(This article is cross-posted as a guest post at onproductmanagement.net)
In baseball, everything you’re first taught about pitching has to do with speed and location… you want to throw the ball past the batter, and put it in the corners of the strike zone. Go for the heat!
(This article is cross-posted as a guest post at onproductmanagement.net)
During a recent whirlwind #prodmgmttalk discussion on Twitter, there was a side discussion about the differences between Voice of the Market and Voice of the Customer.
(This article is cross-posted as a guest post at onproductmanagement.net)
Aren’t the marketing automation tools great?
They help you develop target lead campaigns that automatically respond to a “visitor’s” action depending on what they do. This is done without human interference or effort, moving the potential buyer through the elements that have been pre-determined to be the right marketing piece of collateral or action at the time. How did business ever do this before, given how time and labor consuming these efforts can be?
But there is a flaw. And it can ruin your efforts.
(This article is cross-posted as a guest post at onproductmanagement.net)
As product marketing professionals, we are tasked by senior leadership with understanding the buyer persona and directing the creation of marketing materials that tout the benefits of our product to those specific personas, benefits that solve the buying problems of the market. We are tasked with understanding the voice of the customer. We are tasked with win/loss analysis, competitor analysis, branding and sales psychology. Strategic stuff. Big picture stuff. Important stuff that makes sales more efficient and ultimately brings revenue in the door.
Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is fairest… is that how your typical presentations start? Sounds a bit ego-driven, doesn’t it?
How about when you are networking? Do you introduce yourself with a simple handshake and a pleasant comment or two? Or, do you go into a long dialogue on who you are, what you think, how you act, what matters to you? A few people do this, but does it make for a good networking introduction?
Of course not. Most of us acknowledge ourselves and move on in the conversation with the person we have just met. We try to learn as much as we can about them, trying to establish a relationship that is mutual.
