Which framework can Product Marketing and Product collaborate on to exchange competitive insights for prioritizing the product roadmap and achieving successful attachment rates?

Here is my spicy take.. and it's not likely not how you've been trained to operate. Stay with me...

First, it's critically important to align on exactly "who" is your competition.

This will vary by segment and Ideal Customer Profile.

Second, I rely on Donald Miller's Storybrand framework to help suss out who the competition is with product.

Each quarter, we do a narrative kick-off exercise where we delve into the following "hero's journey" by answering the following questions:

• Who is the character: the customer is always the hero of the story, not the brand. It’s up to UX designers to figure out what customers want from the brand, usually through UX research and user testing. They need to focus on the desires that drive people, things like conserving financial resources, saving time, building social networks, or gaining status.

• What is their problem: The villain in the StoryBrand arc is the character’s problem. It’s useful to personify that problem and understand that the company’s products are like weapons the customer can use to defeat it. THIS is your competition.

  • Companies tend to focus on solving external problems, but customers buy solutions to internal problems. People have three levels of conflict:

    • External (most businesses try to solve external problems)

    • Internal (such as frustration, intimidation, insecurity)

    • Philosophical (why does this story matter?)

• Who is the guide (product): The guide is the business, product/capability. Customers need someone to take care of the problem. Their perception of the brand will be crucial to their trust. Two things must be communicated:

  • Empathy (show an understanding of the pain the customer may feel)

  • Authority (it will give the customer confidence that the brand is able to help them)

Third, it's easy to look outside and point fingers at the competitive players. But the danger here is getting into feature wars that are relatively meaningless to your audience. Also you could end up building a product that is not for the people who chose you - your customers. I've seen this happen to organizations that lose sight of their base and focus too much on the competition... they end up with a frankenstein product that's built for "others" outside of product - this results in churn and wasted capital.

If you look "inside" at the core struggles your existing personas are facing - that right there is your competition. This - in addition to "no solution" and the "status quo" are the real battles PMM and PMs should be fighting.

Tech competition is secondary and tertiary - and too often, a distraction.