Mark Assini

In speaking with members of our own creative talent community (primarily voice over artists, audio producers, musicians, and translators), I found that focusing on how your solution can answer the following questions really resonated: 1. How will this help me further my career, either by helping me make more money, expand my professional network, or getting my work in front of a larger audience? 2. How will this help me do more work, more efficiently or more securely (i.e. how will this help me save time or worry less)? 3. How will this help me become a better artist/creative (i.e. what resources, tools, or opportunities to improve via practice or training do you offer)? If your solution can answer one of those three questions, you'll have their attention. If it can answer all three, you'll have their business.

When determining if certain features should get more market focus or attention, I typically ask a couple of questions: 1. Does this update include changes that you are legally obligated to inform your customer about (e.g. terms of service or privacy policy changes) 2. Is this update a quality of life improvement? If so, is it enough of an improvement that customers will get excited about it? 3. Will this update require a change in existing customer behaviour? Is so, is that change minor or major? 4. How close is this update to an upcoming one, and how do they compare in terms of how you answered the previous questions? If you answered yes to to the first question, then absolutely you'll need to communicate the changes to your customers. If you answered yes to the second question, but don't think customers will be excited about the change in their quality of life, interaction, or experience they have with your solution, then you can probably keep communications to a minimum. If the update is something you know your customers will benefit from and be excited about knowing, then you'll want to let as many of them know as possible. If you answered yes to the third question, then you'd be doing your customers (and your business) a disservice by not telling them about it. Behaviour is hard to change, so you'll probably have to tell them more than once. If you weren't able to answer yes to any of the previous questions, then you can probably sit on the update until a more important one comes down the pipe (unless they are weeks or months apart, then you may need or want to reconsider).