We used a lean research framework to inform GTM/product roadmap iterations. We really wanted to understand the gaps/opportunities for this audience. 

This approach can be done internally within about 2 weeks and can provide important signals quickly. If you have the bandwidth and the network, you can add as many data points from prospects and customers as you can.

The general audience for this deck was Marketing, Product and Sales Leads and Operators.

My most immediate audience was the CMO and the PMM lead. But I had the rest of the stakeholders in mind as well. For example, I saw how each of the teams listed touches this audience in different points of the journey, but there wasn't really anything to fully connect that experience together.

I like this framework because it allowed me to get quickly to insights that actually led to impact in the same quarter, while also uncovering long-term recommendations.

Recently I heard Mark Roberge talk about how, in the downturn market, we can't afford 6-months of research to make a pivot decision anymore. This methodology allowed my colleagues and I to get 

 quickly, which then let us start iterating across the entire customer journey within a couple weeks' time.

It was important to show these timelines so that I could show that this is expected to have impact during this quarter (along with where, when, and how).

I don't want research to attract dust, and I don't want it to stay in the theoretical realm. I want to tie it to GTM action, and quickly. 

Showing how quick and lean the process was gave me a lot of stakeholder support in this effort.

There wasn't yet organizational alignment around these personas. We were in the pre-research stage for them. 

At this time, both personas were conflated under the same audience, across all levels of seniority.

To move quickly, I scheduled interviews with our own people -- some who had worked at the company for 7-8 years, some for 3-4 years, and some for 1-2 years -- across different roles from both EPD and GTM orgs. Collectively, they have talked to hundreds of customers.

I also added to that some random people from my network. One of them was someone serves as a consultant and contractor. These people helped give me wider visibility into the market trends, needs, jobs to be done, and more.

This was backed up by our sales cycle info, which had already been synthesized. It involved doing cluster analysis for common win/loss reasons, where these personas were involved. 

More backing evidence from secondary sources

Gong is basically Sales/PMM heaven. This platform automatically records calls, transcribes them (allowing you to search and skip by words and names), and a whole lot more. You can watch these calls at 1.5x speed, scan quickly, and move only to the themes and parts that interest you.

Instead of spending half a day interviewing 4-5 prospects or customers, you can use Going to scan through dozens at the same time, get qualitative info about how often something is mentioned, which roles, etc.

When you come bearing news, be ready for a lot of stakeholders to ask for more details, double click on new strategic recommendation, and scrutinize your data/methods. That's why I like to keep links to interview recordings and summaries, and sometimes even add them to my artifact, so I don't need to spend time chasing these after.

Our sales and marketing teams seemed to conflate all seniority levels under one audience. This view of the audience helped sharpen the message for the relevant people.

The jobs to be done (JTBDs) changed across seniority levels and titles. So breaking down the responsibilities/actions of each persona across the entire customer journey and lifecycle was key in identifying who cares about what, why they care, and how to address their needs -- from messaging to product capabilities.

This view also allowed me to show differences in the pre and post-sales stages, across company sizes. Since there were differences, there was room to strategize and prioritize for business impact accordingly.

In addition, I could show the sales team that they were conflating different personas and could point to exactly how they differ. The product team used this info as well.

I used this chart to map the different buying committee roles.

After the 2 weeks sprint, I started building these artifacts - and distributed the work through the quarter. The first assets were ready about 4 weeks after the research sprint started, and they continued to drip through the quarter.

Our EPD teams used this as well to drive roadmap prioritization.

I created multiple slides like this, per relevant problem/job to be done, and across segments, relevant to this audience.

This was useful for both GTM and EPD teams.

Shelly Eisen-Livneh

At Heap we conducted this lean research approach to help inform GTM/product roadmap iterations.

Audience strategy research sprint at Heap

Sign up to see more