AMA: Gong Director, Product Marketing, Sherry Wu on Go-To-Market Strategy

Homework exercises will vary, so there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer here. As an interviewer I usually look for a few things: * Tie the GTM plan back to the business priorities. Tell me why the launch matters and what business impact it is expected to have. Tell me how you would measure the impact. * Be clear on your target audience. Tell me how you selected that audience -- tell me your thought process. * Account for the market / competitive landscape in your positioning. Do some light research on the other players in the market, and be able to speak to your decisions on why you've chosen to position the product in a certain way. * Ability to estimate resources and timelines required. PMMs need to be able to pull together resources across many teams. Sequencing and planning are very important. Tell me how you'd approach sequencing of activities and show me a timeline. The company you're interviewing with should be able to provide specific questions they're looking to answer. Make sure you answer those ;) And if you have questions, do NOT hesitate to reach out to the hiring manager! Homework assignments are an evaluation of core PMM skills, including your ability to develop clarity in the face of ambiguity. Think of the presentation as a pitch deck. I usually find it helpful to block out my key points in slides. I try to figure out -- what is the story I want to tell about this launch, what is the information I need? What do I want the audience to walk away with? And then I'll work in the actual content as I do my research. This helps me make sure I'm covering all my bases and answering the questions that the interviewer wants to have answered.

Before launching a product, you have to first start with a solid market strategy. * Market & customer research. What's your market and how big is it? Who currently plays in this market? With what, and how much does it cost? * Product strategy (led by product & finance). Should we build this product ourselves or look to buy or partner? What are the target margins? * Customer research. Who are the target segments? What is their willingness to pay? Once you've defined your product opportunity and target market, you can then develop your GTM strategy. I still think about the classic 4 Ps of the marketing mix -- simple and classic. * Product - what is it? How does it stack up to the market? Does it include hardware, software, services? All of the above? * Price - are you trying to win market share, or do you care about margins? Price is a core part of how you communicate value about your product. Do you want to * Place - how are you distributing this? Can people buy directly from you online, do they have to talk to a salesperson? What about partners? * Promotion - what are the campaigns that you're going to run to promote this? This depends on your customer -- where do they like to find out about new products? In-person events? Social media? Influencers? There are a lot of tactics out there to achieve your goals. Before you figure out which tactic to use, it's most helpful to define your goals -- what do you want to achieve? Business goals determine the tactics.

GTM strategy, whether you're designing it for the first time or redesigning it for the 8th time, starts with your customers and your market. First, talk to your customers. Win/loss interviews are a treasure trove of insight. Talk to your best customers -- the ones who bought your product quickly, without asking for discounting, and the ones who keep buying. Talk to the ones who passed on your product. Why did they pass? Was the product not meeting expectations? Priced too high? Were they not finding value out of the product? What was their experience like working with your company's sales team? Second, talk to your sales team (if you have one). Where are they finding friction in their sales process? What do THEY think are the main challenges in getting customers to buy? Third, do your market research. Has anything happened in your market that might have shifted customer expectations for how your product's pricing, functionality, or value? Did a competitor introduce something that is completely eating away your market share? A good solution starts with a good diagnosis. The GTM strategy -- your pitch, your GTM plans, recommendations on product adjustments, promotion channels, etc. -- all depend on that diagnosis.

There are approximately 1,001 things that can go wrong with any launch. It's impossible to prepare for all of those! You've got 2 categories of risks - internal and external. * Internal risks - these are execution risks in terms of product readiness, marketing readiness, etc. To mitigate that, you can build in hurdle criteria leading up to launches. Proactive monitoring is the best mitigation strategy here. Examples: * Product readiness. What are early indicators that the product might not be ready? Are there results from beta programs that you can monitor (e.g. customer don't seem to be adopting the features at the rate that you expect, which could indicate lack of value?). * Sales readiness. Are sales ready and willing to sell the product? What needs to be in place for that to happen? Do they need to be certified on the pitch? Do they need to have certain incentive structures in place? If those aren't in place, then perhaps that becomes your hurdle criteria for readiness to launch. * External risks - market, competitive, and sometimes regulatory forces threaten your launch. It's (nearly) impossible to prepare for those, so you just have to be willing to tackle them as they come. The one exception is if you've got a great competitive intel program -- you can track the competition and be prepared with a play in anticipation of whatever move they make. tl;dr -- it's impossible to account for ALL the risks. I would invest instead in creating metrics that help you monitor risks, so that when something starts going off, you know how to react.