AMA: Instacart Director, Retailer Product Marketing, Nikhil Balaraman on Analyst Relationships
March 22 @ 9:00AM PST
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Instacart Director, Retailer Product Marketing, Nikhil Balaraman on Analyst Relationships
Top Questions
Can you share your tips on making a great analyst briefing deck?
I'm about to make my companies first analyst briefing deck. I've made them in the past but want to make a really kick ass one this time around.
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
I think the mistake here is making it too long. I’d suggest an inverse triangle approach, and keep it short depending on the length and purpose of your briefing, probably no more than 5-10 slides. My typical lay out is: 1. Company slide (founded in, team, key logos, etc) 2. Market context (TAM......Read More
744 Views
1 request
How do you drive culture change with market research?
I'm hoping to influence Product and Design to talk to users more and build a clear picture of our user. The team will often refer to themselves as "the consumer" when they're not in our target demographic?
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
It is important for all functions across the company to build empathy for users. Regardless of your segment, small advisory boards are helpful for this, and can be set up to feature 10-20 key customers who meet quarterly (or more or less often) to review roadmaps and provide feedback on either ne......Read More
484 Views
2 requests
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
Starting with the customer insight is always the #1 job of a product marketer. Ideal customer profile, target verticals, buyer personas, etc these are things that aren’t going to change on a weekly or monthly basis. However, as part of routine planning cycles – perhaps every 3, 6 or 12 months dep......Read More
689 Views
2 requests
What role should a customer advisory board have in influencing your product roadmap, and why?
Product marketing owns the customer advisory board but product management owns the roadmap.
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
Customer advisory boards are great ways to bring product, leadership, and your customers face-to-face to really help everyone understand if what is being built will really solve customer needs. Along the entire product development journey, there are ways to involve customers that aren’t just focu......Read More
494 Views
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Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
I think the easiest thing to miss when setting up Voice of Customer programs is alignment cross-functionally on the purpose of these programs. As product marketers, it’s easy to drive towards your goal of turning your customers into heroes and heroines via case studies and testimonials for your s......Read More
430 Views
3 requests
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
Honestly, this is a GREAT problem to have. If there’s no Wave or MQ for your category, then all the more reason for you to be in the top right quadrant once one comes out :) The first thing I would recommend is identifying which analysts are covering your space generally. Whether or not it’s s......Read More
521 Views
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Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
Analyst relations programs are best run as a partnership between PR/Comms teams and PMM. The PR and Comms teams will be helpful in driving longer term thinking and time horizons. How do we start to influence the narrative in the market today for the future, how do we position the company today fo......Read More
558 Views
1 request
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
I think the mistake here is making it too long. I’d suggest an inverse triangle approach, and keep it short depending on the length and purpose of your briefing, probably no more than 5-10 slides. My typical lay out is: 1. Company slide (founded in, team, key logos, etc) 2. Market context (TAM......Read More
1546 Views
1 request
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
Well first of all, it’s always tough to be a team of one. You are definitely going to have to ruthlessly prioritize and as a team of one, it can be easy to get stuck as the sales content/collateral & product launch factory. So with the spare time that you have, I think a few things that can help ......Read More
871 Views
3 requests
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
At a B2B company PMM and Product cannot function without each other. There’s simply not enough time in the day for either team to do the other team’s job. I think the best way for PMMs to stay connect as a valuable partner to product is to help Product with understanding the market context and cu......Read More
885 Views
1 request
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
Depending on your target marketing and how active they are on these type of review sites, you may end up finding that G2 and TrustRadius are actually more effective than analysts. This is more likely to be the case if your economic buyer and your user personas line up more often than not, as it i......Read More
807 Views
1 request
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • March 21
These things are bound to happen, but the good news in today’s world is that customers are likely getting their information from multiple sources. If I were in rapid response mode, I’d probably start by lining up some blog posts and customer testimonials that address the perceived weakness. Perha......Read More
750 Views
1 request
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