Pod Insights MarTech Podcast ™ // Marketing + Technology = Business Growth Transforming Client Feedback InTo New Product Features About this episode CEO and Product Owner, Darin Lloyd from Simple Marketing Solutions, discusses transforming client feedback into new product features. Learn how customer feedback can drive new product features, optimization, and business growth opportunities. Discover how Simple.io's intuitive marketing software optimizes creative workflows and improves project management for creatives, ad agencies, and marketing teams. Explore seamless collaboration, regulatory compliance, and efficient resource management with their powerful tools. Show NotesConnect With: Darin Lloyd: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com.
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0:53 Speaker 00 Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.
1:15 Speaker 04 Welcome to the Martech Podcast. I'm Benjamin Shapiro, the executive producer of the Martech Podcast, and today we've got a special episode for you, which is going to be guest hosted by Juan Mendoza, the author of the Martech Weekly Newsletter. Juan is a recovering martech consultant turned creator who writes an amazing weekly newsletter about the martech industry, and I'm thrilled to invite him and some of his friends to take the mic and share their knowledge with you, our loyal Martech Podcast listeners. All right, here's a special episode of the Martech Podcast, guest hosted by Juan Mendoza, the author of the Martech Weekly Newsletter.
1:51 Speaker 05 Welcome back, welcome back, martakers. My name is Juan Mendoza from the Martech Weekly, your guest host here at the Martech Podcast. Joining me today is Darren Lloyd. He's the CEO and product owner at Simple Marketing Solutions. Simple offers intuitive marketing software designed to optimize creative workflows and improve project management for creatives, ad agencies and marketing teams. Darren is one of those fascinating guys that he's the executive of the business, the leader of the company, but he's also deeply involved in the product, the design, the development, the execution of product in the business. And it's absolutely fascinating talking with Darren in the past about his vision for how he thinks about how
2:33 Speaker 05 marketing teams and creative teams can be more efficient and optimize how they do the marketing work in large companies. Yesterday Darren and I went deep into how technology can really improve the creative process in marketing. But today, we're going to be talking a little bit more about the process of transforming client feedback into new products and features. So I'm very excited to welcome Darren Lloyd back. He is the CEO and product owner at Simple Marketing Solutions. And we're going to talk about this whole world of how you take feedback into new products and how he does that in his own company as well. So Darren, thank you for joining us.
3:09 Speaker 06 Thanks for having me back.
3:11 Speaker 05 So let's dive right into this. When we've had conversations in the past, you've kind of said, I'm a product guy. First and foremost, that's what I love doing is developing awesome products for customers. Now, tell us a bit about what actually got you interested in product management, product development, and that whole role around developing new products for customers?
3:28 Speaker 06 Wow, where do I start? Well, I was an IT guy in an ad agency and I saw lots of inefficiencies. And I went looking for a platform to solve these inefficiencies. Everything was happening by email. And when someone leaves the business, guess what? You get told to nuke their machine and get ready for the next person. And there goes all the work that they've done. That started a journey for me. And once you start something, you're essentially opening a can of worms. But what I love and nothing more than is when you visit a business, a brand or an agency, and you see their users using the software, it's a goosebump moment. And it's like a tool that they use to do their work. So that's what inspires me. Obviously, the user experience has to be spot on, has to be efficient. So that's what gives me a buzz is when I can improve
4:10 Speaker 06 something that we have been doing, make it better, or start something new that we haven't done before, but do it in a way that saves users time or makes sure they actually do what they mean to do.
4:20 Speaker 05 So it really is identifying a problem space and then building something, creating something to solve that that problem, whether it be in your own workflows, in the work that you're doing, or identifying that out in the market as well. And I guess that's where a lot of this is coming from, which is when you get feedback from customers, usually they're talking about their problem. They're like, I'm struggling with this, or I'm not sure about that, or there's something where they're trying to solve their own problem in some way. And so where do you start with customer feedback? Let's start the front end here about the whole process. Let's talk about collecting customer feedback. When it comes to understanding what customers need, what's wrong with your product, things that you need to improve, where do you actually start when it comes to customer feedback?
4:57 Speaker 06 I'd like to break it up into two areas. So the best and the most comprehensive feedback comes when someone's in market looking for a platform. They, in the sales exercise, they are open minded, they're looking for something, they got their requirements written down. And I often join these sales situations because I know that's where you get the gold, where someone is going to be thinking of something differently because their minds are open. Now, it's very different to our existing customers who they use the software and they're more in BAU mode, and no matter how often you meet with them, it could be monthly, quarterly, annually, and you review and you ask feedback, their minds are never as open as someone who's in market looking for something new because they don't know what they want, et cetera. So that's where the gold is, that's where the nuggets are,
5:42 Speaker 06 that from a product perspective, because they're open minded.
5:45 Speaker 05 So that first step of I'm looking for a solution is where you're sort of thinking, okay, what questions they're asking, what things do they want to know? And then that's just really just an exercise in listening.
5:56 Speaker 06 Exactly. And then when you show them what you have got, they sometimes see things very differently because they're seeing it for the first time. They go, oh, it would be good if it could do that, et cetera. So that new customer opportunity is where more than 15 of our features come from. And then, of course, the existing customers are another good source, but it's harder to get the really good stuff out of them because they're so busy. As we just said in our last podcast, marketing is busy, it's nonstop, it's always on, keep going. So they very rarely have enough time to extract themselves out of the process and to give you that that feedback. So what I do encourage A product session with our customers every quarter, if they can dedicate two or three hours, that'd be great.
6:35 Speaker 06 And the first few minutes, they struggle to rhyme their hair, but then once they start talking and you, we use a lot of prototyping, whether it be XD or Figma. To, to present concept back to them, but when they see something visual that we're working on, it's like a light bulb goes on. So one of the best ways we get features out of our existing customers is to show them concepts and prototypes of what we are doing, where we are going. And they're having something tangible to discuss and then all of a sudden they start engaging. So it's not easy getting feedback from existing customers because they're too busy. Or they're kind of happy with the way things are. Humans don't like change. We say we like change, but we don't.
7:10 Speaker 05 Yeah, well, that's a really interesting point you raise, which is great for a marketer to think about how to process feedback is that. When a customer has bought something and they're using it regularly, they're probably blocked off to change at that point.
7:23 Speaker 06 Their muscle memory just kind of starts behaving in a way that they like that if I do this and I do that, then that happens, you know, so they like that consistency. But if we always kept on doing the things the same way, we're never going to improve. So it is challenging.
7:35 Speaker 05 Exactly. And there's always, of course you always want to be improving your work, but it's just, I think it's, that's a good insight about human nature, I think, because as an example, we bought a house about eight years ago. And I've been living in this house for about eight years. In the first two years, I did a lot to fix it. I ripped up the front fence. I put a new front fence around the house. I painted the house a different color. We had these big, ugly red walls, fixed up the bathroom and the kitchen, did a bunch of fixes there. And then the past like five years, I've done not much.
8:01 Speaker 06 Yeah, because you're happy.
8:01 Speaker 05 Pretty happy. I mean.
8:02 Speaker 06 You've hit a captain sign.
8:04 Speaker 05 Yeah, but there's still things to fix, right? There's small things, there's big things, you know, stuff to fix, but. You just get into a rhythm where you're in that space and you don't really want to make a change. Whereas the customers that are asking all these questions when they are in a season of making change. Say they want to replace their technology or they want to buy it for the first time. That's when they're asking all the important questions to your point. So actually understanding where the customer feedback, at what level is this customer speaking from? Are they speaking from the level of a. Repeat customer that is using a product or brand new coming in and all the questions, it would really be like worthy to, to separate. That feedback out when it comes to identifying trends and insight. We often think as marketers, think about demographics or lifetime value and all these other types of metrics.
8:48 Speaker 05 But the situation in which the customer is in is something that is often neglected. We could talk about this all day, but I want to talk about the next step, which is, okay, let's say you've got a bunch of feedback, you've got recordings from sales calls, you've got testimonials, you've got surveys, you've got one-on-one interviews with folks. When it comes to collecting all that data, how do you tend to manage it? Is there a way in which you prioritize the feedback in certain ways? Is it more of a gut feel? Or is there more of a methodology to how you sort of look at the things you should prioritize or not?
9:18 Speaker 06 It's a little bit of everything. Obviously, we're an agile organization, so we've got a product backlog. So things get added to the product backlog. We use user stories, so we don't go into boring requirements. We go as Joe, the marketer, I need to do this, et cetera. So we write a user story, just kind of like a problem statement. And then we let the developers respond with a solution. So we go out of our way to make it real life, personal, a real business challenge. And then we've got a UX team and the UX team will, the next step, they will prototype using Figma. That then gives us something tangible to discuss as a product team. We look at it and we start refining it. We make sure that we're consistent with behavior and other parts of the app, because the app's pretty big.
10:00 Speaker 06 And if there's something we're doing differently, we go, okay, we either need to do it like we do it elsewhere, or do we change, make this change where it is? So we critique that and then we share it with the source. So which customer asked this or customers, we get their feedback. And then once they've given us their feedback, we start coding. Now, probably the fastest we've had something from an idea to delivery has been two months. We develop in sprints, but more often than not, from the first time we hear about a client from a customer, probably three, four months away from them seeing it, if it's something you want to do. You mentioned gut feel, that does come into play because you just know, if you've been in the scene for a long time, you know, okay, that, that, then you've heard it and you've heard the problem many, many times and it's now time to do something about it.
10:45 Speaker 06 So there's a bit of gut feels slash experience related to it, but then There's also commercial. Is this going to make our product better? Is it going to allow us to charge more for our product? Is it going to make our product stick here with our existing customers? So there's all of these questions you need to ask yourself and we do. But for me, that is the last thing I ask. If something feels right and you know it's going to make it better, the commercials will take care of themselves.
11:11 Speaker 05 That's interesting. If it feels right, you think you're going to solve a big problem, then the commercials will follow. I like that attitude because I think a lot of people, particularly in product, they'll optimize towards certain metrics. And the metrics are usually around revenue and growth. And often that could be to the detriment of the experience of the customer. They could have a bad experience, but the app or the product is making good revenue. And there's a misconception in this industry, which is being customer centric means that you listen to the customer about everything. The customer is always right. Okay, when you get this feedback, okay, you're going to go build a product, right? And you're going to build the ship a feature to solve that problem or improve the existing product, right? Now, that's just common knowledge. Everyone knows, okay, you've got to listen to your customers and get feedback. But then sometimes you have to ignore customer feedback.
11:54 Speaker 05 And you have to go with your gut with what is right and what's wrong. Sometimes the metrics that you want to pursue are kind of at odds with the feedback from the customer. Sometimes there are things that you just cannot do because they're not technically feasible. Sometimes there's things that the customers want, but are not really aligned to what you want to do in your career or for your company. So there's all these different layers of complexity when it comes to making these decisions. And so that's why I ask about the gut feel. Because I think you're still creating something for a customer. If you let your customers come in and build your product for you, guess what? It's going to be a hot mess, isn't it? And it sounds great, co-creating with us sounds lovely. But at the end of the day, you're the person that's shipping the vision of the product. You're the person that's actually delivering something that's valuable and tangible. That judgment that you hold in the business is perhaps the most important part
12:39 Speaker 05 of which feedback you listen to and which you don't.
12:41 Speaker 06 Exactly. And there's some features which are simply a can of worms. It might seem small, but you know that once you start going down that road, it's a can of worms. You just don't want to go there. It will overcomplicate your product and it's something that you're not an expert in. So stay away from it. And it's hard to say no, you're right. But you have to say no sometimes to go, that's not what we do. It's not our core ambition.
13:03 Speaker 05 Yeah, even though you could make a lot of money, even though the opportunity is there, you're like, hmm, that's a distraction or not the right time for the business or whatever.
13:10 Speaker 06 Distraction is the right word because what you take away, you're going to lose on another era, which might be a core heart of your business. And going back to the feature versus whether you try it or give it away. For me, I think the sentiment is the feature has to be good and add value. And then there's less pressure when you give something for free or included versus if you want this, I'm going to charge you for it. Cause then it comes with a lot of pressure and it just kind of ruins the vibe you have with your customers. So our preference is to include things, make the product better. And then when they want to renew, we go, well, the product has been better. We've done all these things since you last renewed, we're going to up the price by a little bit. And that way they get a whole lot of improvements for a little price and they're going to be with you longer. So we prefer to play the long game than a quick, short game and it's worked for us.
13:55 Speaker 05 No, that's great. And I think the opposite of this would be, say, the example I use frequently is Facebook. So Facebook is a product, a social media app that has ruthlessly prioritized what people want. And when you look at it, you know, the metrics there would be engagement, time on site, time on the app, overall time spent, the overall time spent in different types of content. All they're trying to do there is maximize the amount of time people are using on the apps. But what ends up happening is that you just get a lot of clickbait. You just get a lot of random videos. It's like the fast, fast food of information and content, all the junk that people want. And guess what? A lot of people just want a lot of distracting junk. Look at TikTok, same deal. There's so many people creating on that platform, but they're really just creating a bunch of random junk.
14:36 Speaker 05 Like there's nothing really super intellectually interesting and there's nothing super helpful for people as well. So when you think about it, optimizing for user, what users want, sometimes customers don't know what they want. Sometimes they know what makes them feel good, but it may not. Be what exactly what a customer actually needs in a product or a service. So again, it takes that curation, that judgment, and obviously like the experience of figuring out what's right and wrong for the product and the customer, which is a great overlay to this. I think not all feedback is treated equal. I think is what we're getting to here is that some feedback can be totally life changing, incredible for your business, unlocks a bunch of value. And then some feedback could be disastrous if you follow it, but the choice is yours.
15:16 Speaker 05 The choice is absolutely yours. So Darren, absolutely fascinating talking about yesterday, talking about all of the things around improving, streamlining the creative process and marketing. But this time around, I love just talking to Darren as the product guy and how you think about collecting feedback, using it in your business. And of course, to continue to develop the product at simple.io. So thank you for joining us. Now that was Darren Lloyd from Simple Marketing Solutions. He's a CEO and the product owner there. If you'd like to get in touch with Darren, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes, or you can visit his company's website at simple.io. So that wraps up another episode of the MarTech Podcast. I'm Juan Mendoza, your guest host for today. And Darren, thank you so much for joining us for another great episode.
16:00 Speaker 06 Thank you again.
16:01 Speaker 04 Okay, that wraps up this episode of the MarTech Podcast. Thanks to our guest host, Juan Mendoza, the author of the MarTech Weekly Newsletter. If you'd like to get in touch with Juan, you could find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes, or you can contact him on Twitter. His handle is JuanMendoza, but it's spelled crazy pants. It's J U four N M E N D zero Z four. Or it's a little easier to just visit his company's website, which is themartechweekly.com. Just one more link in our show notes I'd like to tell you about. If you didn't have a chance to take notes while you were listening to this podcast, head over to martechpod.com where we have summaries of all of our episodes and contact information for our guests. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletters and you could even send us your topic suggestions
16:44 Speaker 04 or your marketing questions, which we'll answer live on our show. Of course, you can always reach out on social media or handle is martechpod, M A R T E C H P O D, on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Or you can contact me directly. My handle is Ben J. Shap, B E N J S H A P. Haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, we're going to publish an episode every day this year. So hit the subscribe button in your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.
17:44 Speaker 00 Thanks for listening to the MarTech Podcast and I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand, then visit iheareverything.com.
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