Dan Galante

If I was going to launch a bunch of new product features and I was tasked with developing a social media marketing campaign to market these features to existing customers and generate new leads.

What questions might I have when starting to plan the campaign?

I would ask:

Which channels do customers use when making purchasing decisions?

I would work with the Product Team during beta testing to interview customers to gather feedback on the new features; taking the information to develop blogs and other related messaging. I would also ask customers to provide testimonials about the new features and include them in social media campaigns.

Also, I would survey customers about their learning style and which content format they prefer i.e. videos, blogs, etc. Based on the data from the survey, I would decide which channels I would use along with the type of content to develop.

With what I learned, what might my campaign look like?

The campaign would revolve around a series of Social posts based on customer feedback Including Customer Testimonials obtained from the beta testing and videos of customers using the product. I would build anticipation online using videos to announce the new features. I would have a contest online where users would need to submit an email address.

Which social platforms would I use?

I would use a blog, Email, LinkedIn, Slideshare Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube platforms to educate customers about new offerings.

Are there any emerging social strategies I would want to try?

I would like to attend industry events where I could interview experts in the space. I would want to create a group to reward loyal customers and develop an evangelist program where customers would tell their friends.

How have you marketed new product features to current and prospective customers?

Feel free to comment and share.

Last week, I covered the Search Marketing Expo in New York City. Search Marketing Expo has is a great event for SEO, SEM, and Digital Marketing professionals. SMX provides attendees with an opportunity to learn actionable techniques in conference sessions and training workshops. Google and Microsoft provided seminars on various SEM topics.

Here is a video of the event.

I enjoyed Moz founder Rand Fishkin’s keynote.

The key insights of the presentation were:

1. Organic traffic has reached its peak and will decline.
2. To keep traffic coming to their sites, Marketers will need to find ways to nudge consumers as Zero click queries continue to grow.
3. Organizations need to shift their investments in product, content, and brand. Decisions on how to redeploy these resources need to be a company-wide effort. 

Here is the link to the presentation.

Google in 2020: From Everyone’s Search Engine to Everyone’s Competitor | SparkToro
I’ve written a lot this year about the shifts we’re seeing from Google — moving from search engine to answer to engine…sparktoro.com

At the end of the keynote, I met Rand and received a signed copy of his new book entitled Lost and Found.

In Google’s Keynote, I learned how businesses can get an edge during the holidays. I also learned of Google’s plan to use Google Images and YouTube for eCommerce. Google is also allowing businesses to use location-based Ads in Google Maps.

The key insights of the presentation were:

1. According to Google most shopping visits start online.

2.When diners search for a great place to eat the searches are probably happening on a smartphone.

3.  When people are online in cars, more than half of them are searching for information on a mobile device making localization and targeting important.

4. . 2/3′s of shoppers say that online video has given them insight and inspiration to make purchases.

5. Shoppers use at least 3 channels or more when shopping.

6. Brands need to provide an omnichannel channel experience all year, especially during the holidays.

7. Sales are happening online and offline. As a result of this shift, Brands need to serve customers on the channels of their choice.

What is the hardest part of Product Marketing?

LinkedIn poll of my audience

Marketers need to develop and deploy a buyer-centric go-to-market strategy. It is time for marketers to ask better questions about buyers.

What is the role of a Product Marketer?

I covered the Product Marketing Community workshop to find out.

Workshop Topics included how to:

1. Build and execute go-to-market plans
2. Develop actionable buyer insights
3. Create effective Messaging and Content for buyers
4. Enable Sales and Product Teams

Businesses should identify their ideal customer.

Only certain target customers will buy due to internal and external factors.

To grow revenue, businesses need to develop and use better competitive insights. Developing these insights entails examining everything about the competition to identify: strengths, weaknesses, competitor priorities, growing, and under-served markets.

Product Marketing involves more than Marketing and Product Team support. Product Marketers serve Marketing, Sales, and Product teams. Each team has different needs and responsibilities. However, they all grow the business and serve customers.

Product Marketers serve as market experts and translators for teams from across the organization.

What is Product Marketing?

Product Marketing is the discipline of bringing a product to market and nurturing its success. Businesses need to create and market products people want to buy. To do that, they need to use the Pragmatic Framework.

Product Marketers are taking on some Product Manager responsibilities

Product Marketing needs a separate brief.

Just as Marketing has a plan or brief, Product Marketing does.

SmartSheet.com Product Marketing Template

Here are nine things to address in a Product Marketing Brief.

1. What does your company do? Does your product offering align with your business goals?
2. What are the features of your product? Do others understand what you are building and why?
3. Does this Product address gaps in the Market? Include an overview of a Competitive, win-loss and, SWOT analysis.
4. Who is your ideal customer or target market? Include an overview of findings of demographic, psychographic, and buyer persona research. Does your product solve customer pain points?
5. How will you measure product success?
6. What are can go wrong? Can failure be anticipated and corrected?
7. What is the roadmap and schedule of the product? Who’s responsible and in charge?
8. Who needs to be included in the project and who needs to approve deliverables?
9. How will goals be tracked? How often will they be monitored? What insights are you trying to glean from the data?

Johnathan Hinz of Seismeic shares his insights on sales enablement and its role in marketing.

The lack of Sales and Marketing alignment is due in part to the inadequate amount of customer value mapping relating to the number of buyer types.

Product Marketers, what’s the hardest part of your job?

How do you know if you are successful?

Share your thoughts.