What kinds of market research do you do to help shape the roadmap? And more tactically, what format do you share your analysis?

• Quantitative and qualitative market research. Working with expert market research partners will help you get to solid customer segmentation, customer journey mapping, competitive landscape analysis, market trends, and market sizing, TAM. This can be costly, but always worth it! 
• Qualitative customer interviews. This is probably the easiest and most powerful thing you can do yourself in partnership with product or product design counterparts. You can do 1:1 interviews or even leverage tools like usertesting.com to get qualitative customer insights.
• Most analysis is shared in a very clear slide deck that outlines research goals, key learnings, and implications.
• I highly recommend checking out my former colleague and friend, Sonia Moaiery’s Sharebird AMA on Market Research (https://sharebird.com/h/product-marketing/ama/intercom-product-marketing-lead-platform-sonia-moaiery-on-market-research) as another great resource!

I work closely with analytic and strategy experts at our company to perform the market research required. At the end of the day, I'm a PMM, not a trained data scientist, nor a researchers, our jobs as PMMs is to help shape the the research, to ensure we ask the right questions, and leverage the results to help find the answers needed to shape the roadmap. For example, I've done a pricing and packaging project in the past around which new products we should build next, how to package them, and what pricepoint they should be at. In order to do this, I partnered with

1) The competitive analysis team and the analyst research to understand the market landscape and our buyers.

2) The UX design team to help us understand the way our current customers use our product and understand what we are lacking.

3) The market insights team to run survey with external and internal users on willingness to pay, and appetite for specific product features at certain pricing points.

3) Strategy Finance team- to run price analysis and stimulate how much ARR would see in return if we priced new products at certain points, over X amount of years, based on current growth rates.

I then take all this information and formatted in a powerpoint presentation, (now a days- Miro boards ofcourse!) to share the information. Throughout the years of sharing information, I've always been a visual sharer. The best way for me to explain things are through charts, graphics, etc. Too many words results in losing the attention of leadership, no one wants to read! Same with numbers on a spreadsheet. However, a combo of this, in easy to digest, step by step format works the best for me. 

I find that there are two times when it makes sense to truly invest in deep market research like what you mention: 

• When you're considering starting a company or building a completely new product
• When you're a very mature company (public, large revenue, growth slowing) and you need to evaluate options for a next growth trajectory

In those situations, you're trying to learn something completely new, identify risks, and plot a course forward. You don't have product yet, you don't have customers, and you might not have expertise.

The rest of the time, particularly in high-growth markets, doing all these things is just spinning wheels. The one thing that will drive successful adjustments to your roadmap is customer knowledge and interaction. It's a continual process - captured through sales calls and customer success engagements on a daily basis. These converations are also great times to vet ideas early. Questions like, "What if we..." or "What if you..." can rapidly validate or invalidate ideas. 

Finally, the best format is a concise format. Pages and pages of details, data, and quotes will not make your argument, in the same way that 20-page "messaging brief" is a waste of everyone's time. They won't read it. 

Treat it like a messaging exercise. What are the 3-4 pillars of your argument? What are the best proof points to substantiate your point of view? What invites the best discussion.

Your goal in shaping the roadmap is not to win an argument or dictate feature priorities. It's to invite a deeper discussion of customer needs and arrive at a better solution for the market, together. 

Big question! I think a well-rounded perspective involves:

• Pulse checks from field teams (CS/Sales)

• Customer feedback (surveys)

• Market feedback (analyst relations/reports) + closed won/lost reports

• Competitive intelligence (win rates + general intel for direct competitors and status quo)

If you cover those bases you're prepared to influence with gusto!

Tactically sharing this information can look like:

• Slides

• Brief (word doc)

• With referenceable material embedded throughout