When I went through Pragmatic Marketing, they emphasized a market-driven approach to product development, teaching how to design products based on customer needs and addressing real market problems that are urgent and pervasive. Those principles still hold today; however, I would like to think about it more precisely through the Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) lens.
German-born American economist and professor at the Harvard Business School, Theodore Leavitt, coined the phrase, "People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!” This statement still rings true today, especially in technology and software. Your customers don’t just want a product; they want to solve a problem, complete a task, or achieve an outcome. Understanding those jobs is essential for building the right solutions.
However, how you sell those solutions should align with how your audience makes purchasing decisions.
Build Your Product For the Job
Your customers aren’t looking for a list of features - at least not yet. They’re looking for something that helps them accomplish their goals more effectively. When you build your product around the job they are trying to complete, you ensure you’re addressing real problems.
When companies need a payment solution, they aren’t just looking for “payment processing.” That’s too broad and doesn’t capture their fundamental objective. They want to monetize transactions, reduce churn, and streamline reconciliation—those jobs they need to get done.
As a payment provider, you could offer an API and let your customers figure out the rest. However, that approach assumes that payments are the end goal rather than a means to achieving something more significant. Instead, if you design your solution around the jobs your customers are trying to accomplish, your product becomes significantly more valuable and more challenging to replace.
Thus, if the “job” is to reduce churn because customers are leaving due to failed payments or high dispute rates, an innovative payments provider will build a product with intelligent retry logic, subscription billing optimization, and dispute management tools.
Package Your Offering For The Buyer
While your product should be built around the job to be done, your packaging strategy should reflect how your customers evaluate, buy, and ultimately consume solutions. This is where audience segmentation is so important. Once you master how your audience segments, you can package up and price your offerings designed to yield the most significant amount of value.
Let's use a specific job to illustrate—ensuring a project stays on task and under budget. This is a fundamental job across businesses. However, how the job is approached and what solutions are required varies dramatically depending on who is trying to get the job done, the project team size, the complexities involved, etc.
A small boutique agency will most likely need a lightweight, affordable solution that’s easy to implement without dedicated IT or project managers. However, an enterprise, like a Fortune 500 construction company, needs robust controls, advanced reporting, administrative rights, and deep integrations with financial and resource management systems.
Suppose you’re a SaaS company serving both segments in this example. In that case, your audience segmentation determines how you package, price, and sell your product to ensure you meet their needs while maximizing the value you can extract.
For small businesses, you’ll probably package a self-serve, low-touch version. However, for enterprises, your focus may shift to land-and-expand. Start with the core project management tool, then upsell advanced budgeting, automation, and enterprise-grade security.
So how do you think about a packaging strategy?
1. Start by understanding your customer and how they may cluster
Company Size & Maturity (Small business vs. enterprise)
Use Case (Basic task management vs. full project portfolio management)
Job-to-Be-Done (JTBD) (Different customers may need different outcomes from your product)
Buying Process (self-serve vs. high-touch sales-led)
Example: Slack offers a free, self-serve version for small teams but packages enterprise features (security, compliance, admin controls) for larger companies that require IT approval.
2. Identify Your Core Product vs. Add-Ons Not every customer needs everything. You should package features in a way that aligns with progressive value realization.
Core Product: The must-have functionality that helps customers accomplish their main job-to-be-done.
Add-On Modules: Specialized features for customers who need more advanced functionality (analytics, automation, integrations, compliance).
Example: HubSpot offers a free CRM (core product) but charges for marketing automation, sales enablement, and customer service tools as add-ons.
3. Align Packaging to Value Levers. Customers evaluate software based on how it’s presented and priced. Consider:
Good-Better-Best Model: Offer tiers (e.g., Starter, Pro, Enterprise) where each level increases in functionality and value.
Usage-Based or Per-User Pricing: If your product grows with usage, consider a scalable model (e.g., API calls, storage, transactions).
Feature Gating: Keep entry-level plans attractive while incentivizing upgrades with premium features.
Example: AWS offers basic compute services for free but monetizes heavily through advanced add-ons like AI, analytics, and storage scaling.
4. Map Packaging to Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy,
Your GTM approach should align with how customers buy:
SMB & Self-Serve: Low-cost, freemium models, in-app upgrades.
Mid-Market & Sales-Led: Feature-based pricing with onboarding support.
Enterprise: Custom pricing, white-glove service, deep integrations.
Example: Monday.com starts with self-serve teams but expands into enterprise accounts through dedicated sales and customer success teams.
5. Nail It Before You Launch It - Test, Iterate, Optimize. We live in a digital world where your feedback loop is almost instantaneous. Use that to your advantage and test your packaging strategy—it should never be static, it should evolve based on data. Things you can track to evaluate the efficacy of your packaging strategy:
Adoption rates per package
Conversion rates from free → paid → premium tiers
Churn rates based on feature access
Customer feedback on feature gaps
The Takeaway?
Same job, different buyers = different solutions, messaging, and go-to-market strategies. Nail audience segmentation early, and you can optimize product fit and your company's long-term growth.
Bringing It All Together
Success in B2B markets comes from mastering this duality: Build solutions around the jobs your audience needs to get done. Package and price them based on how your audience buys and their perception of value
Many companies get one of these right but struggle with the other. They either build a great product but fail to package it effectively, or they package solutions well but lack deep alignment with customer needs. The best companies excel at both. Ready to elevate your product marketing strategy? Contact Liberis Consulting today and make your innovation resonate where it matters most—with your customers!
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