AMA: Vanta Head of PLG Product Marketing, Madison Leonard on Customer Research

In order to understand your ideal distribution strategy, you have to know your ICP extremely well. Your company growth strategy will also play a role... product-led (PLG) with a freemium or trial product or sales-led (SLG) with sales locked demo.  If you're in a sales-led organization, all content should be TOFU or MOFU aimed at your buyer persona. Rarely will you have good performing BOFU. All CTAs are gearing towards talking with sales and getting a demo.  If you're in a product-led organizati ...Read More

This all depends on the stage of your company and whether you're a PLG or SLG company. Product-Led Growth companies: You won't be able to truly segment effectively until your product is mature and you have product analytics set up. In the early stages, you should be able to identify who your early adopter target audience is through customer interviews. Then, based on the roadmap, you should have some hypotheses about the various use cases your product will be good for and the personas that would ...Read More

3 words - length, ROI, searchability.  Length: Sales reps and customers alike want things to be short and to the point. I like to keep it to a punchy header with 2-3 supporting bullet points if possible.  ROI: The benefit to the customer should be clear in the header. For example, "[Customer] saved an average of 10 hours per week and $250,000/yr by switching from [competitor] to [your company]".    Searchability: Sales will forget 90% of the things you present in enablement. Not to mention, new ...Read More

Talk with at least 1 customer a week and you'll never be surprised by any changes! I like to follow Gartner and Forrester for changes in the market, as well as keeping a pulse on new PLG companies who are bootstrapping (don't underestimate those folks).  The truth is, most companies do these items once a year at best. If you're able to spend time every 6 months, I think you'll be ahead of the curve.  It's a lot of work up front to create, but shouldn't be much to update. I like to check them any ...Read More

Not getting enough feedback from stakeholders on missing value.  VoC programs are amazing when implemented well, but if they are created in a silo or without solving a problem then it will not get the internal traction it deserves.  For example - are you marketing, sales, or product teams HUNGRY for more customer input? Where? Why? Dig into what pain it would solve if they had more insight.  Then, deliver that value first when building out your VoC program.  If your stakeholders say something li ...Read More

This really depends on the leadership team and company culture. Some organizations have a culture of "execute and iterate" first, whereas others will like to be more throughout from the beginning. This culture is unlikely to change with the viewpoints of one person, so I recommend choosing the company you work for very wisely!  However, there are ways you can set yourself up for success in any company: Start talking with customers BEFORE you need to. Chat with 1-2 a week. Enough to get a pulse, ...Read More

This all depends on your company stage and customer size.  In the early stages (less than 50 customers), I would honestly try to talk with all of them. Offer free coffee, a heavy discount, or whatever you have to. This will help you understand your early adopter target audience - once you have this, you can double down on marketing channels and an early distribution strategy. But keep in mind, your more mature product will have more segments, so this is only good until about 500-1,000 customers ...Read More

Most companies will have multiple personas. There are two distinctions here - user personas and buyer personas.  If you're selling mostly to SMBs, you may only have 1-2 buyer personas (usually CEO or COO) during your sales cycle. The more you move into mid market and enterprise, the more people will be involved in the buying process and therefore you'll need to know how to sell to each persona. For product-led growth companies with a freemium or trial product, you'll also have user personas. For ...Read More

Buyer research comes in two forms - existing customers and prospects.  Tap into your existing customers to learn what really sticked during the sales cycle and what their 'aha' moment was in the product. The key is to find the PAIN they were in before this product.  Then, do some networking on LinkedIn. I usually will offer free coffee or some kind of incentive and ask for feedback on messaging for a product. These folks really have nothing to lose, so they'll be upfront with any hesitations the ...Read More

Customer advisory boards are best when you keep the customers under 10 people and ask them to stay on for 1-2 years. Strategically hand-pick your advisors from the markets you want to break into or dominate. For example, if you want to go more into Enterprise, you shouldn't have 9/10 people from SMB companies on your board.  While advisory boards can certainly help with retention, I'd argue they are better suited for roadmap planning and keeping them happy customers. For product retention, I'd p ...Read More