2-min Product Marketing Insights: Dec 2024 Releases
Part 1 Release Date: Dec 13, 2024 (2 min read).
📈 4 MICRO [PRODUCT MARKETING] CASE STUDIES
[1] Translate your POV into a tactical marketing message using this 3-step process to address the biggest buyer misconception of your product.
The 3 steps are as follows: (i) Find the biases (real or otherwise) buyers have about your product, (ii) Stack rank these biases and pick the most critical bias to overcome, and (iii) Create a contrarian message tackling that bias that no competitor can claim. Apple overcame the "smartphones are only for business users" bias during the iPhone launch with their "There's an app for that" campaign showcasing apps for everyday people.
[2] Choose the "right" story for your pitch/enablement/product alignment by verifying business compatibility using these 3 questions.
BILL's product team verifies story and business compatibility by answering the following questions - "(i) Is the story in the best interest of the company and the customer? (ii) Is the story aligned with the company strategy and goals? (iii) Is the story possible?"
[3] Simplify how you describe your product by asking, "How would you describe this to someone else?" to your target customers.
Simplicity can be a competitive advantage. Show your product to target customers to strip away all technical ambiguity and get a truthful idea of how they understand your product. For example, this may lead to subtly unique insights on branding, like enterprise focus for Box (vs. Dropbox).
[4] Lean on interviews, competitors, and market trends to discover the best 'bang for the buck' marketing channels and campaigns to invest in.
You can find out where your audience hangs out by (i) conducting interviews with different cross-sections of prospects and customers to unpack audience habits, (ii) competitor activity analysis (channels, advertising, media), and (iii) researching market trends for a macro view into the behavior of your audience.
📚 1 BOOK & TOP 3 INSIGHTS
“Very Good Copy: 207 Micro-Lessons on Thinking and Writing Like a Copywriter” by Eddie Shleyner
[1] 3-step test to measure the quality of your advertising - "(i) write your copy, (ii) cross out any references to your company and its product, (iii) write in the name of your competitor and their product." You have a problem if the copy still fits! Work to uncover points the competition can't say about their products.
[2] Try this 7-step formula to improve conversions (for ex: webpages, emails) - "(i) Benefit: begin with your strongest benefit. (ii) Expansion: expand on your strongest benefit. (iii) Positive: explain what the prospect will get. (iv) Proof: prove the value with past experience. (v) Negative: explain the consequences of inaction. (vi) Summary: sum up the benefits. (vii) Action: ask for action."
[3] Get better at editing to marry short writing with thorough writing. Ask yourself these 3 questions to guide your editing decisions: "Does this edit express the same idea, but faster? Is this word absolutely necessary? Do I really like this?"
🧠 5 CURATED MARKETING THINK PIECES
[1] Why futurist Amy Webb sees a “technology supercycle” headed our way
[2] Eigenquestions: The Art of Framing Problems
[3] From Metrics to Culture: 5 Ways to Sharpen Your Product Sense
[4] Plotlines, poetry, and pixels: The art of crafting captivating narratives
[5] The Great Tech Worker Revolution Has Begun
Part 2 Release Date: Dec 26, 2024 (2 min read).
📈 4 MICRO [PRODUCT MARKETING] CASE STUDIES
[1] Optimize your PLG scaling efforts in 4 levels: top pages, standard flows, loops, and ecosystems to gradually build a defensible moat.
Sarah Charlton from Asana and Dropbox describes how each of these discrete levels increases in complexity. You start by optimizing the top pages (ex, homepage, pricing, signup) to improve the conversion rate. Move into standard flows like onboarding, invite, and churn to impact early adoption and growth. Optimize proprietary loops (ex: new user activation, high-value feature usage) in level 3 while fine-tuning the ecosystem by paying attention to the health indicators of your entire PLG ecosystem - topline metrics: DAU, MAU, customer retention, and NDRR.
[2] Use these 3 fixes to engage your new users quickly: reduce the size of the initial action, solve an immediate need, and offer clear steps for the first 7-30 days.
Headspace offers meditation and mindfulness tools alongside sleep resources and mental health coaching. To win over new users, Headspace starts with a simple breathing exercise (vs. deeper meditation prompts), provides solutions catered to major life changes when users usually check out their app and uses features like 'How to Headspace' videos to show the app's value in the first 7-14 days.
[3] For B2B Startups: Verify if you have true product-market fit, i.e., the ability to replicate your best case study repeatedly by reviewing these 4 elements.
You achieve product-market fit when you can (i) sell the same thing (same product, pricing, packaging), (ii) to the same buyer (same titles, industries, company size), (iii) in the same way (same messaging, acquisition channels, sales process), (iv) with the same positive results (same customer outcomes, satisfaction levels, retention rates).
[4] Creative AI Pricing: Explore monetization of AI through a dedicated AI tier focused on business users.
Loom's freemium plan caps users around 25 videos. The value of AI can't be clearly shown due to this limit. Hence, the company opts for a separate AI tier to monetize AI for business users. They also snuck in a pricing increase for their regular (non-AI) business tier while setting up the AI tier.
📚 1 BOOK & TOP 3 INSIGHTS
[1] A building principle for insight discovery is associative thinking - connecting seemingly unrelated concepts and disciplines (to create something new). The initial barriers to discovery are personal bias, stereotypes, and mental shortcuts.
[2] 4 pillars to uncover insights - (i) patterns: consistent conclusions across multiple data sources, (ii) pain points: unmet needs, (iii) perspectives: mindset to see someone else's perspective, (iv) perplexities: data that challenges conclusions.
[3] Analyze notes from qualitative interviews using the constant comparative method. The steps are as follows - (i) start by reviewing the notes into different categories, (ii) continue the process and verify if specific notes need to go into other categories, and (iii) look for relationships between all categories once complete.
🧠 5 CURATED MARKETING THINK PIECES
[1] The Year Narrative Ate Reality: A 2025 outlook with a 2024 retrospective
[2] Why Can’t We Make Simple Software? (A talk by Peter van Hadenberg)
[3] When you have nothing: How to find potential customers to interview
[4] The Lost Art of Product Marketing: Why PMMs Must Be Better Storytellers
[5] 25 Predictions for AI and Creativity in 2025
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