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Writing an Effective Marketing Requirements Document

Marketers have a tough job. They have to try and figure out what features a customer wants and they communicate them to engineering — from the market research process, now it has to go through product development.

Customers do tell you what they want, but that is not enough. The marketeer needs to figure out what the customer needs not what they want. In so doing, you’re increasing the probability of your shelves getting emptied, with products sold, than none at all. This is where the art of writing an effective marketing requirements document comes in.

What is a Marketing Requirements Document or MRD?

A Marketing Requirements Document (MRD) is a document that encapsulates the wants and needs of the product that marketing thinks a customer might buy. Hence, this is a very important document that helps the product or marketing manager to define the demands of a particular product. It’s the first step in product definition since you need to know what the customer’s wants and needs are, before defining a product.

The MRD will typically contain the following information:

Product definitions suffer when markets are uncertain. Confidence also plays a role. The marketeer is under pressure to define a product that will sell. Get it wrong and the business suffers. Marketers that lack confidence will always over feature and poorly define what they want. Better marketing requirements start with understanding the customer’s pain.

While this may seem like an all-too-extra process, think of it as something that ensures the profitability of your business. With clear requirements set, this helps your team to have a clearer vision to develop the right product. Think of this as the foundation or blueprint of sound product development.

That said, here are the steps necessary to write an effective marketing requirements document:

Step 1: Understand The Customers Pain

A true understanding of the customer’s pain requires that you know the customer’s business and what problems they face. Don’t rely on what they tell you directly. Most often, that is only half the story.

In understanding the pain of your customers, you know for certain that the products you create are those that make their lives better. You’re easing out whatever burden or pain it is that your customers face before your products came into existence. Thereby, once your products are introduced, they end up being well accepted by your target market. With this, it’s also going to be more effortless for your entire team to come up with the appropriate category design for each of your products.

Customers tend to focus on their immediate, short term problems since that’s what’s pressing to fix. Look beyond their immediate needs. But, don’t go too far also. For instance, you’ll want to address problems that they face today and in the near future, rather than five years from now. Else, you’re still running the risk of having some of your products getting unsold.

Some questions to ask include:

  1. What do they do now? Understanding the present state will reveal gaps of opportunity. Ask questions about the process the customer uses now. Chances are, you will start to see what they can’t see — places where a properly defined product can fit in.
  2. Who are their customers? If your gadget or service helps your customer service their customers, then get to know them. How do they use the existing product? What pain to they feel?
  3. Survey the entire ecosystem: This includes looking at everything that might interact with your product from all sides. This can sometimes be tough to do but strive for completeness since there are hidden gems to be found.

Step 2: Understand Your Competitors

Competitor offerings are good clues as to where the market is but not where it might go. It simply gives you an idea of what’s currently demanded by customers. Resist the temptation to copy the competitors’ requirements without understanding why they’re important. Sometimes, competitors add features because one customer asked for it not because the market finds it useful.

With this information, you can now understand that you shouldn’t be shaken by the presence of your competitors. In fact, having competitors should be a good sign that you’re selling products that will very much be accepted by your target.

Here are a few questions to ask about competitors:

  1. Current Product Offerings: Take a look at the present state of the market and figure out what is out there. Try and narrow down the features to their core. Then, expand from there.
  2. Competitor Roadmaps: If you can get ahold of them, see where they are headed. Their roadmaps may be customer driven or not but it should signal the direction they think the market is going.
  3. Research trade journals and papers: Competitors may publish studies or white papers on their approaches to solving certain problems. Trade organizations may also publish forecasts that aggregate the trends in the industry. These are great resources for secondary market information and what your peers are doing.

Step 3: Identify The Essence of The Product

Now that you have gathered lots and lots of data, it’s time to digest it and define your product essence. This is an important step (kind of like a mission statement) because this essence will ground your requirements. It also helps others to grasp your product concept. The essence of your product must be summarized in one paragraph (think of it like an elevator pitch). Strive for clarity of purpose while focusing on specifics. Try these steps to define your products elevator pitch:

  1. Brainstorm Descriptive Words: Write down as many descriptors for your product as you can. Just free write for 15 minutes. Group these words into like categories. Look at the themes that emerge. These themes are what you want customers to remember.
  2. Describe The Pain: There is no better way to figure out what features to request that to figure out what you are solving. Make statements that are concert in language that is easily understandable. Try and capture the big idea about what pain the customer has.
  3. Solve The Pain: Once you define the pain, solve it. Describe your solution so that it solves the pain. Tell the reader how your will do it. Show them the benefits. Engage them by making your solution the obvious solution.
  4. Show Why Your Different: Solving the pain is one thing. Uniquely solving it takes additional effort. You started to solve the pain above but now you have to really tell the customer why your product will be better than your competitor. Talk about usability. Talk about features you only have. Resist discussing price. Just being cheaper is not a feature — it’s a sales tactic. Customers want value. Give them value not a cheaper widget.

Step 4: Craft Core Requirements

At this point, you should have a good understanding of the wants and needs of your customers. The next step is to define the core features that are “must haves.” Each one of these features is critical to product success. Discipline at this step will set your destiny. Boil it down to the core. Don’t add features just because they sound good — they have to be great.

  1. Define The What, Not The How: Too often, marketeers have a design or engineering background. That experience creeps into their product definitions. The temptation is so great that product features are so specific that engineering has no freedom to create. It does no good to describe that your product needs a Lithium Ion battery with 2300 mAH when what you really want is a 3 day battery life. Leave the details to engineering. Marketing must define as broadly as practical what they what and let engineering figure out how to implement it.
  2. Run Usage Scenarios: Mock ups or thought experiments on how a customer will actually use the product provides critical insights into core features. Get engineering involved with this and make them part of the discussion. It’s amazing how creative these sessions can be. Engineers love to solve problems and when they are part of the requirements process, you get better products.
  3. Keep Refining The Core: As you look at core requirements, continue to refine out the nice to haves and boil down to the core.

Step 5: Define Nice To Haves

All products have features that would be great to include. These features are important to define and prioritize. Time permitting, you might even get some. Be aware that you must assign priority to each and every one. All features have a priority. Your core features are must haves that will always take priority. Your nice to haves need the same level of discipline.

Step 6: Layout The Business Case

Hopefully, you have a business case by this point. If not, why bother building the gadget in the first place. Always include a business case summary in your marketing requirements. Most engineers want to know that what they build will be successful. I cannot stress this enough. Make a compelling business case will make your product better and your team will enjoy working on it a lot more. Add things like: market size, sales projections, Average Selling Price (ASP) and gross margins.

Step 7: Send Out For Review

Reviews are a great way to see if your requirements are understood. Send out your requirements to a select set of people that you trust. This initial group should vet your document for clarity and completeness. Do this review before you send it to other groups. A trusted team of advisers that are aligned with your interests, will ensure that nothing glaring is wrong.

Once your trusted advisers have reviewed it, then you can send it to a broader audience. Expect questions, comments or downright objections. That is normal and will make your requirements document better.

Step 8: Repeat And Refine As Necessary

With every review, you will get closer to better requirements. You may get tons of feedback on specific sections while other will barely be touched. This is normal. Continue to strive for clarity. Continue to maintain your core vision. This will serve you well when it comes to implementation.

Henceforth, be open to continuously reviewing and editing your marketing requirements document. Just because you already have one today, it doesn’t mean that it will continue to be effective for many years to come. It’s up to you to ensure that your MRD is still effective, and does serve its purpose.

Build a Marketing Requirements Document Template

Going through the above steps will be a great first start at building a template for your MRD’s. It’s vital that an MRD template is crafted for your business. It’s like the foundation of a sound and strong building, without which, your plans will just falter. That does not mean you can’t borrow for others but an MRD will be a lot more impactful if it takes into consideration the uniqueness of your business.

As this document contains the wants and needs of your customers, you’re ensuring that your customers will be satisfied. Follow these steps as you make one, so you can ensure its viability and success.

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