2-min Product Marketing Insights: Nov 2024 Releases
Part 1 Release Date: Nov 14, 2024 (2 min read).
📈 4 MICRO [PRODUCT MARKETING] CASE STUDIES
[1] Uncover the marketing IPs your company should develop to appeal to your ICP and repeat your POV differently.
Atomicwork's ICPs are CIOs, IT Directors, and CXOs who have a high bar for the content they will consume. Therefore, Atomicwork's marketing IPs include a blog (to show the what, how, and why they're building), a podcast with senior leaders, an annual report on the State of AI in IT, a newsletter on AI and IT for prospects, and a large IT event.
[2] Focus your homepage messaging on devs if you're an early or mid-stage dev tool company before expanding to buyers in later stages.
Snyk's early homepage messaging recognized the vast majority of dev traffic and how CTOs don't evaluate tools. They still paid attention to buyer messaging but chose alternate assets like slide decks, ROI intense case studies, and sales engagement for their non-end user buyer personas.
[3] Conduct a 'cognitive walkthrough' early in the design process or before any major release to improve user satisfaction.
Webflow suggests conducting a cognitive walkthrough (a usability testing method) to remove design flaws and figure out how first-time users navigate your site. There are 4 key cognitive walkthrough questions: "(i) Is the action (button or link for the user to go to the next stage) visible? (ii) Is the correct sequence clear? (iii) Will the user recognize the correct action? (iv) Will the user understand the feedback? "
[4] Partner with the YouTube dev community by aiming for a healthy mix of up-and-coming vs. established creators and setting up terms for creative collaboration.
Clerk searches YouTube for creators targeting developers with a minimum subscriber (~10K) threshold, views-to-subscriber ratio, and healthy community interaction. The company also encourages these creators (after they come on board) to talk authentically about the product while offering flexible production schedules and dedicated communication channels.
📚 1 BOOK & TOP 3 INSIGHTS
[1] "Tech media writes the same 10 types of stories over and over again: The General News Story, The Product Review, The Company Profile, The Founder-as-Hero Story, The Commerce Listicle with Affiliate Links, The Data-Driven Story, The Funding/Merger/Acquisition Story, The Trend Story, The Byline/Op-ed/Contributed article, and The Personnel Story."
[2] Resist the temptation to start pitching reporters if your company decides to pursue earned media. Spend time on the front end doing these 3 things: (i) Listening - uncover what's being said about your company, products, competitors, and category. (ii) Targeting - build your own media list and develop contacts before sending a pitch. (iii) Cultivate relationships - "PR firms are effectively seen as human rolodexes."
[3] You can only really make 3 points in an interview. For example, in a hypothetical interview about a new product, these may be: "(i) Problem/Solution: What problem does your product solve? (ii) Differentiators: What is unique about your product, and who will benefit from it? (iii) Call to action: How can people find you, learn more, or buy your product?"
🧠 5 CURATED MARKETING THINK PIECES
[1] Mediocre docs are sabotaging your growth
[2] Just evil enough: Subversive marketing strategies for startups
[3] How to build your GTM strategy from scratch
[4] Conservation of Intent: The hidden reason why A/B tests aren’t as effective as they look
[5] How to Spot the Next Big Thing: Trends VCs Should Be Watching
Part 2 Release Date: Nov 29, 2024 (2 min read).
📈 4 MICRO [PRODUCT MARKETING] CASE STUDIES
[1] Use game-changing insights from your internal product data for marketing.
Okta reviewed its user data to uncover the fastest-growing SaaS apps of the year and shared it via their 'Businesses at Work' report. Any company featured in this report is bound to share it, adding to Okta's overall awareness in the marketplace.
[2] Design growth experiments to remove clutter on your website and allow prospects to complete their core action.
Results from DoWhatWorks show that "Why Choose Jotform" messaging works much better for Jotform in conveying the value of its pricing vs. the traditional way of cluttering a pricing page with social proof by listing G2 badges, company logos, etc.
[3] For dev tools: Explain your product in technical terms in your text-only Reddit ads and ask for feedback instead of signups.
Latitude's well-received Reddit ad shows various developer-friendly elements: product name on the title, open-source option, introduction by technical founder, technical product description, and CTA for feedback and contributions.
[4] Leverage 4 types of strategic discounts to capture additional subscribers with low willingness to pay.
You can use activity (ex: initial trial users), location (ex: geo-based pricing), demography (ex: students), and seasonal discounts (ex: Black Friday/Cyber Monday) to capture additional subscribers. Flo uses an activity-based discount - an expiring, significant lifetime discount for users who reject the free-trial offer - to convert lower-intent users.
📚 1 BOOK & TOP 3 INSIGHTS
“Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing” by Robert A. Caro
[1] What does 'a sense of place' mean? Help the reader visualize the physical setting in which the action is occurring in vivid detail. Include enough detail for the reader to feel present while the action is occurring. When readers can visualize, they can understand things without the writer having to explain them.
[2] On interviewing - "If you talk to people long enough, if you talk to them enough times, you find out things from them that maybe they didn't even realize they knew."
[3] Caro's 3-part method to research a subject - (i) start with the books on the subject, then go to the big newspapers and all the magazines, (ii) "the next thing you do is the documents...the papers", (iii) "...then come the interviews."
🧠 5 CURATED MARKETING THINK PIECES
[1] I interviewed 100 DevTools founders and this is what I learned
[2] How Southwest Airlines Lost Its Groove
[3] The Once and Future History of Knowledge Work
[4] Hey, Growth teams: Here's how to make friends with your designers.
[5] Want to start the next billion-dollar AI company? 7 frameworks for AI-enabled Vertical SaaS
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