Jackie Palmer

I've measured product marketing in a number of ways but my preference is a monthly team dashboard, ideally broken down by product if there are multiple products. I ideally like to track the following metrics and stats though sometimes not all are so easy to get! Win/loss: I like to track competitor win rates monthly but then I have a quarterly deeper win/loss analysis including win rates, average ARR and number of deals by competitor, all broken down by incumbent displacements vs green field dea ...Read More

The first thing to do when trying to get your company into a Wave or MQ is to study the category and find out what the inclusion criteria are. If you don't meet the inclusion criteria right away, work with your product team on building out a roadmap path that allows you to qualify. Or if you have all the required product features but still don't meet it, see what other hurdles like revenue growth or number of customers you need to track to be able to qualify over time. Once you are familiar with ...Read More

Similar to other questions above, there are lots of resources to leverage when thinking about pricing and packaging including competitor pricing. Here are some that I've found most useful: Competitor websites (hopefully you'll be lucky and they'll publish their pricing!). Know that whatever you find here is likely to be higher than actual selling price as it is not usually inclusive of discounts or promotions Review websites like G2 and TrustRadius. Often people will comment on the price they pa ...Read More

The best kept secret in the analyst community is that you can ask for a briefing even if you don't have a seat/license to the analyst firm! And you should be doing this and following my briefing recommendations above. Don't just wait to be asked to brief the analysts for an eval like an MQ or Wave, be proactive! Reach out quarterly at a minimum and schedule update briefings with all the analyst firms who cover your space. The more they hear from you, the more likely they are to mention you on th ...Read More

There are three types of analyst briefing decks you need to be able to prepare. The first is a quarterly update. I use these quarterly briefings to stay in touch with my analyst community and share new things that have happened in the quarter. I usually do them at the end of the first month of the next quarter so the revenue numbers are ready. My agenda for this type of briefing deck is: Quarter Business Momentum - use this to communicate any growth and numbers you can share. I've found that eve ...Read More

In the early days of an analyst relations program, the key metric you are going to be able to track is touches (inquiries, briefings, conference 1:1 meetings etc). The number of touches can be a proxy for measuring how you are building relationships with the analyst community. I like to track touches per month or per quarter and you should ideally be touching every one of your key analysts at least once per quarter. Once you're a little farther along in your analyst program, you can start to tra ...Read More

There are three types of analyst briefing decks you need to be able to prepare. The first is a quarterly update, the second is the product update, and the third is the evaluation briefing. I outlined my approach to each of these in a previous answer so here I wanted to highlight the key ingredient in a successful analyst briefing deck. The absolute key thing to include in any analyst briefing deck is customer proof. Whether it's new competitive wins you highlight in a quarterly briefing, beta cu ...Read More

I think you've taken the right approach! I would never recommend only building out your positioning based on features or products. You need a full, compelling story which should include non-product things as well as product-related things. Non-product things could be services you offer, training classes or certifications you give, industries or personas you specialize in, etc. Building out a full story including all of your unique value propositions and differentiators allows you to have a bette ...Read More

I've found that it is a best practice to evaluate your prices at least once a year for most products. If your market changes very rapidly, you may consider bi-annual or quarterly pricing reviews but for most annually is great. You need to consider both outside conditions, like inflation, global/local economic changes, new competitive entrants, market consolidation or fragmentation, etc, as well as internal conditions. These can include: Have you released a lot of new features in the last year th ...Read More

There are plenty of tools out there to gather competitive intel and you don't technically even need a tool - you could just set up Google alerts or search yourself. That said, here are some of the things I think are critical to gather when conducting competitive research: Strengths/weaknesses (sometimes called swords and shields) with talking points for each Product(s) overview Feature comparisons including gaps Questions for prospects to plant (landmines) Track record against you with customer ...Read More