AMA: Nextdoor Head of Product Marketing, Brianne Shally on Market Research

* Get creative! Need insights quickly to inform product development, build a survey and put some dollars behind it on Facebook, or have the company share with friends and family that fit into the ICP. * Determine how the insights will impact decision making. Have a deep understanding of how if you know the answer to X, how it will inform Y. If it won’t change decision-making or the output, revisit if you have the right research or if you even need to do it in the first place. Often I find that if we hold ourselves to be stricter on understanding how the research will impact or inform the outcome, it will be more productive. 

* Day to day: If you can, use their products and dive in to understand value creation, segments, where they are investing, what their messaging is communicating, etc. Sign up for competitors' emails, blog posts, YouTube channels, and earnings calls, follow their leadership on LinkedIn for updates, and more to stay informed on their products, launches, and company news. In addition, sign up for newsletters and podcasts that follow the vertical to stay informed on trends. Reach out to your finance team to understand what resources and subscriptions they have to follow and learn more about companies for you to leverage as well (e.g. TechCrunch, etc.) * Quarterly recap: Capture competitor trends and updates in a “Quarterly Competitive Intel” report, that highlights industry trends, key launches, and developments by company, financials (partner with Corp Dev, Finance, and Investor Relations teams), and include recommendations. This last part is key, ensure that it just isn’t data you are sharing, but connect the dots to communicate the ‘so what’ or said another way ‘why this matters’. Develop a format that you can replicate for ease and consistency quarter over quarter. As with any GTM, think about the audience for the report, distribution, and measurement (feedback to continue to optimize it). * As needed: Ensure competitive intel is top of mind in all your work. For instance, if you are refreshing a product's messaging and positioning, include a competitive assessment and recommendations. If the roadmap includes a new product / features, include a competitive assessment and recommendations. 

* Position it as a VIP sneak preview to talk to clients. Share that you want clients’ input to help inform / influence the roadmap. * Create a Beta and / or Customer Advisory Board (CAB): Formally establish a beta or CAB, a group of customers that opt into providing input. Again you can position this as a VIP group that gets early access to new features, sneak preview of the roadmap, etc. Make this group exclusive, where account managers have to apply to get their customers accepted. With these groups, always ensure they are diverse and reflective of your ICP, though it can shift based on your goals. * Develop strong relationships with sales, by identifying a handful of key sales folks that you want to build relationships with and invest in helping them, and in return they will help you. 

* Understand the strengths of each org and what skills and resources they uniquely bring to the table and understand where the skills and resources overlap. Have a healthy discussion of RACI / RAPID to understand who owns what. If there’s resistance, encourage to explore a pilot for a quarter / half to see what works/doesn’t work and revisit it to further optimize it. Usually, folks are less resistant to a pilot since it’s not set in stone. * Capture when to involve who: It’s important stakeholders know how and when to engage with product research, product management, and product marketing. I’ve found it helpful to tie to existing frameworks or processes and identify when it makes sense to loop in key functions in the process. For instance, in the product development process, identifying upfront the segment, JTBD, etc. and for product launch, testing messaging, and positioning. * Proactive Research Quarterly Planning: As part of the quarterly planning process get together with key stakeholders (research, design, Product, PMM, finance, etc.) to identify what questions / research you need for the quarter. Then identify based on the questions / hypotheses the best way to approach it across stakeholders (e.g. quant survey, user interviews, etc.) and the owner for each initiative. Some initiatives may be iterative, where you start with qualitative research to inform hypotheses and then quantitative to validate the hypotheses, so there may be different owners based on the approach. I’ve seen too often research done piecemeal without the right stakeholder involved upfront. 

* Create an Internal research website / landing page for others to access research by segment, product, geo, theme, etc. If you can create a go/link or have the website have a memorable url for folks to remember it and continue to point to it, so folks have it as a go-to. * Develop Quarterly / Bi-annual Voice of Customers Report before the planning cycle to inform the roadmap. In the report, include tactical and strategic insights tied to specific recommendations. Where you can, quantify the impact of each recommendation (e.g. X will lead to Y increase in sales). Ensure each insight is prioritized and create a user-friendly “top 10” list, so it’s top of mind for key stakeholders during planning. If you are in the office, print out the list and put it on key stakeholder's desks and posters in the office. Lead this as a cross-functional effort to ensure PMM is the source of truth for Voice of Customer. Work with UXR, product operations, finance, product, etc. to capture all the insights. Going forward, look back on previous recommendations and capture which ones have been addressed or the progress on them to capture the impact of your efforts. * Brand research efforts to make them memorable. As marketers, brand your work to make it easy to remember with naming, look and feel, and consistent format and logos. e.g. “Quarterly State of the Customer Report”, “Segment Synopsis” and “Competitive Intel Report”.