OCTOBER 2017 SEEDWORLD.COM / 45 IN THE WORLD of software, problem solving is essential to continually evolve and develop products or services. I’m not refer- ring to fixing defects in the software, but my long-held view is that software must pro- vide the customer enough value for them to invest their time and money. The value being that a challenge is solved by the software. For example, it might reduce costs or save time by making things quicker and less prone to error. The key point is: Everything that a software provider does must bring value to someone. It must help solve the cus- tomer’s most important challenges. I have a master list of all the ideas and areas that represent customers’ chal- lenges and potential solutions we could develop and deploy to help solve those challenges. Internally, this is known as my product road map — something I update with new ideas and solutions and priorities based on meetings and conversations with customers and prospects. During these discussions, I always learn some- thing new about their challenges, and it is my mission to solve these. The items at the top of my roadmap are those that represent the biggest pain points for the majority of customers and prospects. These items are the first to be developed. I’d like to note, this ranking is not in terms of the effort to provide a solution but are those that represent the biggest value to the most customers. Sometimes the work required to pro- vide a solution to a challenge is large and complicated. In these instances, you don’t want to try and “boil the ocean.” It would take too long and probably be too big a change for the customer all at once. Plus, there’s the potential the solution loses A Solutions-Based Road Map Helps Ensure Success VINCENT VENEZIALE CULTURA SEED SOLUTIONS PRODUCT MANAGER @culturatech • Vincent.Veneziale@culturatech.com • Seed.Culturatech.com focus and misses the key requirements. If it’s a project that’s particularly large or complex, I break it down into smaller pieces to see if I can provide what I call a “minimum viable” solution. This means starting with small improvements and getting feedback from customers to see how it can be further developed, eventu- ally encompassing the whole challenge. Again this feedback is added to the road map and prioritized. It eventually flows through the process, culminating in soft- ware functionality that adds value. Prioritizing the challenges in terms of value is the most important thing. Breaking down the larger pieces of work makes them more manageable and ensures you focus on the most valuable challenges that will have the biggest impact on the success and growth of your customer base. A COMMON COMPLAINT about content marketing campaigns is that people don’t see it making an impact for their business. But before you blame the marketing genre, have you stopped to evaluate the quality of the content you’re generating? Don’t shoot the messenger! If what you’re pushing out doesn’t set you apart from the crowd, then it shouldn’t come as a surprise you’re failing to get views or generate engagement. So how can you fix it? Ask yourself, “Why should my customers care ... about this article? About this blog? About this video?” When you focus your thinking on being customer centric, it becomes much easier to find your content marketing sweet spot. To keep your content unique, consider: 1. Audience — Is your focus niche enough? 2. Channels — Are you using the right channels to reach your audience? 3. Saturation — Don’t be a “me too.” For example, don’t start a podcast if all the other seed companies are doing podcasts. Once you’ve considered these three points, then you can dive a little deeper and sharpen your understanding of what’s the buzz in your audience’s industry. It is not just about staying in the loop or on top of industry trends — you should truly understand the context or bigger picture and how it impacts your audience. Meaningful Content Your content needs to be meaningful in order to create a connection. The adjective “meaningful” can often be subjective from one person to another. The key to understanding what Is Your Content Unique? SHAWNA SCHIMNOWSKI CREATE BY ISSUES INK CLIENT SERVICES MANAGER @IssuesInk • sschimnowski@IssuesInk.com • IssuesInk.com is meaningful to your audience is taking the time to talk with others and investing the resources to actually find out. To accomplish this, you might want to con- sider setting up alerts to help you follow trending topics, subscribe to relevant influencers’ and competitors’ email lists, and have regular conversations between your sales and marketing communica- tions teams. Your sales people are the frontline. They are the first to hear both the good reports and the bad reports from your customers. It takes a lot of work to earn an audi- ence’s attention, so let’s make sure that once you have it, you keep it.