Vikas Bhagat

Senior Director, Brand & Product Marketing, Webflow

About

GTM, Messaging/Positioning, Competitive Intelligence & Strategy

Content

What messaging and persona framework do you use and how much of competitive positioning do you cover in Messaging?

Vikas Bhagat

Webflow Senior Director, Brand & Product Marketing • July 13

I use a pretty simple framework for messaging - namely, the messaging house. I typically focus on the following sections of the house (top to bottom): Brand prop, product description, customer context (the problem), Needs and wants, 3-5 value props, Benefits & features that address needs and want......Read More

5597 Views

How do you disseminate competitive positioning to your sales team?

Vikas Bhagat

Webflow Senior Director, Brand & Product Marketing • July 13

It really depends on the current understanding of that competitive positioning within my sales team. I usually work with Sales Enablement or frontline Sales Managers to create a bill of materials that would help inform the team on competitive positioning. Usually this includes but it varies o......Read More

1936 Views

How do you create competitive intel that is really beneficial to sales (i.e. they actually read and use it)?

Vikas Bhagat

Webflow Senior Director, Brand & Product Marketing • July 13

Great question and one that really hits home for me since I used to do competitive intel while sitting in the sales organization at Medallia. The best approach I've seen is first identifying the top content needed by the sales team by actually sitting in sales meetings and in front of customers. ......Read More

1279 Views

How often do you talk to customers, or do qualitative + VOC research?

Vikas Bhagat

Webflow Senior Director, Brand & Product Marketing • July 13

This is a fantastic question! In my experience, for competitive research/marketing, it is critical to spend time with your customers and frontline sales teams. In my previous roles, I've built voice of customer programs to help support quant and qual research. This has come in a number of formats......Read More

1028 Views

How do you access customers for research when an internal stakeholder group is "protective" of their clients?

Vikas Bhagat

Webflow Senior Director, Brand & Product Marketing • July 13

Great question! I think it all starts with how you approach the conversation with that internal group. Building out a "walking deck" that explains my goals, intentions and the potential program is a great way to lower the fear of other teams. It also helps to bring those stakeholders along the jo......Read More

840 Views

What type of customer research do you do pre-launch to help you have a great product launch?

Vikas Bhagat

Webflow Senior Director, Brand & Product Marketing • July 13

There are a number of ways to approach customer research pre-launch. At Webflow, we spend a lot of time with our community members to better understand their needs and wants as it relates to our product roadmap and their business needs. Really understanding specific audience segments and the why ......Read More

571 Views

What is the difference between messaging and positioning?

Vikas Bhagat

Webflow Senior Director, Brand & Product Marketing • July 13

For me, positioning is the statement about why/how your product is unique and why it is better than the competition. Messaging, on the other hand, is how you articulate (the words) the positioning to a specific audience/persona. The positioning your create for your product is really the foundatio......Read More

518 Views

What constitutes a competitor, and what is the goal you have in mind when you conduct competitor analysis?

Vikas Bhagat

Webflow Senior Director, Brand & Product Marketing • July 13

"Competitor aware, customer obsessed" is something that I've internalized when thinking about competitors. Competitors are a good thing - it validates your space, your product-market fit and the market opportunity. The key is balancing the focus on competitors and the focus on customers. It can b......Read More