Original Customer Development Document we use to learn about the market

1. Customer Development to-dos, pre-demo
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Compile list of 50 prospective users
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Develop an innovators list… who among the list is the most interested in helping us?
Steps to arrange meetings with 50 prospective users:
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Call on these people and arrange meetings (trade shows also work)
Titles don’t matter, target companies do
Create an intro email that can be warm-forwarded
Schedule a phone call to arrange an in-person meeting
Make 10 calls a day over one week to schedule 5-10 visits. Stop when we get 3 meetings in one day
Develop problem presentation
Give problem presentation in person
Ask Pre-demo questions
Work with product development to refine assumptions
Return to prospective users with product
Walk them through demo
Ask post-demo questions
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2. Questions for legislators
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Can you tell me what kind of communications are most effective to receive from
constituents?
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In-person
Phone calls
Testifying at Capitol
Email
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Personalized
With address
Via a form
Twitter
Facebook
Other social media
How do you respond to receiving a flood of email around a specific issue? Does it sway you?
Do you respond to all emails you receive? Tweets?
Do email campaigns ever end-up in spam? If so, do you check them? Or respond to them>
Who responds to emails? Staffers, or you? What about social media?
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3. Problems
Today’s Solution
Phone2Action
Organizations not fully
capitalizing on Calls-to-Action
Go to Website
Text message that delivers
mobile Website
Members aren’t acting on
communications with an
increasing frequency
Emailing members to take
action
Immediate engagement
activity in response to a callto-action
Best methods of contacting
members not tracked,
measured
Use email legislators widget
on website, requires lots of
information from user
Immediate, location-based
legislative action
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4. Customer Development Questions (for Orgs), Pre-demo
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Can you please explain why these problems matter to you?
Did we leave anything out?
How much do creating campaigns around calls-to-action cost you today?
What is the biggest pain in how you work today?
If you would wave a magic wand and change anything you do, what would it be?
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Can you tell me how you are currently addressing calls-to-action?
What do you do?
How much do you pay?
Do you consider these things to be problems?
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How do you interact with other departments?
What other products do you use for encouraging your membership to take action?
Can you quantify the impact or cost of the tools you are currently using?
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What would make you change the ways you are currently doing things? Price, Features, Standard?
If you had a product like this, what % of the time would you use it?
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5. Customer Development Questions for Orgs, Post-Demo
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Remind audience what the product is supposed to solve
Describe why our company thinks that this is important
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Draw customer workflow with and without your problem
Explain who else will be impacted by customer’s problem
Give Demo
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Do they match the customer’s needs?
Would they be ready for the customer to pay for them on Day 1?
What features can wait?
What features are missing?
What is a complete product in their mind?
What other features are required to move the product into the mainstream?
Ask about positioning
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What are customer’s first reactions?
Does our product solve a painful problem for them?
Would they buy a product to solve this problem?
Do they believe that others in their company would buy a product to solve this problem? Do they think others would feel the
same way?
Ask about features
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Wait for agreement
How do they think the product is different?
Do they think we are creating a new market?
Or do they think our product is creating a better version of an existing product?
Pricing?
Pricing:
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Would you deploy our product if it were free?
What about $1M?
Does that include implementation?
What would you expect to pay for ongoing maintenance? Annual contracts? Per campaign contacts?
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6. Customer Development Questions for Orgs, Post-Demo
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Marketing
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If you were interested in a product like this, how would you find out about it?
How do you find about other products like this?
Do you ask others for their opinions before buying?
Do you go to trade shows?
What industry-specific publications do you read?
Product Acquisition Process
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Let’s assume for a minute I built a product you wanted to buy… how does your company buy products like this?
Could you walk me through the approval process?
Exactly who is involved?
By the way, “is there a current budget for a product like this? Which department or individual have the budget for this
product?”
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