⌛ 2-min Product Marketing Insights from Ahrefs, Datto, Dovetail, Twilio
July 2022, Part 2 Release
📈 4 MICRO [PRODUCT MARKETING] CASE STUDIES
[1] Align with sales to practice deliberate “underselling” for faster sales cycles and greater NDR.
Account executives in Twilio were told to undersize their initial contract with a new customer. This allowed the customer to gradually size up as their usage would increase and become an ideal referral candidate for Twilio.
[2] Focus on 3 categories – tactics, strategy, and operations – to build a competitive intel program.
Datto uses a tiered approach for its competitive intelligence program. It boils down to three questions: (i) Tactical – How are we enabling sales to sell today? (ii) Strategic – Who will we compete against in 3-5 years? (iii) Operational – What product features should we focus on in the next 1-2 quarters?
[3] Offer a stepwise guide to first solve a problem for your audience and introduce your product later.
Ahrefs provides a guide for its audience called ‘Link Building for Beginners.’ The company expounds on the topic first for its audience before jumping into how its product helps build links.
Read more here – Part 1, Part 2
[4] Lean on transparency and documentation to skip repeating details that delay the sales process.
Due to time-zone differences, Dovetail, an Australian-based company, had to get creative while courting American customers. They improved the self-serve options, among other things, by - (a) making pricing transparent on its website, (b) allowing anyone within the company to update documentation, and (c) reviewing enterprise deals to publicize specific legal documents.
📚 1 BOOK & TOP 3 INSIGHTS
[1] Costovation = Innovation that cuts costs while wowing customers. Meet or exceed customer expectations with less.
[2] You will solve problems the same way as your competitors if you see the market the same way they do.
[3] 5 ways to develop a new perspective - (i) look at your industry from afar, (ii) study the little pieces that make your product under a microscope, (iii) interact with your business through a customer's eyes, (iv) organize your customers by the jobs they're trying to get done, (v) form new relationships with people in your value chain.
🧠 5 CURATED BUSINESS THINK PIECES
[1] The Good Thing About Hard Things: Software has spent a decade eating the world. What’s next?
[2] How Creators Balance Ownership and Partnership
[3] The Gym Business: Usage, Slacking, and the Duel Between Margins and Lifetime Value
[4] The ‘Shamanification’ of the Tech CEO
[5] The Silver Linings of a Recession