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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?
9 Answers

Mary (Shirley) Sheehan
Adobe Head of Lightroom Product Marketing • September 13
Quick answer: Data. Bring them snippets of real customer conversations or data points that they haven't seen from customer interviews, surveys, CSAT, NPS, customer service feedback - you name it. This will show the value of talking to customers, and will leave them wanting more. To be even mo......Read More
1423 Views

Agustina Sacerdote
Square Global Head of PMM and Content Marketing, TIDAL • March 24
To me, it's about creating a customer-centric culture, not just a "market research" culture. "Market research" is a bit of a stigmatized term - most of it is considered not valuable, not actionable, and an expensive "nice-to-have". I'd encourage you to re-orient around building a habit of listeni......Read More
1997 Views

Eileen Buenviaje Reyes
1Password VP, Product Marketing • February 11
Market research is the most powerful tool for influencing product. I recommend applying your marketing skills to your internal stakeholders in the same way you use them for your externally-facing initiatives. If you have some great market insights in hand, consider these steps: 1. Understand you......Read More
2578 Views

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
346 Views

Daniel Waas
AppFolio Vice President Product Marketing • April 6
I'd say lead the way. Use a traditional PMM responsibility like refreshing your buyer personas as a reason to kick off a joint research project and pull in your partners from the product and design team. Set up customer interviews. Get outdoors and do a workshop. Have some fun with it. Bribe them......Read More
386 Views

Abdul Rastagar
GTM Leader | Marketing Author | Career Coach • May 7
This is concerning to hear. Unless you have the next Henry Ford on your design team, this mentality will ultimately lead to a poor product-market fit. That’s not saying that your design team should not have a voice at all – they may have a solid product vision and if they are market experts, the......Read More
944 Views

Marie Francis
Workday Senior Product Marketing Manager • December 17
While I agree with Mary's answer ("data") and the other great points that have been added here, I would caution against taking the exact same approach you would to influencing product as you would to influencing culture. If data were sufficient to change culture, the world would look dramatically......Read More
656 Views

Dave Daniels
BrainKraft Founder • March 21
I agree with Mary. Data. How you package that data, though, really matters. Some people are swayed by facts, some are swayed by process/method, and some are swayed by stories. Know your audience and package your facts accordingly.
413 Views

Gregg Miller
Oyster® VP of Product Marketing • November 19
One thing I'd add to Mary's response is what I think is the hardest part of your question: identifying the questions that matter most to the business. Getting and using data is critical, but it will fall on deaf ears and undermine your credibility if you aren't getting the right data at the right......Read More
699 Views
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Christine Tran
Quantum Metric VP, Product Marketing • July 28
I covered the basic flow of an introductory briefing deck in another question. I'd be happy to connect with you 1-1 to walk through yours and share a bit of mine :) Find me on LinkedIn! I've found 3 things that have really helped me have good analyst briefings. 1. Being very thoughtful and v......Read More
930 Views
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Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • December 20
The MQ, or "Magic Quadrant" report is what Gartner calls their comparative report for specific markets. Each major analyst firm has their own comparative report (Wave, Marketscape, etc.). The existence of this type of report indicates the maturity of the market and number of vendors addressing it......Read More
459 Views
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Mary (Shirley) Sheehan
Adobe Head of Lightroom Product Marketing • September 13
I’ve had the best success with easy to digest “competitive battlecards” for sales. The simpler, the better. They should give basic company info, pricing, and how to handle objections. For larger sales teams, these are a great reference point for them to use on the phone. The ultimate goal of ......Read More
2073 Views
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Loren Elia
Xero Global Head Of Product Marketing • January 23
1. User research. Know what questions need to be answered and either work with a research partner or do the research yourself. 2. Leadership. PMM is the glue that brings multiple functions together and you need to be able to motivate and inspire everyone. You also need to be able to keep people ......Read More
980 Views
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Katie Levinson
Product Marketing Consultant • February 3
First, stakeholders should be involved in your market research before it is even started. Get their buy-in on what the goal is, key learning objectives, and the questions you’ll be asking / data you’ll be uncovering. If you are doing any qualitative interviews, ask stakeholders to be notetakers o......Read More
649 Views
Related Questions
Can you share your tips on making a great analyst briefing deck?What are your recommendations for influencing analysts if there is no MQ in your category?How do you create competitive intel that is really beneficial to sales (i.e. they actually read and use it)?What are the most important product marketing skills or perspectives that others inside an organization could benefit from that would improve their day to day? Running a "Think Like a Product Marketer" course next month and would love to hear others' thoughts! What are some helpful advice, insights, and tips you can share for effective communication to multiple stakeholders (in different departments) on findings after market research is done?