Prioritizing Product-Market Fit with Tom Bianchi, SVP of Product & Solutions Marketing at Acquia

The Revenue-Driven CMO

Today’s guest is an inspirational leader who has built B2B marketing teams from the US and Europe to Australia and Japan for over 15 years. They have a proven track record of helping businesses scale whether they are large enterprises, hyper-growth, or somewhere in-between. Tom Bianchi is the SVP of Product & Solutions Marketing at Acquia. Tom and Host Chris Mechanic explore the importance of product-market fit in the success of marketing campaigns, why larger companies must pursue a solution-market fit, and which companies have nailed their product-market fit.

Takeaways:

• Understanding product-market fit is imperative for marketers. Once you understand the pain point that the audience that you're trying to market to is truly feeling, every part of marketing downstream becomes easier and more effective.

• A key part of launching a successful marketing campaign is to enable the members of your company’s sales team to sell. Prior to the launch of the campaign, the sales team needs to understand the messaging of the campaign and the pain points of the customers.

• If your campaign messaging makes sense because you understand your product market fit, it becomes easier to enable your sales force to best respond to anything that comes from that campaign because they know exactly how to articulate the pain points.

• Startup and Hyper-growth type companies, especially in SaaS, tend to understand their product market fit better than larger and more established companies. In more mature companies that have made acquisitions and play in multiple categories, there is a higher likelihood that they do not understand their product-market or company-market fit. This gray area complicates messaging problems for larger companies.

• For larger companies offering multiple products, the focus must shift from a singular product-market fit to looking at the solution-market fit where the “solution” provided to customers is a combination of the multiple products the company offers.

• The solution offered to customers must be more valuable than just the sum of its parts. The multiple products that comprise the solution must synergistically work together to provide a greater value to the customer. Companies should diligently make acquisitions of products that enhance the capability of their solution.

Quote of the Show:

• “For me, it's all been about understanding the product-market fit.” - Tom Bianchi

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-bianchi/

• Company website: https://www.acquia.com/

Shoutouts:

• The ONE Thing by Gary Keller

• Dries Buytaert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/buytaert/

• 6Sense

• Playing To Win by Alan G. Lafley and Roger Martin

• All-In Podcast: https://www.allinpodcast.co/

• Make Your Bed by Admiral William H. McRaven

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• YouTube: https://youtu.be/BkRoj5RmauA

The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/

The Revenue-Driven CMO is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/