The Overview #72 - Building Momentum

Hey there. This is The Overview, a weekly roundup of noteworthy B2B SaaS stuff. You’ll find interesting thoughts, articles, and more from around the internet.

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The ‘secret’ to killer brand positioning? Get to know your customers

In my latest Vouch video, I explain why brand positioning must always begin with getting to know your customer. Who they are, what they want and who they struggle with.

Vouch is the easiest way to collect customer research. Simply add your questions, share the link, and start capturing feedback and insights at scale.

Try Vouch for free today

In this post:

Update: WTF is Go-To-Market?

Three cohorts later, we’ve helped 40+ students from around the world to gain the skills, tools, and confidence for strategic go-to-market and it’s been so rewarding.

We’re taking a few months off to regroup… maybe WTF won’t run again! Maybe it will.

UX is a competitive differentiator

John shares a great indepth list of why B2B products are most likely to have excruciatingly painful user experiences. The bottom line is that for many users, we just accept it. We don’t often have a say in the buying decision, we’ll learn workarounds, and we’re desensitized to bad as a baseline.

But UX can be a competitive differentiator. Think about Bain’s pyramid of B2B value: design and aesthetics has value to an individual. It turns boring tasks into delightful moments. And remember: today’s users will be tomorrow’s buyers.

Make your buyer persona actionable

Whenever personas are updated, your sales team are going to use the firmographic and demographics in their contact database of choice to find contacts for outbound sales.

Here are some of the mistakes that PMMs make when creating personas without understanding how they’ll be used internally:

Wide ranges: Knowing that the target persona has revenue anywhere from $1m to $1bn helps nobody. Set realistic bounds.
Geographies: Nobody cares about cities – your sales reps (and field marketers) are thinking regionally. What countries in EMEA are best? What US regions are more common?
Fluffy info: Please, don’t document what TV shows a persona is most likely to watch, or what they do in their spare time. But DO posit if they’re an extrovert or introvert, rational or emotional, an inquisitive early-adoper or in the risk-averse late-majority group.
Not basing it ON contact databases: Save sales a journey and figure out the number of contacts in your identifiable persona ‘universe’, and see what other info the database has that can help narrow down a smaller ICP.

Swipe File: Good slides reduce complexity

???? When you become a free Building Momentum subscriber, you get access to my exclusive product marketing swipe file! Click here to find out more.

What slide are you likely to pay more attention to?

Whether you’re creating slides for your internal team or for customer presentations, this post has a ton of helpful tips on creating slides that stand out and get to the point.

The first tip is so simple: go and replace any generic headings with the key message from each slide. Because just like this image, your presentation is unlikely to be a linear conversation.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought – find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

P.S. If you’ve found value in Building Momentum, could you buy me a coffee? Here’s my tip jar – any support is gratefully appreciated!

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