“As far back as 1966 the phrase “word of mouth advertising” was coined in a Harvard Business Review article by Ernest Dichter, the father of motivational research (and the “focus group”). He exhorted the ad community to move from acting as ‘a salesman who tries to get rid of merchandise,’ to the new role of ‘a friend … Read more
Large organizations with multiple business units need a way to determine where to invest across all the units. The GE–McKinsey Nine-Box Matrix is a method for deciding how to share capital across multiple units by assessing each unit’s market position and profitability. This model looks at two factors: Market attractiveness and Business strength: Market Attractiveness is … Read more
For the last four years, Actuation Consulting, has been conducting market research on what makes product teams successful. I had the privilege of helping with the most recent study and they found that: Companies with less than $50 M in annualized revenues have between one to nine core team members. (42% of organizations have between … Read more
The BCG growth–share matrix is a chart that was created by Bruce D. Henderson for the Boston Consulting Group in 1970 to help businesses decide which markets and business units to invest in. The matrix looks at two basic factors: Relative Market Share that represent cash generation Relative Growth Rate that represents cash usage The … Read more
Sales job is to find and acquire new customers. Services job is to retain and grow the current clients. Product needs to support both theses objectives. The product needs to provide features that new customers are looking for and features that retain and grow the current client base. In most cases, features that retain and … Read more
MaryLeigh Bliss did this great post, 3 Marketing Lessons Brands Could Learn From Taylor Swift (Seriously), a little while back that I thought was, not only the right way to reach Gen Y, but is just good common sense. In general, this is what she shared: Get Personal In April, Taylor Swift surprised a super-fan … Read more
A recent Nielsen Norman Group study found that organizations that have adopted an agile development process are more proficient in execution but some have abandon research and design best practices and degrade their customer experience. Unfortunately, the study found, that most organizations following the agile development process didn’t include research on a consistent basis, if … Read more
We are in the Experience Economy that Pine and Gilmore predicted – a customer-centric marketplace that Forrester calls the Age of the Customer where: “A customer obsessed company focuses its strategy, its energy, and its budget on processes that enhance knowledge of an engagement with customers, and prioritizes these over maintaining traditional competitive barriers.” We … Read more
I was having lunch with a colleague – catching up on family and his new gig, when we got on a conversation about the difference in US and Japanese business cultures (he has spent the last 25 years working in both). One thing in particular that stood out to me was that Japanese companies have … Read more
Finding the right sample size is a tradeoff between the number of participants in the study and the ability to detect problems. The larger the sample size, the more problems that get uncovered. There is however a diminishing return as fewer new problems get uncovered with each additional user. And not all problems uniformly affect … Read more
I was at the recent Satmetrix’s 8th Annual Net Promoter Customer Experience Conference where Richard Owen, President and CEO of Satmetrix, gave the keynote: Friends with Benefits or Enemies with Consequences: The promoter-driven economy and the next decade of innovation in customer experience. In his presentation, Richard explained that Satmetrix sees three types of NPS … Read more
The Standard for Product Management and Marketing is Here! The Guide to the Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge (ProdBOK) is a comprehensive, easy to read standard for product management profession. The ProdBOK is an industry-wide effort to standardize the practice of product management sponsored by the Association of International Product Management and Marketing (AIPMM). … Read more