Source: Why and how: Long term product goals
Author: Allan Kelly
Section: 4 — Amazon press release and customer fan mail
Reading time: 6 minutes
Tags: amazon-press-release working-backwards customer-fan-mail future-spective product-goal-technique customer-centric-goal press-release-faq avoid-naming-features capability-over-features emotional-goal-setting variations-on-a-theme
Summary: The second technique is Amazon’s ‘working backwards’ press release: write the press release you’d issue when the product ships. This customer-centric approach forces the team to imagine the future and describe benefits, not features. Kelly adds the ‘customer fan mail’ variation — imagine a delighted customer writing a thank-you letter. Both techniques aim to inspire and create shared understanding, not catalogue features.
Amazon press release
While Moore’s product template is both well-known and well respected it is perhaps a little too analytical. While breaking the product goal down into distinct component parts makes it straightforward to create it does not encourage creativity and, perhaps, the end result lacks inspiration.
An alternative technique, popularised at Amazon, is to start by writing the press release you hope to issue when the product is release. (Although your marketing people might want to draft something else when the time comes.) Most people will have read a press release even if they don’t realise it: if the issuer gets it right journalists will pass it off as original work with only slight modification.
In writing the press release the writers transport themselves to a future where the product is done and the benefits are starting to flow. This is an act of informed imagination; some would call it a future-spective. Imagining and describing the future make it easier to create that future.
The press release method is more customer centric than Moore’s. Rather than saying “Our product” and speaking from the inside the press release speaks directly to the customer. Still, the press release should cover many of the same questions that Moore poses.
| Product name (heading) | Name of your product which is obvious to customer |
|---|---|
| Customer (subheading) | Target customer/market |
| Summary | Short summary (assume nothing is read beyond here) |
| Problem | The problem the product solves |
| Solution | How the product resolves the problem |
| Quote from your side | What might your CEO say? |
| Getting started | How to get and start using the product |
| Customer Quote | Imaginary customer quote |
| Closing and Call to Action | What should the reader do next? |
The basic template for a press release would start:
Announcing SuperCase!
The must have luggage for long-haul frequent flyers
MegaCorp today announce the latest version of SuperCase. Using SuperCase long-haul flyers can now see their luggage location in read-time which allows them to never loos another case.
Announcing the product CEO Julie Smith said “With this release SuperCase becomes the new technology leader, customers can relax knowing where their case is.”
Beta tester Helen Maxwell in Dallas said “My team have been using SuperCase for three months now and find it rock solid, my company has seen reduction in lost luggage and increase in peace of mind.”
Get your free demo today at …
If appropriate you might want to make reference to specific features in your product, however, it is better to focus on the capabilities the product makes possible and, even more importantly, the resulting benefits.
The aim of both the press release and the product goal is not to list a lot of work that needs doing. The aim of writing a press release is to set a goal, and the aim of a long-term goal is to guide all other work. Having the goal helps decide what to do and how to do it.
Thus, the press release should use broad stokes to describe the product. The release should be motivation, a real press release aims to motivate buyers, this one aims to motivate the builders.
KE Exercise
By yourself or with other team members try and write the press release you would like to see issued when your product – or product revision – is launched.
Use the template above as a guide. If you need to break the format – to make the story more engaging – then do so, just make sure the points listed as addressed.
Customer fan mail
A similar technique to the press release is to write “fan mail” from a customer. As with the press release you transport yourself to the end. You then imagine a delighted customer writing a letter of appreciation for your product. What would they say?
Perhaps they would talk about the easy of acquiring the product?
Maybe they would describe how quickly they became productive? Certainly, they would talk about the benefits and how the product has changed their life.
They might also discuss what they have stopped doing: perhaps they no longer use a competitor product (why?), or have to work around omissions in the
previous process (what omissions?), maybe the product produced better quality results (what is quality? and how to they measure the change in results?)
You might ask team members to each write their own imaginary fan mail they hope to see then the successfully product is release. By doing so each of them can put themselves in the shoes of a delighted customer.
KE Exercise
Get together with a few of your team members and have writing some fan mail for your product. It may help to have a brainstorming session first and talk about what you expect customers to like most, and you might want to work individually or in pairs to create several pieces of fan mail.
When you have done compare your fan mail and show them to any members of your team who have not seen your output.
Frequently asked questions
In some cases product managers will add a list of frequently asked questions, FAQs, with answers to a press release. The aim, obviously, if to address those questions which they think may arise from the press release.
Writing on Medium Robert Monarch describes creating two PR FAQs to go with an press release: one external and one internal (Monarch, 2019). The external FAQ supplements the press release and aims to answer the questions customer might have. As such it continues the press release.
The internal FAQ is open-ended and intended to address any questions which internal stakeholders have. As such it might be less of an “frequently asked” and more of a “everything asked” question list. By being open the product leader can answer every question stakeholder might have and give an answers that fits the product vision. Of course this might mean giving different answers to those the stakeholder would like, like saying “the product will not …”
Avoid features
Whichever technique you use avoid naming specific features. Naming a specific feature elevates that feature and increases expectations from those close to the work. Once you name one feature there will be pressure for a
second, a third and before you know it the whole statement will be a long feature list.
If you name a feature, there are two possibilities. Either the feature is a complete guess, someone says “If it could do …” It might, but then again it might not, really features should arise from research.
Alternatively, the feature has been researched and explored in depth, commitments have might have already been given. This implies that the team don’t have a free hand, someone has decided what is in the product. In which case, why bother with the press release?
The more important question that needs asking here is: how the team is operating? If the team are expected to deliver a set of features which have been decided elsewhere - sometimes called a “feature factory” - then writing a press release isn’t going to make much difference. The long-term/product goal is simply “Do all the stuff which has been asked for.”
Setting a big goal - and apply all these methods - really comes into its own when the team is both deciding what needs doing to meet the goal and delivering those things. Working this way allows the team to explore themselves, conduct customer research and incorporate feedback from the start to the end.
If you still feel you must name a feature, at least try to avoid naming it directly. Instead discuss the capability it delivers. That way, when the time comes to build it, you have latitude to research the real needs and engineer within your constraints.
Variations on a theme
The techniques outlined here may appear as alternatives, but they can be complementary. Completing Moore’s template might be a great start before writing a press release. Calling out the individual template elements customer, problem, etc. - will make each on clear. If you are working as part of a team then discussing the various elements can help build understanding and agreement, e.g. which customers do we rally want to target?
When those elements are agreed, you might advance to writing a press release. And when working as a team you might have individuals write their own imaginary fan mail to supplement the press release.
Of course, one should always be aware of inconsistencies - not just with other people but with oneself. But rather than see such differences as problems see them as discussion points, by exploring the differences you may create a better statement and a better product.
For example, if one colleague writes about the product working so well on their iPhone but another writes of it appearing on their car dashboard it shows that they have imagined the product differently. If they can see it differently other
people probably can too. More importantly, what has caused them to see it differently? What application or challenge has led them to that point? They may have spotted different opportunities, different points of value. Rather than closing the difference down, or jumping to decide one is right, explore the difference.