Using Customer Advisory Boards and Focus Groups for Effective Product Validation

In today’s world, building products has become more accessible, and product teams often strive to gain a competitive advantage and impress customers. However, this can sometimes lead to products that focus on promotional aspects rather than addressing actual customer problems. As a product marketer, I am fortunate to be involved early in the product lifecycle, and part of my role is to conduct product validation. In this blog, I will share how we effectively use Customer Advisory Boards (CABs) and focus groups for product validation. But first, let’s understand what CABs and focus groups are.

What are CABs and Focus Groups

Customer Advisory Boards (CABs) are exclusive groups comprised of senior individuals from select customers who have a deep understanding of our products, offerings, and the industry. CABs provide a platform to discuss industry trends, strategic priorities, and decision-making processes with customers. By understanding their perspectives, we can align our product innovation and strategy with their needs and goals.

Focus groups, on the other hand, are structured discussions involving a small group of individuals who represent the target market for a new product or offering. Led by a member of our product marketing team, focus groups provide an opportunity for customers to share their opinions, experiences, and suggestions about a specific product or service. The goal is to gather qualitative data, uncover insights, and identify emerging trends that can shape product development and marketing strategies.

Key Differences between CAB and Focus Groups

Before delving into our framework, it’s important to note some key differences between CABs and focus groups:

1. Types of Members: CABs consist of senior-level customer contacts who are decision-makers or buyers, while focus groups typically include practitioners ranging from key individual contributors to team managers.
2. Group Size: CABs usually have 10-15 members, whereas focus groups work best with smaller groups of 5 to 7 individuals. In some cases, sensitive topics may require one-on-one discussions instead of a group setting.
3. Setting: CAB meetings are often 1-2 day events, sometimes in person, with elements of both a marketing event and a product strategy session. Focus groups typically last 1 to 2 hours and can be conducted in person or virtually, with a sharper focus on the topic at hand.
4. Frequency: Multiple focus groups can be conducted throughout the year, while CAB meetings are usually limited to 1 or 2 annually.

Framework for Identifying the Right Forum for Product Validation

To effectively validate our product strategy and roadmaps, we developed a framework that guides us in choosing the appropriate forum—either CABs or focus groups—for different types of product validation.

1. Product Vision: In this stage, we validate if there is a problem and identify the alternatives customers use or fall back on to solve it. We assess customer awareness of the problem and potential solutions.
   • Who Validates: Buyers (who sign off on the purchase)
   • Forum: CAB
2. Product Roadmap: Here, we validate if we are prioritizing the right items on our roadmap and if the sequencing solves customer problems, driving user signups and usage. We also explore the potential for them signing up as alpha/beta customers.
   • Who Validates: Influencers/Users (who use the product or influence the buying process)
   • Forum: Focus Group
3. Product Messaging: This stage involves validating if our messaging resonates with the target customers, understanding the solutions they compare us to, and ensuring that the benefits cover what customers want.
   • Who Validates: Buyers, Influencers
   • Forum: CAB or Focus Group (depending on the product and audience)
4. Go-to-Market: In this phase, we assess if our go-to-market strategy and messaging address the needs, goals, and concerns of buyers, influencers, and other stakeholders in the buying process.
   • Who Validates: Buyers, Influencers
   • Forum: CAB or Focus Group (depending on the product and audience)

Benefits of the framework

Implementing this framework has yielded several benefits for our product marketing and product teams:

1. Improved cross-functional alignment: The framework ensures that all product marketing team members, product managers, and leaders understand when to use each setting. It also helps us set expectations with the commercial team and identify the right customers to participate.
2. Enhanced preparedness: Having CABs and focus groups as scheduled events encourages the broader product and product marketing teams to be prepared with hypotheses and assumptions that need validation before finalizing the product roadmap.
3. Balancing Validation and Go-to-Market: Running these events allows product marketers to not only validate product ideas but also understand the challenges in getting buyers and users to adopt the product. This results in better product messaging, a well-defined go-to-market plan, and improved sales and marketing collateral.