Is It Time for Marketing Teams to Think About Market and Competitive Research in a Different Way?

In my experience as a Product Marketer and Product Marketing leader, there’s always the question that floats around, “Who does market and competitive research?” This question comes up between Product Management and Product Marketing teams (usually because no one seems to want to commit to a full-time head to perform this function unless you’re in a large enterprise that can compartmentalize this function).

Market and Competitve Insights Across Prospect, Customer and Market

In Marketing teams, there’s always an assumption that market and competitive research is done by Product Marketing. And from my experience, this is usually the case. The result though is that though Product Marketing may put out some great market or competitive research, it can happen in bursts of activity. In addition, there isn’t an overall research program in place to keep a pulse on the marketplace.

I’ve realized this is flawed thinking for Marketing organizations. As I think more and more about the intensity of the need to really connect with your target audiences, I think market and competitive research need to change in how it is organized and completed so that all marketers are actively developing a keen understanding of their target audiences.

Today:

Product Marketing conducts market and competitive research in a somewhat inconsistent way. Some examples of what this looks like is:

  • There isn’t a formal, structured research program with deadlines and the like when it comes to what research will be completed and when.
  • Research is done sporadically and in bursts.
  • The research can be driven by sudden needs by Sales teams and/or leaders.
  • The research, to be done properly, takes significant time to do and taxes Product Marketers to perform.
  • The research tends to get de-prioritized over and over by other day-to-day activities or firedrills.

Tomorrow:

Market and Research Plan Across Marketing

Product Marketing owns development of a research program across Marketing. The difference being that individuals across Marketing are also responsible for development or execution of the program.

Of course, some research would be conducted more solely by Product Marketing. However, individuals across the organization could also contribute to elements of the research.

For instance, if Product Marketing was conducting competitor research (at the company-level) on a given competitor, why wouldn’t you have other marketers contribute to that research? Say your social media marketer conducts analysis of what they believe are the key takeaways on that competitor in terms of what they are doing and saying in social media. Or, your Digital or Demand people conduct competitive research on what that competitor is doing from their respective vantage points.

Or, your Marketing Operations person pulls together pipeline, closed won/lost, customer and churn insights in their role with an idea to be capturing insights from that data (yeah, some do that already but whether it’s shared and discussed broadly is another question).

The team would then come together to discuss insights and the Product Marketer could then put together a final composite or battle card based on the information and insights gathered.

My points are several:

  • Product Marketing needs to develop a formal research plan.
  • Product Marketing owns the plan and works with the other Marketing functions to execute deliverables in the plan.
  • Besides each Marketer providing market, customer and competitive insights gleaned within their core function, the individual marketers may be responsible for specific elements of the plan that may not relate directly to their role.
  • Marketing regularly comes together to discuss the plan, and more importantly, share learned insights and discuss what the research is suggesting regarding target audiences and competitors.
  • Product Marketing ensures that outputs are shared across teams and leadership outside of Marketing.

Two things in this model that I think very important to include is that the team needs tools to both get scale as well as streamline the burden across the organization. From a plan management standpoint, tools like Trello can be useful to keep track of the plan, who is on the hook for what, and when the team will be convening to discuss insights. From an information aggregation and curation standpoint, as well as the ability to generate finished content (ex. information cards), tools like Klue, Crayon or other similar tools can help. On this latter point, providing access to other teams such as Product Management makes a whole lot of sense.