Data-Driven Decisions in Product Marketing

Data-Driven Decisions in Product Marketing

Posted by Andreea Oproiu — Published

in a hands-on approach at TOMM

The wealth of digital insights is vast, and it represents the biggest power for marketers nowadays. One specific area that runs on data is product marketing. From finding that product-market fit to launching and then maintaining the overall success of a product, all the processes are backed up by data-driven decisions — which ensure consistent and continual growth.

?️‍♀️ We wanted to find out more about this specific topic, and the only way to practically do this is by working with someone with expertise in this area. Thus, our guest for TOMM #7 was Corina Știrbu—Marketing Strategist for tech products & companies. Corina guided us through an entire storyline and process of what happens behind a product and what we can do with all types of data.

The digital world is in a constant state of flux! While there are many promotional and marketing trends, the best way to take care of your product is by looking closer to your insights and then adapt them to a personalized marketing strategy. Corina pointed out the 7 steps that are essential in this process, with personal examples from her professional experience. We described them (very) briefly as follows:

? Understanding your customer

Getting to really know your public is crucial in delivering an effective product. It can have all the best features, catchy design, and on-point copy and still be unsuccessful if it’s not directed to the right people. Understanding your customer encompasses many aspects, from defining a tone of voice for your brand, to distinctively position it on the market or even paying attention daily to the way your customers are interacting with it.

? Onboarding

Onboarding can be an exciting step in the incipient phase of a product, but it also has to focus on giving the user a pleasing and memorable experience, so that it can further convince him to use it.

The A-HA moment, as Corina described it, is when the user discovers the best feature of the product and connects with it. For a compelling onboarding, this should represent the immediate step after downloading and then framing the rest of the actions according to this moment. The data provided by the users’ actions can also be used in establishing an emotional connection with them through the brand’s personality.

?️‍?️ UI/UX

The demographics play an important role in the UI/UX of a product. There are different ways of interacting with it, depending even on the country of provenience. We discovered some funny examples from Corina’s stories with user behaviours from Russia or the USA.

When working on this aspect, one of the best-practices in data-driven decisions is creating funnels to discover where users drop out of the flow and segment them in new-comers/ one-time/ loyal, etc.

? Performance

In the era of very high-speed Internet, performance can make it or break it. There should be a focus not only on the overall performance metrics of the product but also on the solving time and approach in case of an unfortunate experience.

? Engagement

Engage your users firstly by giving them an effortless experience in using your product, and secondly, by giving them incentives to use it more than one time.

One important takeaway from the workshop’s insights was the fact that when people invest (anything) in using your product, it is less probable for them to switch to another. 

? Conversion

Setting realistic but ambitious goals for the optimization of the conversion rate should be part of the marketing mantra. Also, don’t neglect the users that dropped out—retargeting methods improve your conversion rate.

? Customer Happiness

Many brands often neglect this aspect, but this was one of the most highlighted topics during the TOMM #7 workshop. How you ask for feedback, what you do with that feedback, and how you surprise your customers should be on anybody’s list if they want to keep their customers happy, and thus, loyal.

*The entire process of data-driven decisions in product marketing is detailed by Corina in this spreadsheet, which you can use as an exercise for your future strategies.

Structured data, like metrics and other insights that come out of users’ behaviours, are often easier to deal with if you’re a marketer with a passion for squeezing the statistics out of numbers and charts. But the other type of data—the unstructured one, like reviews and actual feedback is sometimes more informative, and we all should use it in improving features and the overall experience of a person with a product.

“Being data-driven takes less time, and it is more efficient than debating whether a specific change is worth trying. It is faster than waiting for every element to be perfect before launch.

Spoiler alert: while we love pixel-perfect design, as an entrepreneur, there is always something to improve.”

Corina mentioned in a dedicated article.


We want to thank Corina Știrbu for her pragmatic approach shared with us during our online marketing meetup, DevPlant for hosting our endeavours, and George Roșu for the creative illustration!

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*If you want to dive deeper into this topic, there are two more related articles, written by our workshop host: