Situation
Market demand for journey mapping data presented opportunities for a high ROI project while increasing Protobrand's reputation as an innovation leader.
Task
Build a new product in a six-week timeline to capitalize on market demands and re-engage clients and boost project acquisition.
Action
Building requirements based on immediate needs and working in parallel across teams and tasks kept down technical debt and product inefficiencies.
Result
270% ROI after 6 months proved this project a major success. Positive client feedback led to repeat projects and furthered reputation as an innovation leader.
Situation
Protobrand is positioned as a premium consultancy in the market research industry, with more valuable data than simple likert questions and open end verbatims. To fulfill this marketing, it is important to be innovative in ways of collecting, analyzing and reporting data. Identifying emerging market research trends is crucial for client growth - flashy features convince a client to opt for a premium option ahead of a cheaper, safer option.
As a Product Manager I continuously monitor market trends to identify new opportunities for growth. One example was the increasing demand for diary-based and journey-based insights, exemplified by growing client requests.
Task
Given the growing number of requests for proposals that included journey-based data, I was tasked with quickly developing a new feature that would allow us to compete for these imminent proposals. This feature needed to allow respondents to easily map their steps in chronological order in an engaging way.
The key performance indicator for this project was a basic ROI built from project acquisition and client retention. A critical challenge was to balance the feature’s development cost with its potential ROI, given the timeline urgency of delivery.
Action
1. Rapid Requirement Gathering and Prioritization
I immediately convened a series of meetings with key stakeholders, including externally with sales and leadership and internally with the product team. We quickly gathered requirements and defined the core functionality of the Sequence Question. Given the tight timeline, I prioritized features that would deliver the highest impact with minimal complexity, focusing on a drag-and-drop interface and the ability to customize steps on a timeline.
Integration and Testing
We matched the MVP functionality to our most pressing RFP, and left room for flexibility and future iterations that would allow the question type to be flexible for our long-term needs. For example, we built functionality to inherit answers from precedent or to dependent questions for consistency throughout the platform and flexibility for future project requirements.
Parallel to development, I collaborated with the sales and marketing team to create promotional materials and training resources for clients, ensuring a smooth rollout.
Market Launch and Client Engagement
We launched the Sequence Question feature within six weeks, allowing us to immediately include it in active RFPs and client pitches. I personally engaged with project teams on journey map projects live to ensure best practices and uptake with such a new feature.
Result
The Sequence Question feature was a significant success, leading to three projects within the first six months. This included a second follow up project after positive reviews from the first project. The opportunity cost of delaying this development, could have resulted in losing key clients and potential new business to competitors, so the 6-week timeline proved crucial to capturing these opportunities.
Within the first six months post-launch, the Sequence Question feature generated an additional $235k in revenue. The revenue from surveys that included the journey map feature was 30% higher than the average project.
The success of the Sequence Question feature not only reinforced our competitive positioning but also demonstrated the company’s ability to rapidly respond to market needs, fostering stronger client relationships and securing new business. The positive feedback from clients also positioned us well for future innovations, as they began to view our platform as a leader in market research technology.
Key Learnings
Working on a tight timeline taught me how to compress different steps of the process by working in parallel with different teams while adding clear and simple MVP guidelines for developers, leading to minimal blockers.
While ROI was the primary KPI, strengthening Protobrand’s reputation as an innovation leader in the industry is arguably more important. We needed to not only build an MVP to fulfill the proposals, but build a product that was easy to use for respondents and truly valuable to clients. KPIs are important, but Product Managers must keep overall company goals in mind when building products.