Our product does something completely different than another product in the market, but we often get grouped together? Is this a product problem? Marketing problem?

Answer

3 Answers

Product Differentiation

Lizzy Masotta

Shopify Senior Product Lead | Formerly Salesforce, Google, Nest, Cisco Systems • 4y

Start by analyzing why this might be happening. It’s a key signal that shouldn’t be ignored, and needs further digging to understand what’s behind it. Is there a misperception of your brand? Is there a misunderstanding of the product offering? Are you missing features? Is there a lack of awareness of the company / offering? Consider conducting interviews with users and salespeople to get a better understanding of the misperception. If you can diagnose what exactly is behind this miscategorizatio ...Read More

1,355 Views
Kara Gillis

Cortex VP of Product | Formerly Splunk, Deloitte • 4y

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

408 Views
Preethy Vaidyanathan

Matterport VP of Product • 3y

It's a company problem and will likely need a cross-functional team effort to troubleshoot and solve the issue. In the diagnosis phase, I can't stress this enough - it's important to spend sufficient time understanding the problem before moving to solutions. Sometimes as product leaders, this is the hardest thing to do, which is to sit with the problem before jumping into fix-it mode. Start with where this problem occurs; is the misalignment happening with your clients, industry press, analysts ...Read More

446 Views