Key components you need to thoroughly understand to build a solid Product Strategy are:
- Your customers and users
- Your company and your product
- Sales and marketing
- Competitors
- Market trends
- Risks
The Product Strategy is normally closely aligned with the Business Strategy of the company. In a company with only one product they can be more or less the same. In some companies with multiple products there might be freedom to experiment with new business ideas that are not tightly connected to the core business strategy.
[minti_alert type=”warning” close=”false”]Don’t get stuck building your Product Strategy over a long time. Get out and meet customers and learn about their needs and view Strategy work as an iterative process. This is the premise of Lean Startup and Design Thinking and being truly agile.[/minti_alert]
Product Strategy is a vast subject and we will only do a brief summary here.
Outlined below are some key questions that you want to make sure you have answers to. And most importantly, that your colleagues that might not be as actively involved in Product Strategy as you are, would answer them the same way.
Customers and Users
- How do we segment our customers?
- Do we for example target companies of a certain size, geography or other distinguishing factor?
- Why do we target these companies and not others?
- Who will do buying decisions – do we have Buyer Personas clarified?
- What motivates our buyers? What are their pains? How can we delight them?
- Who are our users – do we have Users Personas clarified?
- What motivate our users? What are their pains? How can we delight them?
One way to give an overview of you customers jobs, pains and gains and how your product are helping them is to use a Value Proposition Canvas. For an example, see the bottom of this page.
Company and Product
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of our company?
- How can we build on our strengths?
- What do we need to improve in our company to reach our Product Vision?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of our product?
- How can we build on our products strengths?
- What do we need to improve in our product to reach our Product Vision?
Sales and Marketing
- What are our target markets? In which order do we plan to reach them? How are they different?
- Which channels do we plan to use to reach our customers? How will we for example:
- Book meetings with prospects?
- Work with partners?
- Use social media?
- Use paid advertising?
- What does the Customer Journey look like? How can we make it faster? How can we make it better?
- How will we price our product? Why will we price it like that? What would happen if the price was lower? What would happen if the price was higher?
Competitors
- Who are our top 3 competitors?
- What strengths and weaknesses do they have?
- How will we differentiate against them?
Market Trends
- What is happening in the market?
- How will it be different 2 years from now?
- Can we somehow take advantage of the changes or do we need to protect ourselves against them?
Risks
- What are the biggest risks?
- What can we do to avoid or mitigate them?
Example
Below is an example summary of a Value Proposition Canvas and Product Strategy for AgilePM.se.
To give the complete view these summaries needs to be combined with the Product Vision example.
