Case Study
Trellis is a disruptive cloud-based entrant in a market populated with old-school solutions. DesignWorks helped launch their new product.
Trellis
Blackstone Technology Group, asked us to develop a website for a new product, Trellis, that they wanted to launch. As part of this project they also asked us to validate their assumptions around the positioning and messaging of the new product. Trellis is a disruptive cloud-based entrant in a market populated with old-school solutions that are slow to deploy and expensive to maintain.
Services Rendered
- Product Market Fit Analysis
- Messaging and Content Creation
- Web Design & Development
Blackstone felt they knew what the positioning should be: Tired of your old creaky solution? Save time and money with Trellis. To double-check Blackstone’s assumptions regarding their positioning and as part of our website discovery and design process, we took their team through a two-day Product Market Fit Analysis workshop. Our process for this workshop was as follows:
- On Day One, we identified and laid out the key Value Dimensions for each of their target customer segments – the things that customers believe create highest value for a business.
- The Trellis team gave each of these an “importance” score, and by the end of the day we had a detailed Customer Value Model for each of their seven most important customer segments.
- On Day Two, we scored Trellis and their competitors (including homegrown solutions) against this Customer Value Model.
The results? Some important insights that led us to collectively re-think the positioning and messaging strategy for their product.
The most important overall theme to emerge was that their customers are operating in an industry that’s experiencing rapid change. Everything from new drilling technologies, to regulatory changes, to unpredictable weather is shaking things up. For these companies, opportunities appear quickly and must be acted on immediately; and the same goes for problems. This means that Trellis’ primary advantage is not cost savings or faster deployment. Both are important, but adaptability and configurability were even more important to their customers. This insight led us to product positioning based on these advantages, and developing messaging around a simple statement: Change Happens. Be Ready with Trellis.
The Product Market Fit Analysis workshop also revealed that there were important groupings of market segments and that, for example, Trellis’ advantages were very similar for both Utilities and Pipelines segments. Knowing this, we were able to avoid two mistakes:
- First, we avoided using generic messaging for all market segments.
- Second, we avoided wasting time and money on differentiated messaging for segments that didn’t need it.
The overall positioning of Trellis as a change-agent, and the learnings about commonalities across market segments, enabled a differentiated and simplified positioning and messaging strategy for Trellis. DesignWorks’ Product Market Fit Analysis proved to be an invaluable and time-effective tool, and also re-enforced an old and obvious truth – it always pays to take a look at your product through your customer’s eyes.
Considering what a Market Fit Analysis might tell you about your products and messaging? Learn more about DesignWorks’ expertise in product messaging and positioning, or reach out and chat with one of our experts.
Web Design & Development
