Why Good Products Struggle: The Marketing Problem Between Product, Sales and the Customer

There is an assumption that if you build a genuinely good product, people will buy it.

Build something better, give it to Sales, put some marketing behind it and generate demand. But good products struggle all the time. Often, it isn't because there is anything wrong with the product itself. Somewhere between Product, Marketing, Sales and the customer, the value gets lost.

Product understands what has been built. Sales understands what they need to sell. Marketing understands how they want to position it. But the customer is ultimately asking something much simpler: Why should I care?

Product teams naturally talk about the product

Product teams spend months or years thinking about features, functionality, technical advantages and what comes next on the roadmap. The problem comes when this internal language becomes the external proposition.

This is particularly common with complex B2B technology and financial services products.

Websites and sales decks quickly become lists of functionality, integrations and technical capabilities. All of this might be true, but it doesn't necessarily explain why somebody should buy it.

Customers don't usually want another platform, financial product or supplier. They have a problem they need to solve, a risk they need to reduce or an outcome they need to achieve. The proposition needs to connect what the product does with why that matters to the customer.

Sales can fall into the same trap

When Sales receives a new product, they naturally want to explain why it's good. Research discussed by Huthwaite International found that salespeople selling new products tended to ask fewer questions and spend more time describing features and capabilities.

It makes sense. The more there is to explain, the greater the temptation to explain it.

But the customer may need something completely different. They need you to understand their problem first and then show how the product helps solve it.

My tips for avoiding this:

• Lead with the customer problem, not the product

• Ask questions before explaining features

• Translate capabilities into commercial benefits

• Give Sales simple proof points rather than huge product decks

• Use objections and sales conversations to improve your messaging

This is where Marketing should sit

Marketing shouldn't simply receive a finished product and be asked to promote it. I think Marketing should sit right in the middle of Product, Sales and the customer.

Product tells you what has been built. Sales tells you what they're hearing. Customers tell you what they actually care about. Marketing can bring those together into a proposition the market understands.

Before launching a campaign, I would want clear answers to some fairly basic questions. Who is the product for? What problem are we solving? How are customers solving it today? Why isn't that good enough? What outcome do they want? Why are we a better option?

If those answers aren't clear, generating more leads probably isn't the immediate problem.

Complex products need simple messaging

I've spent much of my career marketing financial services, lending, insurance and technology products. They can be complicated, but a complicated product doesn't need a complicated proposition.

In fact, I think the opposite is true. The more complex the product, the harder Marketing needs to work to make the value easy to understand.

Start with the problem and the value. Then explain the benefits and provide the proof. The features and technical detail can sit underneath for people who need them.

Don't make customers work out the value themselves.

Sales should feed back into Marketing

Sales is also one of Marketing's best sources of customer insight. They hear the questions and objections. They know which competitors keep appearing. They see where prospects become interested and where conversations stall.

That information should feed back into Marketing and Product. Messaging should change as you learn more about what customers respond to, rather than being agreed before launch and left untouched.

For me, the relationship should be continuous:

Positioning comes before promotion

Businesses can be very quick to move from product development into campaigns. The product is ready, so let's build the website, create some content, start paid media, brief Sales and generate leads.

But before asking how you're going to promote something, you need to be clear about what you're asking the market to believe.

Who is this for? What problem does it solve? Why should they change? Why you? Why now?

If those answers aren't clear, spending more money generating attention won't solve the underlying problem. It will simply put an unclear proposition in front of more people.

A good product gives you something worth selling. Good product marketing gives the customer a reason to buy it.