WRITTEN BY Shari Diamond, FLUVIO Principal CONSULTANT
As product marketing consultants, our team at Fluvio is tasked with quickly onboarding and assimilating with our clients’ products and businesses. Our goal is to become part of - or the sole member of - each client’s product marketing team, knowing and understanding their business, objectives, product and service offerings, competitive market and customer insights, in a matter of weeks. This is no easy feat, and in order to do so successfully we must use the time wisely to learn and get up to speed quickly, so we can begin making an impact.
Below are 5 key steps that outline our approach to client onboarding in as little as 2 weeks:
1. Meet the Whole Team
The internal stakeholders are key to gaining the in-depth knowledge needed to be successful on any engagement. Initial meetings with primary decision makers is obviously imperative, but it’s key to interview more than just the Product or Marketing leads. Other team members - such as those in Sales, Insights & Research, Customer Service, or Technology - could provide invaluable insights we’ll need to be successful. And we aim to not just meet team leaders! Oftentimes the ‘boots on the ground’ employees are the ones personally interacting with and hearing from prospects or customers, and they have deep knowledge on customer pain points, barriers to entry, competitive differentiators, and customer need states.
2. Know where we want to go, what we don’t know, and ask the right questions to get there
We only get so much time with client teams and their customers at onboarding, so it’s critical when going into any conversation to have a good enough sense of what sort of work this engagement will need, along with a firm understanding of what we don’t know yet. Are there holes in our knowledge around the products we’re supporting? Product roadmaps and comparison of features before vs. after launch are super helpful to ask for. Do we have a good sense of the competitive landscape? We’ll ask to see a battlecard or SWOT analysis. Also, asking pointed questions is key to ensure we get the level of detail we’re looking for to help guide our ultimate approach and recommendations.
3. Align on desired outcomes
Probably the most critical question to make sure to ask as we pick stakeholders’ brains is, “What do you envision for this engagement?” We find it helpful to ask the client to verbalize where the product marketing currently stands in their mind vs. where they’d envision it once our consulting engagement is through. Allowing a client to speak freely on this topic gives a great idea of what their hopes are for hiring us, and keeps our team focused on the key goals and objectives.
4. Learn their Customers
Next, a critically important step in the process is to learn and understand the client’s active and prospective customers. If the client already has customer personas, we’re already one step ahead! The main questions we’re asking as we dive into understanding customers are:
1) What are the demographic and psychographic characteristics of the client’s customers and prospects?
2) What are the pain points the product solves for customers?
3) How do different types of customers vary? Do value props differ based on customer type?
Typical engagements include scheduling customer interviews so we can hear directly from customers to better understand their perspectives to answer these questions ourselves, and use those insights to build or tweak customer profiles and segments.
5. Deep Dive on Content
Finally, it’s time to think out of the box and do some research. Our team thinks of any place where we might find information on our new client, and then we take a few days to dig in. We dive deeply into client websites and other owned properties - ie: blogs and press releases - to discover current positioning and messaging approach. We do the same for competitors, and compare/contrast. We’ll read news articles, social feeds and any other content to understand the client’s company and their industry. This information is used to paint a fuller picture around what we heard in interviews with the client team.
… and with that, we’re ready to dive into the product marketing work to drive value for our clients. Along the way, we never stop asking pointed questions as we continue to go deeper in learning about a client’s product marketing landscape.