Product Marketing at Gate 2
By: Nick Stringari
Tags: Engineering, Manufacturing, Content Marketing, Product Development, Branding

Now that you’ve gotten the ball rolling with content marketing at Gate 0 and 1, it’ll begin to take shape a bit more lucidly just like the product itself in Gate 2.

Gate 2 offers ample opportunity for rich content, without a ton of effort. All it consists of is strategically capturing the evolution of the product and offering samples to your audience for feedback.

Key Components of Gate 2

Gate 2 is where the vision of the product starts to take a bit more shape. Usually, this is accompanied by:

Examining Resources — Careful definition of budgets, resources, manufacturing plans, etc. Essentially, everything necessary to bring it to fruition.

Concept Development — Product concepts are developed and features, functions, and key attributes are defined.

Visual Representation of the Product — This means either constructing a physical prototype, scale model, or 3-D models of the product.

Content Marketing at Gate 2

The predecessors of Gate 2, Gate 1 and 0, have likely allowed you to collect about six months’ (could be longer, could be shorter…this totally depends on the product) worth of content that you can continue to refine in Gate 2.

However, Gate 2 will offer more enriched product content, introducing more visual elements that shift the focus from thought leadership and verbal vision to what the product will actually start looking like. Content production in this phase will feature product mock-ups, sneak peeks at prototypes, and an overall high-level look at the product.

Content at Gate 2 can also act as teaser content. Engaging the audience by hinting at launch locations, revolutionary product specs, and so on.

Key Marketing Key Opportunities

Because Gate 2 will allow you to generate an arsenal of engaging content, it provides ample opportunity to begin crowdfunding on Kickstarter, or start driving conversions via “First Peek” sign-up lists.

Another prominent marketing opportunity presented at Gate 2 is research. As the product is in the early concept development phases, offering content to your audience allows you to capture critical insight that can ensure a more successful launch. It’s here that audiences can weigh in on certain features, designs, and key attributes. If your product involves UX design, this type of user research will be priceless.

Finally, we can’t forget the gold mine of content marketing material that can be gained from Gate 2. Following the journey throughout this stage offers opportunities to create micro-content, blog tidbits, infographics, screenshots, still frames, and more. An excellent example of this done successfully is the content commonly distributed by the media company Cheddar, or manufacturing giant General Electric.

A Real-World Example

Let’s examine a real-world example of successful Gate 2 product marketing.

We’ve mentioned before that reality television show Orange County Choppers does a perfect job of showing this marketing strategy in action. The entire series documents the product development process of various motorcycles.

In Gate 2, the audience is given a behind-the-scenes look at how the motorcycle concept will look, feel, and ride. It adds a whole new layer of excitement to product development because the audience is now a part of the vision.

This is exactly how this model works. The evolution of your media and content follows the evolution of the product itself. As the product takes form, content and media also take form, getting your audience excited for what’s about to take place in Gate 3.

Keep Crushin’ It!

-Nick