Select an activity to see a description.
Business Plan
Perform an objective analysis of a potential market opportunity to provide a basis for investment. Articulate what you learned in the market and quantify the risk, including a financial model.
Positioning
Describe the product by its ability to solve market problems. Create internal positioning documents that will be used to develop external messages focused on each key buyer or persona.
Marketing Plan
Articulate the strategies and tactics for generating awareness and leads for the upcoming fiscal period, including key programs and events with measurements and goals.
Market Problems
Discover problems in the market by interviewing customers, recent evaluators and untapped, potential customers. Validate urgent problems to show their pervasiveness in the market.
Market Definition
Map needs with target markets and analyze the market segments to actively pursue. Ensure that the targeted segments are large enough to support the current and future business of the product.
Pricing
Establish a pricing model, schedules, guidelines and procedures.
Buying Process
Research and document the buying process your target personas use to select a product. Understand the barriers that buyers encounter during their selection process.
Customer Acquisition
Define the specific plans and budgets for selling products and services to new customers.
Win/Loss Analysis
Understand why recent evaluators of the product did or did not buy and what steps they took in the buying process.
Distribution Strategy
Determine which channels best align with your markets' buying preferences.
Buy, Build or Partner
Determine the most effective way to deliver a complete solution to an identified market problem. Where you have gaps in your offering, analyze whether to buy, build, or partner to complete the solution for your market.
Buyer Personas
Define the archetypical buyers involved in the purchasing of your products and services.
Customer Retention
Define the specific plans and budgets for ensuring customer loyalty as well as selling products and services to existing customers.
Distinctive Competence
Articulate and leverage the organization's unique abilities to deliver value to the market.
Product Portfolio
Integrate products into a coherent portfolio of products focused on the market. Manage the portfolio like a "product" (business plan, positioning, buying process, market requirements and marketing plan).
Product Profitability
Monitor and analyze key performance indicators to determine how well the product is performing in the market, how it impacts the company operations, and ultimately, how it contributes to profit.
User Personas
Define the archetypical users of your products or services.
Program Effectiveness
Measure and tune product marketing programs to ensure alignment with corporate goals.
Competitive Landscape
Identify competitive and alternative offerings in the market. Assess their strengths and weaknesses. Develop a strategy for winning against the competition.
Product Roadmap
Illustrate the vision and key phases of deliverables for the product. The roadmap is a plan, not a commitment.
Innovation
Focus your teams' creative spirit on solving market problems by leveraging your organization's distinctive competencies.
Requirements
Articulate and prioritize personas and their problems so that the appropriate products can be built.
Launch Plan
Ensure that all departments are prepared for new product releases and all items are completed to launch the product externally.
Sales Process
Align your organization's selling process to the buying process, describing the key personas' information needs for each step in the process.
Presentations & Demos
Produce standard product presentations and demo scripts that can be used by the sales team in a typical sales process.
Technology Assessment
Inventory technology assets and determine ways they can be leveraged.
Use Scenarios
Illustrate market problems in a "story" that puts the problem in context. Use scenarios are one component of requirements.
Thought Leadership
Create and deliver thoughtful information (webinars, blogs, eBooks, etc.) to influence customers, buyers, industry specialists, research analysts, key editors in the press and other third parties.
Collateral
Create collateral for buyer personas focused on a specific step of the buying process.
"Special" Calls
Deliver product information to qualified buyers in support of existing sales efforts.
Status Dashboard
Monitor key dates and checkpoints in product delivery.
Lead Generation
Develop a lead generation process that is designed to generate and nurture qualified leads with an objective to turn prospects into satisfied customers.
Sales Tools
Create tools for salespeople focused on a specific step of the selling process.
Event Support
Provide product and market expertise for events such as conferences, tradeshows, webinars and seminars.
Referrals & References
Identify customers who are willing to give testimonials, be featured in case studies, or agree to be a reference account.
Channel Training
Design and deliver training programs to help the sales channels focus on how to sell the product, not how to use it.
Channel Support
Provide ongoing support for the sales channel. Look for opportunities to make support more repeatable.
Market
Understand market problems and your organization's unique ability to address them.
Focus
Filter opportunities and focus on those with the greatest potential for your organization.
Business
Formalize your product plans to deliver profitable solutions for market problems.
Planning
Connect your business plans with the organizations that develop, promote and deliver solutions to the market.
Programs
Create go-to-market programs aligned with the buying process.
Readiness
Ensure the organization's ability to sell and support your product.
Support
Support the sales channels with market and product expertise.
