blog/multichannel-marketing/

14 “ 1. “Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company’s Future—and What to Do About It,” Portfolio Penguin, 2018

15 http://www.altvil.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AVCo-%E2%80%93-SaaS-Whitepaper-%E2%80%93-Nov-2017.pdf

16 https://www.regalix.com/insights/transitioning-from-on-premises-software-to-saas-key-oppor-tunities/

17 https://blog.leadforensics.com/benefits-of-a-multi-channel-marketing-strategy

18 Source: Mobile Marketing and the New B2B Buyer by Boston Consulting Group in partnership with Google, Oct 2017.

19 https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/what-sales-should-know-about-modern-b2b-buy-ers/

20 https://www.evergage.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Evergage-2018-Trends-in-Personaliza-tion-Survey.pdf

21 https://technologyadvice.com/blog/marketing/3-killer-examples-personalized-b2b-marketing/

22 Sourced from the Forrester report ‘Use Social to Bridge the Gap between Marketing and Customer Service.’

23 https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-in-dex-vni/white-paper-c11-741490.html#_Toc484813971

24 https://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics-2019/

25 https://hbr.org/2017/11/a-managers-guide-to-augmented-reality

26 https://hbr.org/2017/11/a-managers-guide-to-augmented-reality

27 https://www.leadpoint.ch/files/ar-in-b2b.pdf

28 https://unbounce.com/landing-page-articles/the-benefits-of-using-video-on-landing-pages/

29 https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2018/06/22/video-marketing-2018-trends-continues-to-explode-as-the-way-to-reach-customers/#58aa610598dc

30 https://totalproductmarketing.com/marketing-statistics/

31 https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2016_B2B_Report_Final.pdf

(US): +1 631-230-2629(India): +91 80-49445010Email: [email protected] [email protected]

For more informationTo find out how we can help you,please contact us, or visit us atwww.regalix.com

2200 Geng Road, # 210 Palo Alto,CA 94303

About RegalixRegalix is a Customer Acquisition and Customer Success company that re-imagines digital experiences across hi-tech, ad-tech, and retail domains. The company has partnered with some of the largest global B2B organizations in their efforts at customer acquisition, growth and retention. Regalix works with businesses, supporting their customers through the entire journey, to deliver reliable products and services in today’s subscription-based economy.

Regalix has a long history of creating award-winning ventures with enterprises through co-innovation and idea-driven frameworks that inspire companies to think different. Headquartered in the Silicon Valley — Palo Alto, California — Regalix has offices in Europe and Asia.

Documents

Product Marketing 2019 - Regalix · 2019-10-24 · Maximize value Product and customer bridges EOL process Customer satisfaction roduct marketing plays an important role throughout