Analyst Relationships

This is a great question and top of mind for me right now.  For your executives, their primary goal may be to get into a Forrester Wave or Magic Quadrant. Yes, that would be the ultimate win, but it can be a long game AND there are many other ways to measure success over the life of a program. There are two buckets of goals to measure success:  1. Drive awareness, pipeline, deal acceleration of your solution (outbound): I measure this through research mentions and perception audit. Analysts publish regular vendor guides. These are not evaluative but are important ...

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 for where we want to be in 3-5 years, those type of questions. For PMM, the value is in getting feedback on how you’re positioning products for buyers today, and driving awareness especially for enterprise buyers (CxOs) with the analyst community on what you have to offer. The best way to really do it...

Great question. First of all, make sure you set expectations up-front that results will take a while to see. Overall count the incremental wins, and show the milestones your crossing as a way to share that progress. Have a great conversation with an analyst where they told you a key piece of insight? Share that amongst your executives and PMM team.  Also, make sure you -- or your executive team -- are regularly talking with analysts. If you're responsible for AR, or have an AR team, you should be meeting with various analysts (not just the core group who drive reports!) regularly. As ...

It may be a controversial pov, but my perspective is that the analyst community is getting disrupted by DTC user review sites like G2, TrustRadius, and the others. Customer voice is just as powerful as it's ever been, but now, there are increasingly more and more ways to access that customer voice in context of making purchasing decisions. In 7 years of building Gainsight, I think the only value we had from working with analysts was sponsoring a thought leadership paper with Forrester. It was expensive (~$100K) but allowed us to leverage the brand equity of a trusted brand in the market to...

Analysts will not endorse any vendor directly. Your goal with AR is to help shape their POV about the market, especially if this is a new category and ultimately get well positioned on MQs and Wave reports. Shaping their POV means showing analysts how customers are getting value from this new type of solution and what critical capabilities that are required to be successful. Do this by building a personal relationship with the analysts, sharing insights, connecting them with your customers, and keeping them updated about your roadmap and product innovation. 

I recommend creating a more high-level analyst stategy that outlines your actual need for analyst partnerships. Once you and your stakeholders are aligned on the need, you need to carefully select analyst partners who will drive the desired results. Do your research. Ask for references. Be critical of their proposals and scope of work. Get involved in the research. Ask questions. Good luck!

  If you’re looking for specific titles, I think the approach you laid out makes sense. The screener survey is super important for making sure you’re find representative folks to talk to (based on your customer base or intended customer base), and not wasting your time. For sourcing the initial list, I try to make them a mix of current customers (sourced from our database) and potential prospects.  For prospects, I use an intercept on some of our web content, and sometimes tap into panels like Google Surveys.  For specific titles, you could also try LinkedIn targeting which I think allows ...

Respondent.io is great tool for this - you can target specific job titles in any number of industries and weed out interviewees based on a survey. We typically ask things like company size, job function, whether or not they're already using our software, etc. We just redid all of our personas and Respondent.io was amazing. I also sent out a survey via PeopleFish which is another great (and typically cheap-er) way to get intel outside of your customer base.

First things first, I believe that a representative sampling of non-customers can actually be a better source of information than current customers, so you're in a good position there. However, I wouldn't start with a survey. I would instead start internally (product and sales) to understand who this was built for, what it can do for them, why they should care and how they react when presented with it.  Quality interviews with product and sales should help you figure out your "who" for profiling. When it comes to the interviews themselves, my best advice: Ask colleagues for introductions...

Based on your question detail, it sounds like you are targeting some specific persona details. If you have the time and capacity to take the approach you described, then it's a good way to do it. The other is to use a third party. I've used a few in the past, SurveyMonkey and Respondent.io. They were both pretty easy to use and got us the insight we needed without the hassle of prospecting.

If you're going after a whole new market, consider using services like G2G where you can provide the desired profile including industry, companies, titles, and areas of expertise. Then you'll get scheduled interviews where you can ask very specific questions. Set aside some budget for these interviews and be selective because they are costly. 

This is a great approach. It's best if you get as specific as possible to identify prospects (ie. country, company size, verticle/industry, job title) and get clear on where you want to focus.  I shared in another answer that we partnered with a leading thought leader for a specific vertical (retail) and conducted a survey with their audience, who was our target person (retail execs). We used the survey results to share industry trends and insights and used this asset for lead generation, which drove a ton of interest!  Always consider, what's in it for them? I'm always pleasantly surpr...

In general, a good flow for an introductory briefing deck is:  1. Introductions, and why you're here: I always like to start the conversation with a little context on why you've requested a briefing with the analyst. So I'll have a slide or just a few talking points on their specific research that sparked my request for a briefing.  2. Company overview: Before you jump into what you do, it helps to give analysts a bit of context and be very direct. This isn't a sales pitch. Analysts want to know a few basic things about the company like primary buyers, funding, si...

An option here also is to really start with a point of agreement around how the market is changing and as a point of discussion. If it intersects with their research then all the better. Then use that as a setup to flow into why you exist are different/better. Finish with all the customer and company metrics to end on a strong note: 1. What has changed in the market.  2. Why current-state solutions are no longer a fit given this. 3. Founding vision and why your solution is different/better than the current state 4. Some detail to show that it's not BS. 5. How your GTM is different/bett...

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/SAM/SOM as needed) 3. Problem statement: Key persona & pain points 4. Unique perspective: What’s your thesis/why you 5. Product overview: Perhaps a traditional marchitecture slide to start and then some screenshots or even better a 10min product demo walking thru a fictional user problem...

Afraid that this is a confidential item I can't share---sorry! A few thoughts though about how we do this well (and I have to credit a colleague, Michael Dunne, who does this work and is an exceptional AR expert). 1) Sales slides: If they're good enough to sell with, they should be good enough for the analyst. 2) Growth & leadership: Show your momentum, your success, your profile in your market. Anything you'd show to a potential investor here too. Be bold without lying... 3) Format like the analyst: See what the analyst has published themselves and structure any custom slides i...

I've been on both sides of the table. Before you set pixels to powerpoint... #1 - What questions do you have for the analyst to help validate or refute your assumptions about the market?  #2 - Can you describe the customer problem and your offering clearly enough that when a customer who fits your ideal target calls the analyst, the analyst thinks of you. #3 - Do you have a unquie perspective or better yet data on customer behaviors that would help the analyst do their job more effectively? #4 - Have you read the recent research of the key analysts you will be briefing? #5 - ...

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 very direct about why I've requested a briefing with that analyst. This gives the analyst context on why they should care about your solution, i.e. if you do a good job connecting the dots. As an example: You wrote X in Y report, and that's exactly what our customers tell us we solve ...

The best analyst briefing decks that I've either seen or helped build are not filled with marketing messaging. They clearly layout what analysts typically care about, which could include the following: trends you've observed in market you operate in, the challenges your product(s) solves, overview of your growth trajectory, industries you touch plus key use cases for each, unique differentiators, and insight into the product & (high level) GTM strategy and company vision.  Other elements I'd suggest: Include customer success stories, lay out the ecosystem that supports your products (ie. p...

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/SAM/SOM as needed) 3. Problem statement: Key persona & pain points 4. Unique perspective: What’s your thesis/why you 5. Product overview: Perhaps a traditional marchitecture slide to start and then some screenshots or even better a 10min product demo walking thru a fictional user problem...

This is the situation we're in right now. Our AR program is three years old and it's an ongoing initiative to identify and vet the right analysts, build relationships, and education/inform/influence their research roadmap. Here are a few tactics I'm using: 1. Identify the analysts who (will) write the vendor guides that are relevant to your category. These usually precede a Wave or MQ. 2. Write out your Wave or MQ criteria. Plot out your company and your competitors. Keeping those close to your chest :) Having this formulated and vetted internally can keep you and your e...

Treat it as a category creation opportunity! Analyst firms have their place, but they can also hamstring your creativity when it comes to positioning your offering and differentiating from competitors. You don't currently have that anchor to carry. Enjoy your extra flexibility! I’ve even seen some companies effectively create their own market landscape framework to create commanding buyer’s guides and compelling ad creative.

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 specific to your category matters less, but having a mapping of who the 2-5 analysts are who might care about your space, and ultimately who might be the ones to create a Wave or MQ is what matters. Next, understand their research. Get your hands on whatever material you can, sign up for a license, a...

Ideally, your product roadmap reflects long-term strategy, narrative, and investment. If you are confident in your roadmap, you shouldn't need a rule that automatically places more weight on negative reviews than positive or neutral reviews. Feedback is very important - but it's equally important to avoid knee-jerk reactions and keep Product, Dev, and Marketing teams focused on the plan.  Generally, I try to balance negative reviews with understanding that (a) we're not necessarily marketing to everyone and (b) product is a journey - some will follow and others will not.  Negative rev...

This is a really interesting question. Leadership typically look at a number of factors when determining what goes in the roadmap. For example, at Zendesk we look at industry trends, innovative use cases, new market expansion, our competitors, partners, and of course customer feedback. For customer feedback we run a robust “Voice of the Customer ” program that looks at feature requests across all our customers and then ranks them based on a number of factors including revenue opportunity, churn risk, number of votes, and alignment with long-term strategy. I don’t think damaging negative re...

Our team always looks at negative feedback and incorporates it in product roadmap decisions... BUT there is one rule that myself and my teams always use in these feedback sessions. 1 is not a constant, meaning that if it is just one negative feedback we don't use it, as this doesn't mean scale, this could just be an issue with this customer and no one else is feeling it. So we look at critital mass of feedback or reviews around the same topic. As a Product Marketer you need to take the good with the bad and you can find great learnings and growth in negative feedback. My favorite custmers a...

For the definition of reviews, I will consider analyst product evaluations also as reviews. It is also important to know that not all public reviews have the same weight.  From my own experience, well articulated, attributed - negative feedback can have the right impact on product roadmap decisions. It allows the PM-PMM team to even reach out for further investigations and understand the key gaps for the customer. It also gives the team a chance to respond to the feedback by providing acceptable work arounds or provide product roadmap guidence.