Challenges in working with Industry Analysts, when you are trying to create a new category.

 

Having been the CMO of multiple startups (with successful exits), and more recently, providing consulting advice to many more over the past 15 years, I am often asked what is the best way to work with industry analysts?

As a young company with next-generation technology, you are trying to be the 2.0 player in your space. To get there, you are trying to redefine an existing industry category or create a new category that represents your solutions. Chasing a position in an industry analyst's leaders quadrants or waves in the existing industry category will not give you the results you desire.  At best you will be placed as a niche player. Why?  To understand how industry analysts define categories, you must look at the world from their perspective. 

• For starters, an analyst will define the footprint of the solution category to be large enough, so that they can build a ‘financially viable practice’ around it.  So, you should expect to find several established vendors in the solution category you are likely to be placed in, which conflicts with your objective of being positioned in a new niche category.

• Analysts formulate a large part of their hypothesis on market trends based on their client inquiries - what problems are their clients looking to solve, which vendors they are evaluating, how much budget they are allocating to solve these problems, what trade-offs they would like to consider etc.  Most of the paying clients of an analyst practice are likely to be mid-sized to large enterprises.  While a few of these customers may be early adopters, a large majority of them statistically fall in the mainstream category – early majority and late majority.  To stay ahead of their clients but not be on the bleeding edge, the analysts are likely to formulate hypothesis that reflects what the early majority is looking for. If you are trying to invent a new category with your solution or redefine an existing category, you need to be ahead of the early majority. So, aligning your product and go-to-market strategy with what analysts are saying about the category would not help you achieve your goals.

• As I mentioned earlier, most of the paying customers of analysts tend to be conservative (upper mid-sized to large companies and not early adopters). Hence, financial viability of the vendors, as well as successful proof points of their technology is an important vendor selection criterion for these customers.  As a result, most analysts use a revenue cutoff or size of customer base in that solution category to exclude vendors who do not fit that profile. If you are a young vendor with new cutting-edge technology that is challenging the status quo, you may not make it to the analyst reports due to their revenue cut-off or installed base requirements.

 So, getting analysts to create a new category, where you can be placed in the top-right quadrant will be challenging. But these analysts will also likely cover some ‘cool’ upstart vendors, or mention them as a side-bar in their reports, where you should try to get mentions.  Also getting into the Niche category in their waves and leader quadrants can also pay dividends.  This is because you are likely targeting early adopters and not the middle majority, and those prospects are likely to evaluate vendors listed in the niche category.  Pairing these analyst mentions with customer stories and blog posts that highlight your industry-changing solution capabilities can get you the leverage you need from your industry analyst investments.

How to refresh your Go-to-Market within 30 days

 

I spoke to an old friend a couple of weeks ago, who is a CMO at a SaaS company.  He was in the process of updating their Go-to-Market (GTM) for their new Fiscal Year and wanted my thoughts on it. Below is an approach I proposed – not an exhaustive study but something that allows him to update within 30 days - ongoing tweaks to their messaging/value proposition to stay current, as well as where they should (re)focus their solution in terms of new geographies and industry verticals/sub segments.

I suggested that they either have their senior product marketing manager run this process or hire a product marketing consultant from outside.  The inputs they need are:

1. Industry analyst reports that highlight key trends in customer buying behavior, recent new entrants, changes in relative positioning/ranking of key players and finally, the strengths/weaknesses of the company with respect to these players.
2. Win-loss analysis, conducted by product marketing, from each of the last four quarters.  If the win-loss analysis does not exist, would recommend doing one using the CRM data as a starting point.
3. Internal competitive analysis, including SWOT analysis, done by either product marketing or product management organization.
4. Review of about ten to fifteen RFP responses/pre-sales responses to deals that are currently in play or the company won/lost in the last 3 months.  This is key to understanding what customers are asking for and if it tells a different story than what you saw in win-loss or competitive analysis.
5. Internal workshop/calls with sales, pre-sales, and professional services teams on what they are seeing with respect to why we win or lose and how customers are deploying and using the software.  This activity allows the product marketing/consultant, who is working on the project to do deep dives into questions/gaps they may have from the first four input sources above.
6. Finally, speak to at least 5 customers who selected your solution in the last 6 months to validate your findings or deep dive into some open areas.

Armed with this information, you can decide what tweaks are needed to ensure Go-to-Market stays aligned with the changing environment. It is always a good idea to do this analysis at the beginning of every 12 months, preferably in the first quarter of the new fiscal year – keeps your go-to-market current by ensuring your messaging/value proposition for your solution aligns with the ever-evolving customer needs, as well as finding new opportunities for your solutions such as new verticals/sub segments or new geographies. This process then helps you identify opportunities for new marketing content, new sales enablement tools/refresh of existing sales enablement content and new marketing programs.

3 tips to create highly engaging top-of-funnel content.

 

Digital channels have become more saturated than ever before.  Customers are being bombarded with top-of-funnel marketing campaigns containing offers for analyst white papers, webinars, infographics and even solution briefs.  Problem is that the content in these offers is not written for a prospective customer that is at the top of the funnel i.e., someone trying to understand how your solution addresses their unique problems and if they should take a closer look at your solution. In addition, the content often tends to use too much marketing jargon.  It ends up consuming 5 to 10 minutes of your customer’s time without providing them any unique insights.  Each interaction at the top of the funnel is critical – once the customer feels they wasted their precious time consuming your content, chances are they will not come back again.   

Tip #1: Create a point-of-view on a topic of interest to a prospective customer.  Ensure it also happens to coincide with your marketing agenda.  For example, if you are a next generation ecommerce software company, then “What is headless commerce and why it matters?” may help you educate a prospective buyer on a new paradigm in ecommerce software.  If you provide high performance NoSQL solutions, then “How NoSQL technology helped a credit card company implement a high-performance fraud detection solution?” may help you engage prospects.   Pick the persona you are targeting and create a jargon-free content that articulates your point of view very clearly, but along the way, give them a nugget that will be relevant to them in their job. Point of view could be delivered through a 2 pager or a podcast.  In this era of PDF saturation, an engaging and well produced 5-to-7-minute podcast can do the trick.  People will listen to something interesting while they are eating lunch at their desk or taking a short break between meetings. I have seen Point-of-views as very effective top-of-funnel content pieces.

Tip #2: Customer case studies that highlight the unique problems and how customers creatively solved them using your technology also serve as very good top-of-funnel content.  But it is important that the case studies are jargon free and focus on the ‘early adopter’ solutions i.e., customers who are doing something that is innovative and on the cutting edge.  Remember, your immediate goal is not to sell software, but to sell the dream – the art of the possible, so they come back to learn more about you and your solutions.  

Tip #3: Follow the rules in my blog post ‘how can product marketing create more relevant content’.

How can product marketing create more relevant content?

 

I have seen a lot of mediocre product marketing content at SaaS/enterprise software companies. Product marketing primarily creates content for a) enticing prospects to accelerate the consideration phase of the sales cycle, OR b) training sales organization to better articulate your value prop or understand your solutions OR c) helping account execs tell compelling stories through their sales pitches. It is no wonder that the most of the content hardly moves the needle in either of the objectives.

Having developed a lot of high impact sales enablement content as a product marketing consultant to several SaaS companies, here are five tips for creating compelling content:

• Tell it like a story.  Most content that is created by product marketing tends to be very focused on product features and capabilities and light on why it matters and how it helps customers. And when it does reference the why and how, the words are very abstract and full of marketing jargon.   Include enough stories in the content, told in their language, with vivid details about the benefits your solutions can bring, so a customer can see themselves using your solution to improve their effectiveness and efficiency.
• Ensure your content is persona based. Keep your audience in mind.  Are you targeting a developer/end user, a functional manager or an executive?  Understand their specific issues and concerns, what keeps them up at night or what can help them become more effective/efficient in their daily work.  Then describe your solution benefits and customer examples in that language.  
• Record your pitch.  If you are developing a PowerPoint, record yourself presenting it and then play it back.  Does it speak to the right audience?  Are there any gaps in the storyline? Is your pitch compelling enough that customer will be motivated to research your solution or move it to consideration phase?  If you are developing a brochure, read some parts loudly and then listen to the recording.  Does it clearly articulate the problem and solution without using marketing jargon?
• Include an interesting nugget for the audience.  It could be a market research statistic that is relevant to your audience, a problem that a customer solved in an innovative manner by using your solution or a trend that you can talk about with both the qualitative and quantitative support. If your customer learnt something new (that helps them get better in their job) by spending a few minutes on your content, they will remember that nugget, and in turn, your solution.  
• Talk to customers.  Product marketers in many companies rarely talk to customers.  As a result, their understanding of the customer’s problems and how your solution addresses customer's issues is very abstract.  And that shows in the content they develop. Talking to customers at least once a week will go a long way in helping you create more compelling content.

These five nuggets will go a long way in developing compelling content.