AMA: Splunk Sr. Director, Head of AIOps and IT Ops Products, Kara Gillis on Product Differentiation

There are several inputs I think about when considering product differentiation: 1. Specific target customer - There are many types of customers in a market. Who are you serving? Try to narrow your focus as far as you can to understand the specific problems faced by this customer to be as tailored to their needs as possible. Has a particular customer type been ignored or underserved in the market? If so, why? What value are they seeking but not able to find with existing products? 2. Specific va ...Read More

While I don't use an existing framework specifically for product differentiation, I do use a variety of inputs to determine what lever to pull or what decision to make. These inputs can be found in the answer to the question, "What are the most important inputs to take into consideration when thinking through product differentiation?" Other frameworks I do use:  Geoffrey Moore's Positioning Statement Template in his book, Crossing the Chasm: "For (target customer) who (statement of the need or o ...Read More

I used to be a product marketer. My ideal working relationship is to view product marketing as my key partner in product development, launch, and iteration. We are both stewards of the product success. I try to involve product marketing into the very beginning stages of product development - they help me amplify the voice of the customer, help me find reference customers by launch, fine tune messaging, speak to industry analysts educating them on the new product, enable sales and customers on th ...Read More

This is a tale as old as time. There are many ways to approach this. I have seen vendors heavily bid on the AdWords of their competitor names and promote alternative solutions (trials or marketing content). I have seen vendors who are challengers in mature markets create "Us vs. Them" web pages or blogs that outline the differences (according to the vendor publishing the info) what the major differences are. And, I have seen third-party research or analyst evaluations heavily promoted that rank ...Read More

This can be a very frustrating situation to be as a product manager. This situation tells me you work in a market that hasn't matured to the point of clear nuance. The culprit could be either a product problem OR a marketing problem. The reason this can be frustrating is your product is being held to a set of standards it shouldn't be, and therefore customers get disappointed - its own form of death spiral if something doesn't change. It sounds like one or more things could be happening here:  1 ...Read More

While it is important to care about your competitors to understand your own market position, DO NOT MAKE THEM THE FOCUS. What should be your focus? Your customers. Their problems. Their needs, their asks, their feedback.  Think of your roadmap like a budget of your resources, the way you would a household budget. Break down the budget by importance.  For a product that has been out in the market a bit, I break down my ideal roadmap budget into the following percentages: 50% feature enhancements ...Read More

I love this question. The answer is: it depends on the exec team and how they are motivated, whether they are answering to private investors or public shareholders, etc.  But - to put it simply - find someone on your exec staff who both 1) trusts you/your vision and sell them the vision and 2) is trusted by the rest of the executive team and can sell your vision or has the budget authority to invest. What do you need to sell it? A business case. I think of a business case as satisfying the input ...Read More