Understanding your customers is not just an important part of your go-to-market strategy—it’s foundational. Without deep customer insights, your product marketing efforts are at risk of falling flat even before your product hits the market. Knowing your customers’ needs, their pain points, and how they currently solve these issues is vital across all aspects of the go-to-market process. Skipping this step can jeopardize everything else you do.
Early in my product marketing career, I, too, believed that insights from the product team, sales team, or company executives were sufficient to devise effective positioning, messaging, and benefits for a product. This approach was a mistake. While it’s true that these stakeholders are leaders who understand the product and conduct their own forms of research, relying solely on their perspectives is where many product marketers falter. They each bring valuable insights, and their opinions often hold weight within their specific roles, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to a comprehensive understanding needed for effective product marketing or improvements with the customer in mind.
I’ve experienced situations where product teams made decisions based purely on their perspective, sales teams requested enablement materials that served only niche scenarios, and executives pushed for changes based on something seen in the news or on social media. While not always the case, these examples highlight the need for a balanced view that includes direct customer input to enhance the likelihood of your product’s success.
The Importance of Customer Interviews in Product Marketing
Today, I want to zero in on a powerful qualitative customer research method: customer interviews. Unlike relying on internal opinions alone, customer interviews provide direct insights into the customer’s perspective. They are essential for understanding customers’ needs and value in a product like yours.
However, it’s important to not base your strategies on feedback from just one customer. While customer interviews offer valuable exploratory insights, confirming whether an issue is widespread requires additional validation through methods like surveys, product performance data, website analytics, or A/B testing.
Customer interviews are invaluable for gathering detailed insights that can spark ideas on how to address specific problems encountered by a segment of your users. They open up perspectives on what customers aim to achieve with your product and what factors they consider important when making a purchase. These insights are not only key to informing your product development but also for shaping how and where you market your product.
Conducting Effective Customer Interviews
When conducting interviews, remember, that your role isn’t to sell or to solve the customer’s problem on the spot. Your objective is to listen. Allow customers to express themselves freely. This approach ensures they feel understood and are more open to sharing honest feedback. Start with open-ended questions and follow up with prompts, encouraging them to elaborate without steering them toward any particular response. This method helps capture the most genuine insights that will inform and benefit your product, sales, and marketing strategies effectively.
Example Questions for Customer Interviews:
- What challenges are you currently facing with [product/service area]?
- How do you typically find solutions for these issues?
- What features do you value most in [a product like ours]?
- Where do you usually gather information about products in this category?
- Can you describe your decision-making process when choosing this type of product?
These questions aim to uncover deep insights into your customers’ behaviors and preferences, directly influencing your go-to-market strategy’s effectiveness. I’ll go into some more customer interview suggestions that I will link back to in another blog post. You can also get more information on customer research through the PMM Playbook e-learning course.
By integrating customer insights into every phase of your go-to-market and product marketing plan, you ensure that your strategies are not only aligned with internal goals but are also deeply rooted in real customer needs and preferences. Which is key to being the voice of the customer.