The Secret Ingredient For Perfect Product Marketing

B2B SaaS companies pride themselves on constantly releasing new features and product improvements, but a lot of them fall flat when it comes to marketing those new releases.

It’s a shame, because a new release should be a cause for celebration. Obviously I’m not saying that every little improvement deserves a song and dance routine, but for the bigger projects, it’s an opportunity to show off what you’ve done.

Now, the traditional ways of marketing your product, like blog posts, social media, videos, etc., are all well and good, but there’s actually something else that you need to think about, and it’s a pretty underrated aspect of product marketing.

The secret ingredient for perfect product marketing is to involve your customers from day one.

I’m sure you, like pretty much every other person on the planet, watch a movie from start to finish. The pay-off at the end of the movie exists because you were there for the set-up at the start.

When you write a blog post to announce a new feature, you’re effectively showing your customers the end of the movie, without them ever seeing the start.

It’s all pay-off, and no set-up, and so it’s no wonder your customers don’t jump up and give you a standing ovation.

Letting your customers be there from start to finish and involving them in the whole process of building your product is the best way to have them engaged with your product marketing.

You should start by setting expectations. Tell your customers about your feedback process, and what happens when they submit a request.

A Product Feedback Policy is a fantastic way of doing this. You can learn all about PFPs (including a handy template) here.

This way, your customers understand what happens when they submit feedback — in other words, this is the beginning of the movie.

So next comes the middle of the movie. For the purposes of this long, drawn-out analogy, the middle of the movie is the part where you build your product.

It’s important that you involve your customers at this point as well. Before you get to work building those new features and improvements, you should do some research.

Your idea of an improved reporting feature, for example, may differ greatly from what your customers want from an improved reporting feature.

If you don’t include their opinions, then not only are you missing out on some fantastic insights, but you’re also not involving your customers — and if they can’t watch the middle of the movie, they probably won’t carry on to the end.

Which brings us to the climax of the movie, where you’ve finished building those new improvements, and you’re ready to share them with the world.

Well, just hold on a second.

Why not involve your customers one last time and invite them to beta test your new feature?

That way you’ll gather some crucial insights about whether your new feature is ready to be released. Plus, it means your customers are involved once again.

Which brings us nicely to your big release. It’s time to celebrate and now, because you involved them throughout, your customers are celebrating with you.

They’ve been able to play a part in the development of your product, and now their lives are easier because of the new feature you’ve released.

They’ll acknowledge the work you put in to make this happen, because they saw it first-hand. They’ll be more likely to help you out again in future. They may even give you a standing ovation.

Involving your customers from day one is the secret ingredient when it comes to marketing your product, and all it takes is little bit more effort to communicate with them.

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