• Market strategies are informed by gut feel and endless brainstorming instead of market data to take their product from concept to customer.
• Hiring independent market research firms results in a lack of unbiased third-party data. Research firms tell vendors what they want to hear instead of offering an agnostic view of software trends.
• Dissatisfied customers don’t tell you directly why they are leaving, so there is no feedback loop back into product improvements.
• Often a market strategy is built after a product is developed to force the product’s fit in the market. The product marketing team has no say in the product vision or future improvements.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

• Adopt the 5 P’s to building a winning market strategy: Proposition, Product, Pricing, Placement, and Promotion.
• You can’t be everything to everyone. Testing your proposition in the market to see what sticks is a risky move. Promise future value using past successes by gaining a deeper understanding of which customers and submarkets truly align to your product.
• Customers have learned to avoid shiny new objects but still expect rapid feature releases. Differentiating features require a closer look at the underpinning vendor capabilities. Having intentional feature releases requires a feedback loop into the product roadmap and increases influence by the product marketing team.
• Price transparency and sensitivity should drive what you offer to customers. Negotiating solely on price is a race to the bottom.

Impact and Result

• Leverage this report to gain insights on the software selection process and what top vendors do best.
• Gain a bird’s-eye view on customer purchasing behavior using over 40,000 data points on satisfaction and importance collected directly from the source.
• Build a winning market strategy influenced by real customer data that drives vendor success.