| Eva Rohrmann 
New marketing technology, measurement platforms and other advances have greatly expanded the sources that marketers can sift through for nuggets of information. Still, the most useful data that will turn strategic, positioning and tactical efforts into gold oftentimes is hiding right under your nose: with other teams within your organization. Ideas and data are streaming in from all directions – from sales to product to customer support. Are you mining as much as you can from the information other teams are collecting? And are you sharing the riches you're minting with colleagues outside of the marketing department? Think of this collaboration as a scavenger hunt, where every team within your organization has a treasure trove of actionable marketing intelligence waiting to be discovered. Let's see what you can find. The Product Roadmap Marketers love to bring new things to market, and the product roadmap offers a guaranteed idea-generator. Upcoming product launches and enhancements not only open opportunities for product managers to go after new users, they can also inspire new audience acquisition initiatives for demand generation teams and media outreach for strategic communications groups. 
What else might be on the roadmap? Product sunsets. Just because your once market-leading solution is being replaced by a new application, doesn't mean all of its marketing needs to be discarded. Evaluate successful communications programs and campaigns and see if they can be repurposed to support the new application. Perhaps the product's customer onboarding program was well-received and resulted in lower call volume to product support. Consider updating the onboarding program's components to speed adoption and encourage usage of other products. Customer Interactions Product enhancements and operating procedures aren't the only things that customer feedback can inform. When conversations around a particular topic start to build, it could be the jumping off point for new content. Let's say that during customer training sessions for new financial advisor software, trainers are hearing more and more questions about how to use social channels to communicate with investors. If this topic continues to heat up, it could be the basis of a video series providing advisors best practices on using these channels. Conversely, insights from that same brand's content marketing program can help its customer training team. Knowing which white papers and articles are more successful may uncover new course ideas. Just as an increase in chatter around a topic is of interest to multiple teams, where this buzz is being heard is also important. Many social media managers are finding more requests for information or support coming in through the channels they're monitoring. Quantify and communicate this to other teams so that you can deploy the right balance of staffing and tools to channels where clients are increasingly turning for answers. Changes in customer profiles or their product requirements are another source of inspiration. If you're starting to see sales with customers that aren't fitting into your existing segmentation, it could be time to start developing a new acquisition program targeting this expanding group. If your sales team is working with a client on customizing your product, is this about one purchase or about entering a new market with a new customer target? Market Research It's likely that customer research is being conducted by multiple teams at your organization. Also, likely? That the findings are not always widely shared with other teams. If you truly want to optimize your customer experience, it's essential that each hand knows what the other is doing – and learning. Product research, for example, may show that customers are increasingly concerned with saving time, but your marketing emails are still zeroing in on budget constraints. This new intel could present an opportunity to increase email open rates with subject line testing. Furthermore, don't forget to collaborate around less traditional research channels such as the search terms audiences are using to find information about your industry. Your PPC program manager has this valuable information, but has it been shared with your product and UX team as they label and organize product features? If your customers are searching "olive oil" but the product design has gotten too formal and labeled your product "oil from the fruit of olive trees," look at how you can communicate things more clearly to current and future clients. Looking for new insights and data points across your organization – and sharing information outside of your department – will help you differentiate your messaging and positioning. Once your scavenger hunt is complete, though, you need to put that intel to work. Download our white paper Connecting Product Marketing & Demand Generation to learn how to fuel traffic, leads and sales with cross-department collaboration. Eva Rohrmann is the director of solutions and customer lifecycle marketing for PR Newswire, designing integrated programs for communicators across the PR, marketing, and IR spheres. | 
