solutions messaging

Year: 2022
Role: Product Marketing Insights Lead
Research Method: Quantitative survey, in-depth interviews
Research Type: Exploratory research, validation research
Company: Miro

Due to the sensitive nature of some of my work, the detailed case study is available by request only. If you’re interested in checking it out, please drop me a quick line here or through LinkedIn to request the password.

In the meantime, read through the project details below, or check out some of my other research projects and published work. 

background and goals

Building on our functional roles research outcomes, Miro had made the strategic decision to focus on knowledge workers within 'EPD', or: Engineering, Product, and Design. The product marketing department had adopted a new outbound strategy that would support our product-led growth. 

Pushed by the newly competitive online visual collaboration space, we needed to improve our defensibility through audience tailoring and multi-product alliances.

Business Goals

• Company leads: show how Miro supports key cross-functional initiatives to sell Enterprise License Agreements.
• Functional / Team leads: show how Miro supports team workflows to sell Corporate Plans.
• End users: Show the value of using Miro daily to acquire, grow and retain the user base.

User Research Goals

• Explore the different roles within Engineering, Product, and Design in order to build a messaging hierarchy.
• Test and validate our learnings and assumptions to create solutions that resonate with these audiences. 

method

We developed a messaging research and testing approach along all three functional pillars:

• Customer discovery: in-depth interviews, desk / market research, and 100k user survey responses.
• Synthesis and concepting: identify their broader context, the biggest challenges they face and their existing workflows.
• Customer validation: in-depth validation interviews, user testing, and campaign experiments.
• Iteration and refinement: prioritize workflows, value proposition resonance, and language refinement.
• Launch and measure: launch solutions and continue with A/B and multi-variant testing over time.

crucial insights

The team developed messaging maps and redesigned solutions landing pages for all three knowledge worker core audiences: Engineering, Product, and Design. The case study that I have included below focuses on the Engineering Solution Research:

• This particular solution was incredibly helpful to our marketing team, as this was a historically 'mysterious' line of business, and not an early adopter but late majority adopter of Miro.
• We uncovered possibilities for messaging and positioning that built rapport with an audience that is known to be suspicious of new technologies making "bullshit" promises.
• We uncovered their main challenges around tool overwhelm, playing telephone with teams, and requirements changing.
• Delivered an infographic specifically tailored toward the Mapping and Diagramming use case for Engineering.

The full case study can be found here. Please contact me for access to the board and for additional findings and learnings.

research impact

Strategic Impact​

• Our design team created landing pages that put customer centricity in action, including animations and examples that increased engagement by 14%.

Stakeholder collaboration Impact

• This was an example where we took the 'squad' approach, bringing a cross-functional team together from marketing, content, product marketing, and design under one roof.
• Through daily standups and weekly agile sessions, we were able to launch three solutions in record time.

Product Impact 

• Product teams were more comfortable with the promises the messaging was making as it fell directly in line with their strategic goals.
• Product teams were able to deliver a Mapping & Diagramming messaging package to the Engineering audience, which had previously been challenging and confusing.

my learnings

• Start early and fail as you go rather than waiting for it to be perfect! I felt I could have gotten more done without worrying about all the cooks in the kitchen.
• Be very clear about outcomes for product and outcomes for marketing. They ARE different.
• The more visual, the better. The infographic was a great choice for communication.