creating community for product unknown

Creating Community For

Product Unknown

by Cindy F. Solomon June 18, 2014

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Cindy F. Solomon, CPM, CPMM

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

•Host, Global Product Management Talk •Founder, Startup Product Movement for Product Excellence •Contributing author: ProdBOK, Product Management And Marketing Body of Knowledge and 42 Rules Product Marketing Chapter #13 Emulate Twitter •20 years software product marketing and management, web development, services, consulting including Apple, Vadem, NetObjects and Startups in Silicon Valley. www.linkedin.com/in/cfsolomon/

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Why create community before the product is known?

Increase Product Success

4

70% Of Products Fail • Didn’t meet market needs

• Unclear who the customer was

• Wasn’t viable

• Not competitive

• Costs too high to produce

• Need not urgent

• Customer unwilling to pay

• Not enough customers

• Incorrect pricing

• Not appropriate positioning

• Value not communicated

• Product not aligned with brand image

• Doesn’t meet expectations

• Built in obsolescence

6

Building the wrong product is expensive & disastrous for the product team & company

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Why focus on “community” rather than “target market”?

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Aren’t customers more important than “community”?

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Community is a

Two Way Street

• Requires less $ (marketing, advertising dollars)

• Grows loyalty

• Inspires trust

• Showcases real humans

• Encourages feedback

• Enables Deeper interactions

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Community Marketing Leaders

Nike, Starbucks and Google

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Creating Future Community

Apple in education

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Before building product:

First find the market.

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Before building product:

Find the desire.

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Before building product:

Sense the need in the market.

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Customer Development

Process to discover product/market fit

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

• What do they read? Specific magazines, papers

• What events do they attend?

• Which social platforms?

• What devices?

If you don’t know, then how can you reach them?

Identify Addressable Community

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Go out to the field

• Where are they

• What are they doing

• What do they care about

• What are they reading

• What devices do they use

• What platforms do they frequent

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Understand motivations

• How do they behave

• What drives their choices

• How do they solve their pains

• What do they pay for

• What do they value

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Walk in their shoes

• Observe them

• Eat with them

• Talk with them

• Live with them

• Care about them

• Find their current community

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

• Ask questions

• Feel from their perspective

• What is missing

• What can be improved

• What sucks

• What feeds their needs

Empathize

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

• Can you communicate what they value?

• Can you provide value to the existing community?

• Can you reach them in sufficient numbers above the noise?

• Why will they care about your product?

• Why will they change current behavior?

Assess

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Product marketing managers frame the narrative of the product, idea, and potential market

One sentence summary – elevator statement

Be consistent across all communications

What are you telling them?

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

• It reflects what has been learned from the community

• In their words, language and context

• Focused on their WIIFM

Why Should They Believe

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Develop key relationships before you build the product for trust, believability and champions

Key Relationships

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Before building product:

Establish relationships with

current community stars, i.e.

Bloggers, thought leaders, authors, innovators, practitioners

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Before building product:

Give them platform to be heard and then Listen to them!

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Create Future Stars

• Create future community stars by showcasing passionate contributors & awarding their contributions

• Gamification, stickers, badges, discounts

• Even better: Thank you tweets, emails & printed acknowledgement

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.comP

Find the loudmouths, early adopters, people creating & controlling the conversations, then

Get Inside The Conversations

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cfsolomon@gmail.comP

1. Identify key issues product touches

2. Become part of the conversation

3. Cultivate the influencers via follows & replies

4. Produce (or borrow) compelling content

5. Build a need in the marketplace

6. Launch a product that fills that need

7. Build on the community that contributed to defining the product

Get Inside The Conversations

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

• Identify key issues product touches upon

• Where is conversation going on?

• Don’t create the conversation, join it and forward the action with relevant, appropriate, and generous contributions

Create Compelling Content

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

• Talk about things that already have interest and give your personal experience

• What excites you?

• Headline with something that relates to you

– Use https://medium.com/ to post

– Share URL on scoop.it

Be Human

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

1. Be a nice guy that everyone likes

2. Build a product that everyone likes

3. Market before you build the product

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiten_Shah KissMetrics, Crazy Egg, Growth Hacking

The Hiten Shah Secret

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

“Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.”

Biz Stone, Twitter, founded 2006

Slowly Build Overnite Success

It Started with a Tweet

The Startup Product Mission • Engage product professionals in regular, real-time discussion;

• Showcase experts, speakers, bloggers, thought leaders, practitioners and events that forward product excellence;

• Evangelize Product related jobs;

• Raise important issues that all product professionals confront;

• Extend shared resources across industries and borders;

• Facilitate dialogue, networking, mentoring & support;

• Enable global community;

• Educate & defend the value of the product professional, cross-functional team collaboration and holistic product view.

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Chris Yeh, PBWorks “Find the market before you build the product.”

Sean Moffit, It Takes A Community to Build A Brand

Startup Product & Global Product Management Talk contributors, community organizers, speakers and sponsors

Thanks to

© Cindy F. Solomon

cfsolomon@gmail.com

Thank you for sharing your precious time! Please connect! www.linkedin.com/in/cfsolomon/ @cindyfsolomon Startup Product, movement for product excellence http://startupproduct.com @startupproduct Startup Product communities Global Product Management Talk, weekly broadcast @prodmgmttalk Webcast Digest, daily curated online events @WebcastDigest