Market

• Market Problems
  Discover problems in the market by interviewing customers, recent evaluators and untapped, potential customers. Validate urgent problems to show their pervasiveness in the market.

• Win/Loss Analysis
  Understand why recent evaluators of the product did or did not buy and what steps they took in the buying process.

• Distinctive Competencies
  Articulate and leverage the organization's unique abilities to deliver value to the market.

• Competitive Landscape
  Identify competitive and alternative offerings in the market. Assess their strengths and weaknesses. Develop a strategy for winning against the competition.

• Asset Assessment
  Inventory your assets (technical, skills, services, patents, other) and determine ways that they can be leveraged.

 

Focus

• Market Definition
  Map the needs with target markets and analyze the market segments to actively pursue. Ensure that the targeted segments are large enough to support the current and future business of the product.

• Distribution Strategy
  Determine which channels best align with your markets' buying preferences.

• Product Portfolio
  Integrate products into a coherent portfolio of products focused on the market. Manage the portfolio like a "product" (business plan, positioning, buying process, market requirements, and marketing plan).

• Product Roadmap
  Illustrate the vision and key phases of deliverables for the product. The roadmap is a plan, not a commitment.

 

Business

• Business Plan
  Perform an objective analysis of a potential market opportunity to provide a basis for investment. Articulate what you learned in the market and quantify the risk, including a financial model.

• Pricing
  Establish a pricing model, schedules, guidelines, and procedures.

• Buy, Build or Partner
  Determine the most effective way to deliver a complete solution to an identified market problem. Where you have gaps in your offering, analyze whether to buy, build, or partner to complete the solution for your market.

• Product Profitability
  Monitor and analyze key performance indicators to determine how well the product is performing in the market, how it impacts the company operations, and ultimately, how it contributes to profit.

• Innovation
  Focus your teams' creative spirit on solving market problems by leveraging your organization's distinctive competencies.

 

Planning

• Positioning
  Describe the product by its ability to solve market problems. Create internal positioning documents that will be used to develop external messages focused on each key buyer or persona.

• Buyer Experience
  Understand and document the buyer's journey for the key segments and buyers we have identified.

• Buyer Personas
  Define the archetypical buyers involved in the purchasing of your products and services.

• User Personas
  Define the archetypical users of your products or services.

• Requirements
  Articulate and prioritize personas and their problems so that the appropriate products can be built.

• Use Scenarios
  Illustrate market problems in a "story" that puts the problem in context. Use scenarios are one component of requirements.

• Stakeholder Comm.
  Manage proactive communications with relevant stakeholders from strategy through execution.

 

Programs

• Marketing Plan
  Articulate the strategies and tactics for generating awareness and leads for the upcoming fiscal period, including key programs and events with measurements and goals.

• Revenue Growth
  Define the specific plans and budgets for selling products and services to new customers.

• Revenue Retention
  Define the specific plans and budgets for ensuring customer loyalty, as well as selling products and services to existing customers.

• Launch
  Plan, execute and measure the effectiveness of strategic launches.

• Awareness
  Develop programs to raise the profile and awareness of your brand within strategic market segments to bring more prospects into your funnel.

• Nurturing
  Develop programs to move prospects quickly and effectively through the funnel, with the objective of turning prospects into satisfied customers.

• Advocacy
  Identify customers who are willing to give testimonials, case studies, and references and amplify their voice in the market.

• Measurement
  Measure and tune product marketing programs to ensure alignment with corporate goals.

 

Enablement

• Sales Alignment
  Use your market knowledge to help sales align their selling process to the way the market wants to buy.

• Content
  Develop relevant content to be used for all go-to-market channels and materials.

• Sales Tools
  Create tools for salespeople focused on a specific step of the selling process.

• Channel Training
  Design and deliver training programs to help the sales channels focus on how to sell the product, not how to use it.

 

Support

• Programs
  Provide needed market and solution information to support internal and external marketing programs.

• Operations
  Provide needed market and solution information to support the operations group.

• Events
  Provide needed market and solution information to support marketing events such as conferences, trade shows, and webinars.

• Channels
  Provide needed market and solution information to support channel opportunities and activities.