the product mentor: creating community for product unknown
Post on 14-Sep-2014
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Join Cindy Solomon's (mentor in The Product Mentor) conversation on Creating Community for Product Unknown. The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by fundamental goals...Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People..TRANSCRIPT
Creating Community For Product Unknown
by Cindy F. SolomonJune 18, 2014
© Cindy F. [email protected]
Cindy F. Solomon, CPM, CPMM
© Cindy F. [email protected]
• 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. [email protected]
Why create community before the product is known?
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Increase Product Success
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
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Building the wrong product is expensive & disastrous for the product team & company
© Cindy F. [email protected]
Why focus on “community” rather than “target market”?
© Cindy F. [email protected]
Aren’t customers more important than “community”?
© Cindy F. [email protected]
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. [email protected]
• 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. [email protected]
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. [email protected]
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. [email protected]
Walk in their shoes• Observe them• Eat with them• Talk with them• Live with them• Care about them• Find their current community
© Cindy F. [email protected]
• Ask questions• Feel from their perspective• What is missing• What can be improved• What sucks• What feeds their needs
Empathize
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• 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
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Product marketing managers frame the narrative of the product, idea, and potential market
One sentence summary – elevator statementBe consistent across all communications
What are you telling them?
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• It reflects what has been learned from the community
• In their words, language and context• Focused on their WIIFM
Why Should They Believe
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Develop key relationships before you build the product for trust, believability and champions
Key Relationships
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Before building product:
Establish relationships with current community stars, i.e.
Bloggers, thought leaders, authors, innovators, practitioners
© Cindy F. [email protected]
Before building product:
Give them platform to be heard and then Listen to them!
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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
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Find the loudmouths, early adopters, people creating & controlling the conversations, then
Get Inside The Conversations
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1. Identify key issues product touches2. Become part of the conversation3. Cultivate the influencers via follows & replies4. Produce (or borrow) compelling content5. Build a need in the marketplace6. Launch a product that fills that need 7. Build on the community that contributed to
defining the product
Get Inside The Conversations
© Cindy F. [email protected]
• 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
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• 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. [email protected]
1. Be a nice guy that everyone likes2. 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. [email protected]
“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. [email protected]
Chris Yeh, PBWorks “Find the market before you build the product.”Sean Moffit, It Takes A Community to Build A BrandStartup Product & Global Product Management Talk contributors, community organizers, speakers and sponsors
Thanks to
© Cindy F. [email protected]
Thank you for sharing your precious time!Please connect!www.linkedin.com/in/cfsolomon/ @cindyfsolomon
Startup Product, movement for product excellence http://startupproduct.com @startupproductStartup Product communities
Global Product Management Talk, weekly broadcast@prodmgmttalk
Webcast Digest, daily curated online events @WebcastDigest