Jackie Palmer

I think you've taken the right approach! I would never recommend only building out your positioning based on features or products. You need a full, compelling story which should include non-product things as well as product-related things. Non-product things could be services you offer, training classes or certifications you give, industries or personas you specialize in, etc. Building out a full story including all of your unique value propositions and differentiators allows you to have a better position in the market and doesn't leave you constantly repositioning if a competitor comes out with a new feature. As I mentioned in one of the other answers, once you have your unique value props or UVPs, you can then apply the MUD framework (what is meaningful, unique, defensible) and start to layer in your competitive positioning there. Features should never be the only part of your positioning, competitive or otherwise. Your approach with a differentiated story is a good one. Set up your story, surround it with both features and non-feature based UVPs. Then take that story and map out where your competitive differentiators lie (the defensible part of MUD) and you'll be in good shape.

I've found that it is a best practice to evaluate your prices at least once a year for most products. If your market changes very rapidly, you may consider bi-annual or quarterly pricing reviews but for most annually is great. You need to consider both outside conditions, like inflation, global/local economic changes, new competitive entrants, market consolidation or fragmentation, etc, as well as internal conditions. These can include: * Have you released a lot of new features in the last year that would merit charging more for your product? * Did your competition release any features you don't yet have that would merit maybe lowering your pricing to stay competitive? * Have you been experiencing a lower win rate and do you have any actual indication that it is due to pricing? * Have you gotten any feedback, actual observed or anecdotal, that the current pricing is not working? * Are you planning on entering a new market or location in the coming year that would have different price expectations? * Have you received any awards or recognition (analyst evals etc) that might support a price increase? * Do you have any customer ROI numbers you could turn to to prove that customers are getting increasing value for their investment that might support a price increase? Or the opposite for a price decrease. It's good to at least review all of the above external and internal factors every year even if you ultimately decide not to make any changes.

Definitely check out some of the research resources I've mentioned in previous answers. I would also interview people at your company, salespeople, your CEO, finance, etc and also see if you can get any time with board members to get their viewpoints. And then there are also a few companies like the Product Marketing Alliance and others that offer pricing specific training. Those are great places to start! 

Similar to other questions above, there are lots of resources to leverage when thinking about pricing and packaging including competitor pricing. Here are some that I've found most useful: * Competitor websites (hopefully you'll be lucky and they'll publish their pricing!). Know that whatever you find here is likely to be higher than actual selling price as it is not usually inclusive of discounts or promotions * Review websites like G2 and TrustRadius. Often people will comment on the price they pay or paid * Marketplaces like the Salesforce AppExchange, HubSpot Marketplace, Microsoft AppSource etc. These marketplaces often require vendors to list a "starting" price. Again, this will likely be higher than actual selling price * Industry analysts like Gartner, Forrester etc. They will be able to talk about average market selling prices and average discounting practices but they won't give you an exact price. * Independent research/survey firms. If you have the budget you can hire a company for market analysis. Many times these companies have people on contract who are practitioners and may know the market from either working at a vendor or buying from other vendors. This is often very useful but costly. * Your existing customers or prospects. If you have a customer community you can leverage, don't be afraid to ask. Your happy customers are often willing to give you their opinion on pricing and packaging both of your own products or any competitive products they may have experience will * Your existing partners. If you work with implementation or resell partners, often they will have knowledge of market pricing. Like the industry analysts, they may be unwilling to give you exact prices but could advise on the market or give suggestions on packaging. * Your sales team. Maybe someone worked for a competitor or knows the general market. Or at the very least, your sales team will know how prospects and customers have reacted to pricing in the past * Your friends and neighbors. I'm only half joking! You never know who might have knowledge of your industry's pricing and packaging. Don't be afraid to ask!

Getting feedback on assets and collateral from stakeholders is a key part of Product Marketing's job. What I like to do is create a tiger team of people you can count on. This could differ of course depending on the asset but should likely include a mix of salespeople (pre-sales, AEs/reps, SDRs, etc.) and probably some of the post-sales teams as well (CSMs, PS, Account Managers, etc.). Many times you will know the people to include but sometimes you'll need to ask managers for nominations. It's important to get feedback before you finish an asset especially if this is an important one like a pitch or first call deck. In that case I like to make an outline first and vet that even before creating any slides or getting the creative team involved. Then once you have a draft that looks semi-close to done, vet it as well with the tiger team. Maybe even have them use it a few times with prospects or customers to get feedback. Things like demo videos or product tours would also benefit from a feedback review from an outline before you put the work in to build them. For smaller impact assets like solution sheets or data sheets, you can likely show the draft text rather than an outline. But either way I feel that it's important to get feedback before you involve other teams or certainly before you spend money with external agencies. Don't forget to always gather continual feedback as well! Make sure you go back to your tiger team (and reassess who's on your tiger team periodically) to make sure the asset is still having the impact you want. Periodic review is an important step to make sure your collateral is meeting the changing needs of your teams!

Getting a variety of feedback from a variety of people is the best thing you can do to influence and persuade teams. I always like to poll multiple teams and different levels of people to ensure that I have as many examples as possible. Make sure you ask internal teams - sales (including pre-sales and SDRs if you have them), post-sales like customer success and account management, other marketers even - for their input. Even better try to gather external feedback too if possible. Reach out to friendly customers, ask some of your friends from other companies, schedule an inquiry with a friendly analyst or influencer, the more the merrier! This is especially important for vetting and getting buy in on things like new pricing, messaging for a new product, or a brand new pitch or first call deck. Once you have some of the feedback documented, you can bring it to the team you are trying to influence and use it to show that you've done your due diligence and truly have something worth considering!

Some types of questions I like to ask to gain insight and feedback from internal stakeholders are: * Where would you use something like this? * Who could you see benefitting from this asset/collateral/launch/etc? * Is there anything you've used in the past that is similar to this that resonated well? * What do you think is missing? * What could we add to improve this? * Is there anyone else you think we should be asking for feedback? Those are just some ideas and obviously it depends on what you're trying to get feedback on but those are the ones that have worked consistently no matter the thing I'm asking about!

The first thing to do when trying to get your company into a Wave or MQ is to study the category and find out what the inclusion criteria are. If you don't meet the inclusion criteria right away, work with your product team on building out a roadmap path that allows you to qualify. Or if you have all the required product features but still don't meet it, see what other hurdles like revenue growth or number of customers you need to track to be able to qualify over time. Once you are familiar with the inclusion criteria, start building a relationship with the lead analyst and secondary analysts. Start with an inquiry about the category or market and ask them about the inclusion criteria and vendors currently on the evaluation report. Keep up with regular inquiries to build rapport. Also make sure you are maintaining a steady cadence of update briefings, both about your company and your product. That way you will remain top of mind to the analyst. It's important to remember that you can do briefings even if you don't have a license/seat at the analyst company. You won't be able to schedule inquiries but you can at least do briefings. If you are still not included in an evaluation report, reach out to the lead author and schedule some time to discuss why. Maybe there is an inclusion criterion you weren't aware of, maybe there was a misunderstanding on the analyst's part. Keep it light and don't get combative. You always want to be positive and friendly with the analysts even if they don't include you. Keep building the relationship and over time you will see success!

The top three ways I recommend researching competitors are: 1. READ as much as you possibly can about them online. This includes the competitor's website and published content, peer review sites like G2 and TrustRadius, communities and forums like Reddit and Quora, analyst write-ups, etc. 2. WATCH/LISTEN to as many things as you can. This would include live or virtual presentations by the competitor (at conferences, on webinars, etc), online demos self-guided tours they've released, sales calls where the competitor was mentioned by the prospect or customer, etc. 3. ANALYZE all the data you have. Look at win/loss data, compile lists of features, prices, messaging comparisons etc, track mentions of them and then compare all that data to your own information. Put together analysis docs of this data ideally quarterly or biannually.

You should always be researching your competitors even if there is no officially published report like an MQ or Wave. Nowadays there are so many peer review places to find competitive information. You can look at sites like G2, TrustRadius etc to find information that might be valuable for your company. You may need to read individual reviews which can be tedious but could surface valuable swords (places where you can attack them) or shields (areas you need to have talking points on how to handle). Forums like Reddit, Quora, and other industry specific community sites (Pavilion for sales and marketing for example) are also valuable sources of information. You can also conduct win/loss interviews with your customers and prospects. You'd be surprised at what competitive information you can get from a recently closed customer or sometimes from a prospect who is willing to talk to you or a third party about what they liked or disliked about your competitor during the sales process. You can also try to do some "secret shopping" by asking a friend at another company to go through a sales pitch with the competitor. Analysts, even if they don't produce a Wave or MQ, can also often be willing to answer questions about competitors, though they may not have as much information as if they had gone through a full evaluation. This is all in addition to attending competitor events (both live or virtual) and deep diving on their websites of course. There are always ways of finding out pros/cons of your competitors!