Jackie Palmer

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 better position in the market and doesn't leave you constantly repositioning if a competitor comes out with a new feature. As I mentioned in one of the other answers, once you have your unique value props or UVPs, you can then apply the MUD framework (what is meaningful, unique, defensible) and start to layer in your competitive positioning there. Features should never be the only part of your positioning, competitive or otherwise. Your approach with a differentiated story is a good one. Set up your story, surround it with both features and non-feature based UVPs. Then take that story and map out where your competitive differentiators lie (the defensible part of MUD) and you'll be in good shape.

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 that would merit charging more for your product? * Did your competition release any features you don't yet have that would merit maybe lowering your pricing to stay competitive? * Have you been experiencing a lower win rate and do you have any actual indication that it is due to pricing? * Have you gotten any feedback, actual observed or anecdotal, that the current pricing is not working? * Are you planning on entering a new market or location in the coming year that would have different price expectations? * Have you received any awards or recognition (analyst evals etc) that might support a price increase? * Do you have any customer ROI numbers you could turn to to prove that customers are getting increasing value for their investment that might support a price increase? Or the opposite for a price decrease. It's good to at least review all of the above external and internal factors every year even if you ultimately decide not to make any changes.

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 pay or paid * Marketplaces like the Salesforce AppExchange, HubSpot Marketplace, Microsoft AppSource etc. These marketplaces often require vendors to list a "starting" price. Again, this will likely be higher than actual selling price * Industry analysts like Gartner, Forrester etc. They will be able to talk about average market selling prices and average discounting practices but they won't give you an exact price. * Independent research/survey firms. If you have the budget you can hire a company for market analysis. Many times these companies have people on contract who are practitioners and may know the market from either working at a vendor or buying from other vendors. This is often very useful but costly. * Your existing customers or prospects. If you have a customer community you can leverage, don't be afraid to ask. Your happy customers are often willing to give you their opinion on pricing and packaging both of your own products or any competitive products they may have experience will * Your existing partners. If you work with implementation or resell partners, often they will have knowledge of market pricing. Like the industry analysts, they may be unwilling to give you exact prices but could advise on the market or give suggestions on packaging. * Your sales team. Maybe someone worked for a competitor or knows the general market. Or at the very least, your sales team will know how prospects and customers have reacted to pricing in the past * Your friends and neighbors. I'm only half joking! You never know who might have knowledge of your industry's pricing and packaging. Don't be afraid to ask!

Definitely check out some of the research resources I've mentioned in previous answers. I would also interview people at your company, salespeople, your CEO, finance, etc and also see if you can get any time with board members to get their viewpoints. And then there are also a few companies like the PMA and others that offer pricing specific training. Those are great places to start! 

Getting feedback on assets and collateral from stakeholders is a key part of Product Marketing's job. What I like to do is create a tiger team of people you can count on. This could differ of course depending on the asset but should likely include a mix of salespeople (pre-sales, AEs/reps, SDRs, etc.) and probably some of the post-sales teams as well (CSMs, PS, Account Managers, etc.). Many times you will know the people to include but sometimes you'll need to ask managers for nominations. It's important to get feedback before you finish an asset especially if this is an important one like a pitch or first call deck. In that case I like to make an outline first and vet that even before creating any slides or getting the creative team involved. Then once you have a draft that looks semi-close to done, vet it as well with the tiger team. Maybe even have them use it a few times with prospects or customers to get feedback. Things like demo videos or product tours would also benefit from a feedback review from an outline before you put the work in to build them. For smaller impact assets like solution sheets or data sheets, you can likely show the draft text rather than an outline. But either way I feel that it's important to get feedback before you involve other teams or certainly before you spend money with external agencies. Don't forget to always gather continual feedback as well! Make sure you go back to your tiger team (and reassess who's on your tiger team periodically) to make sure the asset is still having the impact you want. Periodic review is an important step to make sure your collateral is meeting the changing needs of your teams!

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 the inclusion criteria, start building a relationship with the lead analyst and secondary analysts. Start with an inquiry about the category or market and ask them about the inclusion criteria and vendors currently on the evaluation report. Keep up with regular inquiries to build rapport. Also make sure you are maintaining a steady cadence of update briefings, both about your company and your product. That way you will remain top of mind to the analyst. It's important to remember that you can do briefings even if you don't have a license/seat at the analyst company. You won't be able to schedule inquiries but you can at least do briefings. If you are still not included in an evaluation report, reach out to the lead author and schedule some time to discuss why. Maybe there is an inclusion criterion you weren't aware of, maybe there was a misunderstanding on the analyst's part. Keep it light and don't get combative. You always want to be positive and friendly with the analysts even if they don't include you. Keep building the relationship and over time you will see success!

Getting a variety of feedback from a variety of people is the best thing you can do to influence and persuade teams. I always like to poll multiple teams and different levels of people to ensure that I have as many examples as possible. Make sure you ask internal teams - sales (including pre-sales and SDRs if you have them), post-sales like customer success and account management, other marketers even - for their input. Even better try to gather external feedback too if possible. Reach out to friendly customers, ask some of your friends from other companies, schedule an inquiry with a friendly analyst or influencer, the more the merrier! This is especially important for vetting and getting buy in on things like new pricing, messaging for a new product, or a brand new pitch or first call deck. Once you have some of the feedback documented, you can bring it to the team you are trying to influence and use it to show that you've done your due diligence and truly have something worth considering!

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 customer success stories you highlight in a product update, or top customer case studies with meaningful results that you highlight during an evaluation briefing, the analysts want to see your customer proof. The best way to prove value to the analysts is to show them customer stories and results! And don't forget you can provide introductions and set up conversations with customers even outside of evaluation periods. And often those are the most valuable and helpful to build credibility and rapport with the analysts.

I don't know that I would recommend using a one-pager. In my experience, analysts are not going to read a document you send them unsolicited. The best approach would be to schedule some inquiries and briefings with the analysts as I've described in other answers. Then once you've had your briefing or inquiry, you can follow up and send them documents that relate to what you've discussed. This could take the form of one-pagers. The most important thing to include on any documents you send analysts is customer proof points. Highlight a customer story in everything you send them, even if what you are sending them is not customer-related. You can always squeeze in a customer quote, result, or story alongside whatever other content you are including in your one-pager or deck. They want to see that people are actually using your product and seeing meaningful results. That, more than any specific structure, is what I would recommend for any document you share with an analyst.

This has to start from the top. Make sure your product marketing leader is connecting with the leaders of other departments like sales/revenue, product management, other marketing teams, etc. You can't expect it to happen overnight and you can't expect to hold up or delay a launch just because you want things to take a more strategic approach if you are just starting out at a company. Make sure you are doing your prep for building those relationships and then for the next launch, you can aim to be more strategic. It's hard to change from a feature factory to a strategic partner overnight. My advice would be to work towards it over time and make sure that you are bringing strategic things to all your conversations with your key partners in product management, sales/revenue, and marketing. This could be competitive intelligence, trends and insights from influencers and industry analysts, customer requests, prospect needs, etc. The more value you bring, the more strategic conversations you will be invited to. But it should start away from a launch.