2-min Product Marketing: Tango's Positioning, Fortnite's Retention, Discovery Call Prep, and Post-Initial Contact Email.
September 2024, Part 2 release
📈 4 MICRO [PRODUCT MARKETING] CASE STUDIES
[1] Answer these 4 questions to simplify and build your positioning strategy for your product.
They are: (i) What is it? (ii) Who is it for? (iii) What does it replace? (iv) Why is it better? A combination of answering the first 2 questions leads to a 'use case' driven positioning strategy for Tango, which reads, "Create software training walkthroughs in minutes."
[2] Gauge the readiness of each of your AEs for discovery calls with prospects by reviewing their answers to these 4 questions.
These test questions are: (i) For fit with prospect's org - What does the company you're talking to do? (ii) For individual motives - Who are you talking to (Title, LinkedIn)? (iii) To uncover future conversations - What are the relevant roles on their job boards? (iv) For multi-threading - Who else should you be talking to?
[3] Evaluate and create strategies for daily engagement, habit-forming notifications, and the off-product ecosystem to improve retention.
Fortnite faced the challenge of keeping its players highly engaged in a competitive gaming environment. They used a multi-prong approach of creating regular challenges (for daily engagement), notifying players when friends were online (habit formation), and building a YouTube-powered (off-product) ecosystem to increase their 30-day retention rates.
[4] Tailor your post-initial contact email to include these 5 sections irrespective of the prospect source (ex: event, cold call, etc.)
The email should contain 5 sections: (i) Email Opener, (ii) Recap/Observation, (iii) Value Proposition, (iv) CTA/Next Steps, (v) P.S. (aka. Soft CTA). These sections also translate well for your sales deck or your SaaS homepage.
📚 1 BOOK & TOP 3 INSIGHTS
[1] You can never buy differentiation. You can only build it. Build customer-facing software and buy backend software, i.e., things that don’t differentiate you from the customer PoV.
[2] TWO things to do before implementing any idea: (a) Vet the idea - “What assumptions about customers, the problem, or the market are we making? How will our experiments prove or disprove those assumptions?” (b) “If we’re wildly successful, will it be a big outcome?”
[3] You can only pick any 3 out of the 4 following attributes in software development: features, deadlines, quality, and certainty (level of confidence). Another reason why engineering teams find it challenging to commit to hard deadlines.
🧠 5 CURATED MARKETING THINK PIECES
[1] State of Product Marketing Leadership, 2024 Report - I make a brief appearance ;)
[2] The Art of Finishing - break the cycle of endless beginnings & unsatisfying middles
[3] Unlocking Momentum with Product Strategy - a fresh approach to get unstuck
[4] The Post-IPO Trough of Sorrow
[5] Are You Solving the Right Problems?