How to collaborate with marketing to design high-growth products

Marketing is all about sharing stories and doing it in a distinctive way with the rest of the world. In contrast, design is all about making goods that customers will find useful and pleasurable. A brand is communicated through design, while interest in it is sparked by marketing. Imagine the potent mix that could be produced if the marketing and design teams’ silos were to be broken down.

Combining digital design with marketing will enable you to not only deliver a fantastic product but also increase engagement and user growth over time. The eventual result of this cross-collaboration will show how interdependent these two tasks are. It all comes down to how well the two disciplines work together.

Define Your Target Audience And Image/Persona

Personas are essential to the creation of new products. It is an image of your ideal client. It helps teams conducting user research make the optimal choice for the appropriate audience. Just as important as what you create is understanding who you are making it for. But should these personas be divided into different groups according to their roles? Absolutely not, as it is confusing, time-consuming, and diverts your attention from your intended course.

What can be done in this circumstance? We may develop a single common identity rather than two distinct personas for marketing and UI UX product design.It’s crucial to keep in mind that personas should be trustworthy when creating them because a flawed persona could lead to the construction of a subpar product.

Collaborate through every stage of product development

Teams are more likely to find answers more rapidly when they work together. In this cross-collaboration, marketers, UI, and UX designers will find themselves working closely together. An overall richer experience will result from the marketing and design teams’ correct alignment at each stage:

• Participate in the process of collaboration with relevant players.
• Share your ambitions with the entire team.
• Consider the problem statement from a variety of angles.
• Create a variety of answers to the issue.
• Determine the solution that will affect all teams the most.

Clear objectives, reasonable expectations, and regular progress reviews can all promote effective teamwork. Before you begin working on the project, ensure both teams are familiar with the important terms. Make a shared document with all the conditions and specifications for cross-collaboration. In the event that something goes wrong or if there is any ambiguity, this can serve as a manual.

Get marketing and user insights

We can learn about previous user experiences from the audience’s input. It helps gather information on what should be improved, differentiating strategies that could be employed, and what customers expect from the product. The marketing team’s responsibility is to provide information on the state of the market and how it appears. The design team would then use this information and interpret it creatively.

Both marketing and design can have a deeper understanding of one another by using these insights and innovative ideas. The finished product must work with the people who will utilise it. Knowing your audience will help you target and determine their demands.

Raise campaign visibility

One of the finest methods to stand out from the competition in the sea of internet businesses is to have outstanding design. In addition, if your design is terrible overall, you really have little chance of standing out.

Humans have a natural tendency to become accustomed to their surroundings and familiar with items that don’t stand out. Information overload would result if individuals paid attention to every every aspect of everything. It’s crucial for designers to imagine their marketing from the perspective of their target audience in order to better understand what will make it stand out and avoid creating designs that will turn them off.

Combine user research with competitive analysis

Analyses of digital data are frequently done through marketing. How can marketing’s competitive analysis benefit the product, whether it be for market disruption or market share acquisition?

In our analysis, much like in the audience insights exercise above, we seek to identify trends that can guide product decisions. Here, David Sweeney uses Ahrefs and SimilarWeb to describe a wonderful approach. Looking into search trends can be instructive, even if your team doesn’t have the time to delve that deeply into the trends.

Develop a marketing strategy

A marketing strategy is what? It serves as the guide for all of your marketing initiatives. Start early; a thorough marketing strategy at the outset of the design phase will aid in providing the teams with better insights and product development and growth. An improved understanding of the users is facilitated by early market planning.

Making money and surviving are virtually difficult without the proper marketing strategies to support your growth. The majority of businesses instantly concentrate on the strategies that will aid in achieving their goals when they set goals. Rarely do businesses start by developing the overarching strategy that would direct them on their journey.

During the process, there is a considerable chance that the marketing and design teams may stray from the corporate objectives. Distractions and ineffective strategies can be filtered out with the aid of a clear and well-informed approach. You can contact your target audiences with the aid of effective marketing methods. Additionally, it will serve as a guide for all business decisions you make.

Originally published at https://www.onething.design on Feb 15, 2023