Now that buyers are responding to your outbound emails, its time to show them your product vision in a 15-minute screen sharing session. This data will give you insights into which message resonates with whom. Your email tool should give you great data on open rates and response rates which you can analyze by industry, job title, and template. Asking your buyer for 15-minutes of his time is an excellent CTA as it creates just enough friction to gauge real interest. Your body copy should explain your value proposition and provide a call-to-action. Your subject line should be your product hook. I like to split test the subject line while keeping the body copy the same (hence the two different email templates). Then, load two email templates into an email prospecting tool such as ToutApp. Use LinkedIn, DiscoverOrg, or any other of the readily available data services to get the contact information of your target buyers. Email prospecting allows you to do two things: i) test your product hook subject line (measured by open rates) and ii) test your value proposition (measured by response rates). Sending cold emails to your target audience lets you see if your idea is powerful enough to cut through the clutter of your buyers’ inboxes.
The best way to gauge interest in your new product is to try to sell it. Here are three ways sales and marketing can help you develop new products which hit the mark: If your new product development team doesn’t include sales and marketing, your team is taking a long-distance rifle shot at product-market fit. So how can B2B companies discover customer needs and gauge demand early in the product development cycle? The answer is through pre-product sales and marketing. Even if they did, competitive concerns often cause us to keep our product roadmaps close to the vest. But, what about B2B products? Corporate buyers don’t hang out on Kickstarter. These pre-sales give the maker valuable product feedback early in the product development cycle. Kickstarter is a crowdfunding site that allows makers to pre-sell products before they invest the time and money to build them.
Kickstarter has turned the conventional product development process on its head. The problem with this linear approach is that no amount of sales and marketing can makeup for poor product-market fit. But in this case, as in many others, conventional wisdom is wrong. Ben Horowitz writes that "innovation is the core competency for technology companies." Conventional wisdom suggests that you should bring a product to market in three consecutive steps first build the product, then market the product, and finally sell and support the product. Whether you work for a tech startup or a large corporation, new product innovation is the lifeblood of your organization.
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