014 - Yes, you need a good product, but it's not enough to win in the market
1* The power of a good idea
There was a lot of hype, and rightly so about the infamous Coinbase Superbowl ad. It’s not often you get such a simple creative execution that captivates so many. My LinkedIn feed has been full of opinion pieces on the ad, but in keeping with simplicity, I really liked this succinct summary from Milkroad.
“• 117M people watched
• 20% scan the QR code (the chief product officer said the page got 20M visits in 1 minute)
• 10% signup
• 20% of them link their bank account
• = ~500k new customers
What’s 500k customers worth to Coinbase? Does that cover the $14M spent on the ad?
According to their last quarterly report, the average customer generates $90 in revenue per year for them. Let’s say these Super Bowl customers are half as valuable (lower intent).
$45 revenue per user x 500,000 new users = $22.5M”
2* Lines continue to blur from one company page to another
Spidey caused a bit of a storm, check out the 825+likes and 65+ comments for this post.
So, whilst Marvel’s latest addition caused a stir, how do you break the chain of a model that works, and actually should you?
SaaS companies are starting to blur, from the software they use, the advertising they deploy and the websites they build.
However, for those executing properly, the formula works.
If it’s not broken don’t fix it.
Catchy value proposition, clean website, social proof, killer statement, key feature listings. And my favourite, a newsletter pop up and an annoying chatbot.
This is the standard playbook from the most successful SaaS businesses, so does this template help us, buyers? SaaS websites are so well templatized, b2b buyers know the drill, they know how to navigate around a site, and find exactly what they want.
So, whilst this meme provoked a laugh amongst SaaS marketers, it did little to suggest what the alternative would be.
Going against the grain can be a great thing, but sometimes being too clever can be to your downfall.
Solution - unknown.
3* “Yes, you need a good product, but it's not enough to win in the market.”
Nicely put from Peep Laja.
The shift in the market in the last 5 years has been incredible.
There have never been so many software, service or product options for b2b buyers.
The chances are, your best product, feature, and USP, are somewhere rolled into your competitor's product and value proposition.
Peep elaborates on how you can win into this ultra-competitive market.
“The all-rational B2B buyer is a myth
The story is that if you only give people the right economic incentives, they would automatically follow their own rational self-interest.
In reality, we're more psycho-logical than logical, driven by emotion. We value the meaning of products, and what we're signalling to ourselves or to others.
Instead of all-rationally comparing all the options when making a purchase, we're satisficing.
This has profound implications for marketers.
1) Appeal to emotions; even your B2B product has to bring emotional value and signal something
2) Knowing that people satisfice means you need to predominantly focus on building up mental availability”
Peep hosts the “Wynter Games” where he speaks to B2B specialists around a variety of topics, you can find the YouTube recording here.
Peep shared a link to the content discussed on his podcasts. THERE IS SO MUCH VALUE HERE with 8 different Google Slides.
4*Lessons Learned Building a $2 Billion Database Company from Scratch
Building a business is hard, building a $2billion from scratch is pretty amazing.
Here are the $2billion dollar lessons from Neo4j’s CEO.
Awareness - Building free content and tools to engage their audience (educate and be useful)
Activation - Integration with key infrastructure tools within their ecosystem (seamless experience and minimise friction)
Fit Centricity - Giving away their open-source product suite (mass adoption)
Growth - Open-source by nature is PLG, but by doing it allowed to engage communities that might not otherwise be known to them (Product Led Growth)
Conversations You Should Read
36 life lessons from Y Combinator and OpenAI CEO
The 7-step process that helped these B2B brands kill it in hyper-competitive markets
Everybody says B2B marketing is boring. But nobody talks about WHY it's boring
Oldie but a goodie from Steve Jobs - don’t talk about the product
The Demand Generation & Thought Leadership Pyramid
Tools & Platforms
Each week I share a tool I have used, plan to use or I find interesting.
Audience & category research tool Sparktoro.
Sparktoro aggregates intel from a number of different sources to give you valuable category and audience insight, not bad with plans starting for free. Get insight on where your audience hangs out, and content they consume.