📢 How to Build Your Product Around Your Marketing Strategy...

4 key steps to integrate marketing into product development for startups: In-depth customer research, value proposition refinement, channel-aligned product design, and early feedback incorporation for market success.

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A recurring theme among SA startups is that they tend to battle a bit with marketing.

And it rings true, a lot of founders we talk to build amazing products and then only at the tail end of production ask: “Well, how are we going to market this thing?”

And, in some dealings with local ecosystem players, we started exploring the idea of actually building products around well-developed marketing strategies.

It makes sense because then you can build with your marketing plan already in mind.

In fact, that’s very much how we at The Open Letter build our products, so we thought we’d share some insights…

4 Steps for Building Around a Marketing Strat

1. Nail down your core customer before you start

Most founders do a quick validation, then jump straight into development and only look at user journeys once they get to UX/UI.

We’re saying reverse that and do way more in-depth market research beforehand. A more thorough validation, if you will.  

What’s more, see if you can’t get a lot more info on your various customers, segments, individual needs, preferences and – most importantly – where to reach and influence them (which channels).

2. Craft your value proposition first

Next, try to reach some of those customers and sell them on the idea.

Engaging with your actual audience helps you figure out what resonates with them, what language works and what doesn’t etc. Conversations, interviews and surveys are your friends here.

Take all of that and start building out your messaging, defining your brand and playing with ways to convert.

3. Optimise your product to integrate with marketing channels

Building your product, brand and technology to align with your chosen channel(s) lets you deliver your product or aspects thereof where your market is most active.

It actually helps to build product and marketing together, and then allow them to inform each other…

4. Test & build in feedback loops

As an example of how marketing and product can inform each other: Our first MVP version of The Open Letter was built on a platform with certain features.

But, as we rolled out our marketing, we learnt that we’ll need to double down on a specific conversion mechanic which our existing platform didn’t offer.

This allowed us to very quickly and early on switch to a different platform that’s been way more successful for us, helping drive down CAC and boost growth in one fell swoop.

If you want to chat about building better products, smarter, set up a strategy session with us.

Got a building or marketing hack to share? Hit reply and let us know…