Product and marketing teams may operate as distinct functions, often separated by structure, location or remit. Yet, this doesn’t mean they should work in isolation. In fact, the most effective firms know that early collaboration between these teams can make all the difference.
While product development is typically driven by innovation, long-term success relies on a thorough understanding of the customer—gathered not after the fact, but at the very beginning.
By embedding consumer insight into the earliest stages of product design, firms can ensure that features, functionality and benefits are aligned with genuine client needs.
Bringing marketing into the process early helps turn that insight into clear, compelling messaging. The marketing team is better equipped to articulate these benefits clearly, crafting sharper value propositions, more compelling messaging and campaigns that speak directly to the intended audience.
Speaking to Financial Promoter at Money 20/20 Asia, Myles Harrison, chief product officer at Amina Bank, emphasises the importance of understanding consumer needs from the outset and the value of integrating marketing into the product design process to create a smoother transition from creation to promotion.
The foundations of product design
The thought process behind designing a new product or modifying an existing one is rarely spontaneous. Harrison says there’s several different factors or sources that can spark the need or inspiration for a new offering.
Listening to consumer demand is often the starting point for developing a new product. However, Harrison notes that at Amina Bank, the real challenge is digging deeper to uncover the underlying problem. Initial client feedback or requests don’t always address the root of the problem, so the team works to distil what customers are truly trying to solve.
“There’s often a famous example that’s used, which is around wanting to hang up a picture in a house. Let’s say it’s a picture of a family,” he says. “Consumers might say they need a hammer and a nail, but really the hammer and the nail are not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to be able to look at the picture on the wall and feel the emotion of seeing the family.”
As a result, Harrison explains that he uses techniques like asking targeted questions during consumer research to uncover the core problems customers are seeking to solve.
“We’ve used several different methods to do that research with clients. We then use the research output to influence our decisions in building a new product,” he says.
In addition, to gain an additional understanding into consumers’ thoughts and understanding, the bank will often look at the emotional response clients have when interacting with products.
For example, Amina Bank often conducts research around when customers are interacting with the company’s app, which centres around “thought, feeling, response”, according to Harrison.
“What do we want the client to think? What do we want them to feel? And how do we want them to respond?” he says. “We want them to have an emotional reaction and then to drive that desire.”
However, product design cannot rely on meeting consumer demand and needs alone, it’s also important to assess whether the new product aligns with the bank’s strategy, Harrison notes.
To do this, the bank uses the ‘triangle of innovation’, which consists of desirability, feasibility and viability, to see whether it can effectively solve a pain point that clients have identified, he says.
“Just because clients want something or the market wants something, one: is it in line with our strategy to build that? And two: do we have the capability? Do we have the technology and the people with the knowhow to execute it and make it a successful product?” he says.
Alongside customer insight, regulation plays a significant role in shaping product decisions. Harrison notes that Amina Bank frequently needs to adapt its offerings in response to evolving regulatory requirements.
In addition, the team keeps a close eye on the competitive landscape, taking cues from how other players in the market are responding to emerging trends and client needs, he adds.
“Are they doing something that we aren’t and should be doing? Have they created a variation of something that we’ve done, and should we look to compete in that space?” he says.
Incorporating marketing from the start
While many firms focus on product design first and only later consider how to position it or craft a compelling story around customer needs, Harrison believes this thinking should be embedded throughout the entire development process.
That’s why Amina Bank often leverages a technique that was made famous by Amazon, which involves writing a press release for a product even in the early concept stage, he says.
The idea behind the concept is that if the team writes the press release and finds the product lacks appeal or it seems too leftfield, it’s a signal to reassess whether this product should truly be added to the company’s roster.
“If we can’t position it in the market or there isn’t a compelling story, then how can we actually take it to market? How can we sell it?” he says.
This approach ensures the team is focused on how to market the product and tell its story from the outset, rather than designing the product first and retrofitting a marketing strategy later, as was often the case in the past, he notes.
To strengthen this strategy, Harrison explains that the product team involves the marketing team from the very beginning. The product team then walks marketing through the product concept and the problems it aims to solve. From there, both teams collaborate to brainstorm various ways to position the product in the market.
“Whether that is a competitive edge, or we’re the first to do something or the product is solving a particular problem. We then identify how target the consumer and start to construct some messaging,” he says.
In addition, Amina Bank has product marketing experts, positioned between the product and marketing teams, Harrison adds. Their role is to bridge the two functions, helping the wider marketing team understand the problem the product solves, its compliance details, ideal customer profiles (ICPs) and the tailored messaging required for each of these ICP.
The bank has also built a centralised go-to-market strategy document, according to Harrison. This document includes all the bank’s products and is regularly updated to incorporate new offerings or changes to existing ones, ensuring alignment between the product and marketing teams on positioning.
Regularly updating the document is important to ensure that the messaging attached to the product remains relevant at all times, he adds.
“It’s a living and breathing document because our go-to-market strategy can shift over time based on a number of factors,” he says. “Whether it’s market dynamics, regulation, competitor activity or when the product reaches a different maturity level, that messaging might change so we keep it updated on a regular basis.”
Accounting for regional differences
Given that tailored messaging for each ICP is a core element of Amina Bank’s strategy, Harrison emphasises the importance of considering the unique requirements of each jurisdiction, particularly as a global company.
As Amina Bank markets products globally from its Swiss headquarters, it tailors the messaging for each country because what’s important or valued by one segment in one jurisdiction, might be different in another, he says.
In fact, the bank also sometimes offers entirely new products to account for the entirely different consumer demands that exist in each jurisdiction, according to Harrison.
“We have some products that are just available from our Hong Kong entity. They are tailored to the needs and desires of our Hong Kong clients,” he says.
To ensure this tailored messaging remains pertinent, no matter which consumer segment or jurisdiction it’s in, Harrison emphasises the importance of considering the buyer journey.
He notes that traditionally, decisions were made based on the ‘sales journey’. However, in recent years, this approach has evolved into the ‘buyer journey’. The focus has shifted from what’s important to the company to what matters most to the client during their decision-making process, he says.
“When we go to buy anything, whether it’s from a hardware store, a garden centre or a clothes shop, we, as consumers and as humans, go through a decision-making process in our head,” he explains. “Whether that’s ‘I’m not willing to spend more than ‘X’’ on this or ‘it has to be a certain material or colour’, we have that list of parameters that we are working within.”
Then, for most products, consumers tend to shop around and compare different options, he adds. Therefore, teams must understand the journey the buyer goes through, considering what’s important to them and what they place value on to meet their needs, he says.
He notes that in Amina Bank’s case, consumers might be placing value on cybersecurity, price or access to coins or digital assets. He emphasises that it’s important to understand what is most important to the buyer and consider that that can vary depending on the jurisdiction.
By prioritising consumer needs during the whole product development process and recognising that these needs will vary by segment and jurisdiction, the product team can truly create solutions that genuinely address problems – even those customers may not have realised they had.
And by including the marketing team early in the process of product design, messaging strategies can be carefully crafted to ensure that consumers clearly understand how these new products, or modifications to existing products, are meeting their specific needs.