AMA: Iterable Head of Solutions Marketing, Michele Nieberding on Go-To-Market Strategy

Every launch is different, but here is a good starting point! 1. Identify key stakeholders - I like to do a kickoff before a big launch wiht a POC from key teams including legal, pricing, CS, etc. as needed 2. Align the team around the product - talk about WHAT the product is, WHY it matters, and the opportunity this brings for the company 3. Develop a story behind the product launch and define your messaging 4. Prepare a launch plan (and find a streamlined way to track progress) 5. Define your success metrics 6. Identify marketing channels for launch - work with demand gen 7. Complete beta (if applicable), and use customer feedback to tweak story and approach as needed 8. Select your product launch date (clearly communicate tech ready vs. market ready if there is a difference) 9. ENABLE! Communicate the product launch with all the employees--the WHY this is happening, and what their role in the success of the launch will be 10. Plan EXTERNAL communications 11. Create an ongoing adoption strategy and check in points Most importantly (IMO), celebrate the victories, even the little ones. Did you get some awesome logos on your launch webinar?? Did you move prospects into a later stage opp? I find that excitement goes a long way!

Get buy in EARLY, and share "excitement" around WHY the strategy was decided on and the potential value/opportunity it brings for the company and that specific marketing team! Once I have my messaging, positioning, and overall vision, I like doing a "kickoff call" with the marketing team to go through the "Why, What, and How"--I find that explaining how each person plays a critical role in the success of the strategy is key to getting buy in. When I deliver a market strategy to the marketing team, I think about it through the lens of "What's In It For Me" (WIIFM)--speak their language and personalize the market strategy to what they care about and how it will improve their area of marketing. For example, if you are working with the Demand Gen team, how is this new market strategy going to improve their MQLs? For the content team, what might be some topics they can think about writing for related to this new strategy? And to continue driving success of the market strategy, I follow these steps: 1. Listen--reguarly check in with your marketing team. What do they feel like is working/what working? Set up regular check ins! I really enjoy using Slido as a way to collect feedback live during a meeting and even after. The questions in Slido can be upvoted and asked anonymously, so it's a great way to do effective and productive Q&A. 2. Stay organized--I use Asana to keep track of what initiatives are being done to support the market strategy and results. If you are looking to do a GTM plan, you can get more tactical for roles and responsibilties. 3. Course correct as needed--determine goals and KPIs up front (that are realistic and achievable), and make adjustments as needed. Do you need to add campaigns, or a webinar? Does messaging need to be tweaked? Do you need to find a customer story? For me, win rates is a massive focus for Product Marketing, so I keep a Salesforce dashboard that looks at win rates by sales teams, regions, and verticals. 4. Share wins--what new logos have been obtained as a result of the market strategy? What are website visitors looking like? How is the industry responding? I like doing QBRs focused on what market strategy, as well as sharing weekly/monthly wins in our Marketing All Hands Meeting related to that market strategy. I also like to share Gong calls to marketing and sales team for where that market strategy is working well. Using a consistent and standiardized process and templates can really help teams stay streamlined, focused, and empowered to all move to the beat of the same drum!

In the case the existing GTM strategy is not working, how can you go about redesigning the new GTM strategy? What should be the approach? This is a big question where it begs more questions than answers. And I think that's the key element is doing a deep dive and asking the right questions. Growth Mindset: Yes, you may not be happy with the way your GTM is doing but what's exciting is that you now have real life actual evidence of what worked or not. That's a critical piece of information that you can't really simulate or test for. And by asking this question you're already exhibiting a key concept of growth mindset, it's not working so what can we change. Collaboration: Get other teams involved, now that it's out in the wild, ask your CSMs for feedback, your account executives on what's not working, your product teams on adoption and drop off. Use all this internal knowledge and data to help advise you on step #2. Critical Thinking: What is wrong with the GTM strategy? Is it the product-market fit, or is it the messaging, positioning or pricing, is it oversaturation or is it the execution? Lay out your GTM strategy and analyze what went well and not. This allows you to determine if corrective measures are a simple tweak or a complete overhaul. GTM strategies requires a lot of time and resources from multiple teams to see the light of day. That I'm sure it's not all wrong. Keep what's working and tweak what's not. So before blowing anything up, it's critical to make an assessment of what exactly is not working with your current GTM strategy. And then based on what you have then ascertain what you can change that's low effort but high impact. Data / Measure of Success: Another thing to think about is what measurements did you start off to gauge success? Is it failing because the targets were too high, or were you aiming for the wrong criteria? Did the expectations change midway through the launch? Especially when launching a new product or initiative where there are no baselines to start off, sometimes real life is the best check of what's working or not. So this is a great point to bring it back to "What determines success" and then "Do we have what we need to reach this goal" and then go back to your GTM plan and see if it still's the right path towards your newly re-established metrics. A good measure of success is also time-bound. Did you give your GTM strategy enough time to be tested to breathe and determine if it's not working. Seemingly counterintuitive is also a balance of failing fast. Know what's not working quickly by measuring often and don't be too attached to your strategy. Which looks to be exactly what you're doing! So already whoever asked this question is in the right path and mindset.

I hate to say it, but it depends on the launch--for example, is this a paid new feature or included? For a paid product/feature: * Opportunities created * Customer TAM (of the customers we have identified as a good fit for this, how many have an open opportunity?) * Revenue generated For a non-paid product/feature: * Demand gen metrics like webinar attendees, clicks on website, etc. are helpful since it is not related to revenue Overlap for all products/features: * Adoption (how many customers have tried this?) * Retention --with acqusition costs being so high, this is a critical piece! CS is a great source of insight into why retention is increasing or decreasing As for cadence - after you set your accomplishments (goals), I recommend checking a weekly basis and sharing the numbers in GTM meetings. Once there is a set of trends (I like to look at 90 days), you can present/address them with product --assuming they arent already aware. Sometimes there are items that need to be addressed within the first month or so of launch. 

When we first started to verticalize our solution, we looked at: * TAM (total addressable market) and SAM (sellable addressable market--what is realistic that YOUR company can sell in to?) * CARR * Win Rate * Average Deal Size (ADS) * Sales Cycle (# of days) * Number of Curent Customers This gave us a good idea for where we were already winning and where we had the biggest opportunity. We have also been monitoring industries with high "digital maturity" based on reports from McKinsey and other analysts which has been helpful in planning for the next 3 years. We have since refined our strategy and doubled down on key verticals for the next year by looking at: * Pipeline (where do we have the most opportunity coming from?) * Product Gap Analysis - what are key product gaps that are leading to lost deals by vertical? And what is the low hanging fruit and level of effort to close some of those gaps * In addition to Total ARR and ADS This has led us to a 2023 plan to win in verticals based on these 3 things: * SUCCESS: lean into what is already working (i.e. high ADS and win rates) and maintain success * ALIGNMENT: with product vision and brand positioning (multi-channel, depth and scale of data, orchestrated journeys, content and automation needs) * VELOCITY: lower win rates but higher (potential) speed to “success” by focusing on higher ADS verticals due to multiple channels, higher data fees, and need for premium features + higher opportunity (TAM)

We use a tiering system from 1-4, 1 being highest priority and 4 being the lowers. Criteria we look at to decide the tier of a release includes questions such as: * Is this a major differentiation or revenue driver? * Is this a product enhancement or a net new feature? * Will it be a paid or free product/feature? (does this open up the company to a new revenue stream? And if so, what is the revenue potential? Is it user based or account based?) * How many people with this feature affect within a given time period? * Does this impact current customers? If so, how many? * How important is it for those who require it? * How many customers (if any) have requested this? * What is the value vs. risk? (are there implications on other parts of the tool?) * What is the level of effort? For this, we weight the scores to calculate an overall "Release Score" with defined score ranges for each tier. We then support accordingly (for example, we wont do a press release for Tier 3-4 and it depends for a Tier 2 release). I can share a scorecard example! In past lives, my companies have used the RICE Method: * R: Reachability - how many people will be able to use the feature? * I: Impact - how much impact will the feature have? * C: Confidence - how confident are we about the influence? * E: Effort - how much effort will it take to implement the feature?

Having worked as a Product Marketer in 5 different tech companies (varying in sizes), I find that this is different everywhere I go! It has ranged from being more reactive (PM saying they have features ready for launch) to proactive (inserting myself). I have found that it can be a transition to moving to proactive, which can be tricky, especially when explaining why a "launch" might need to have a later date to formally announce it than the date it is tech ready. Clearly communicating the impact the timing will have on the success of the launch is critical--you want to be able to take the blood, sweat, and tears that the product team has put into making the new feature/product/capability a reality and really make an impact in the market with it! When you approach it from the aspect of "I want to make sure your product gets the attention it deserves," I have found it much easier to lead the charge then simply react to when something is tech ready. Clearly definig the timing of seasonal releases has helped as well, and keeps product managers accountable in reaching those release deadlines! And customers know when to expect to hear about new things. To align stakeholders and ensure the process is consistent (which can be particularly tricky in regards to timing), constant communication is key. 1. STARTING WITH THE WHY: Why are we doing this, and what is the current plan? 2. COLLECTING FEEDBACK: What are quesitons that should be addressed up front (this can avoid conflict and confusion later in the launch) 3. IMPACT: How will this impact each team, and how can you prepare each team to be successful once the product is launched

Some lesser known ways: * A new metric my team is looking into is TAM (total addressable market) vs. SAM (sellable addressable market) and the delta between the two. The smaller the delta, the better the product fit. * If customer acquisition cost is lower than the lifetime value of your customer * User adoption (make sure you define the right base audience first) x value (could be Customers who buy that feature) = feature success Some more common ways of analyzing market fit: * consistent usage (i.e. frequency of feature usage per day) * retention rate * NPS/CSAT When we launched a new AI suite, we had noticed that there was very low adoption at first. We discovered that there was friction in understanding HOW to use it, so we created "templates" in the product that customers could customize. So revenue and retention increased.

Looking at your current customer base and the characteristics of top customers (I do this based on ARR) is a great place to start! You can focus on relevant characteristics such as: 1. Industry/vertical 2. Employee headcount — companywide and within key departments 3. Annual revenue 4. Tech stack 5. Geography 6. Size of their customer base 7. Technologyical/digital maturity 8. Public vs. private company (if they are looking to IPO, we have found great success in getting our foot in the door with NEW logos!) If you want to dig into personas WITHIN those ICPs, that can be helpful as well, but it depends on what your GTM strategy is, of course this can change. For example, if you have "Verticals" as a GTM strategy, your ICP may look very different than an "ABM" approach. To operationalize them, I have worked with our Demand Gen and Events+Field Marketing team to specifcally define HOW to target those ICPs. For example, if we want to drive MQLs via a LinkedIn paid campaign, we may want to look for people with x titles in y industry at a company that has over z number of employees. I also like to share this with SDRs as they as prospecting. It is also important to define what companies/people are NOT a good fit. I have built a list of "disqualifiers" for sales and marketing so that we dont spend marketing budget on poor leads and sales doesnt waste time pitching to bad fit companies.

To simplify it at a high level, I would say its having a clear understand of the 3 C's: Customers, Company, and Competition. To dissect that a bit: 1. Identify your target market and key buyer personas -this includes understanding the demand 2. Understand their problems and how your product specifically solves them 3. Develop your messaging 4. Understand your customer's journey (what does the buying process look like) 5. Develop pricing strategy 6. Create marketing plan (with clearly defined success metrics) 7. Generate content 8. Enable teams (not just sales!) To make this even stronger and repeatable, I use an Asana template with clearly defined steps and assigned POCs. I have clear buckets related to each step that I use for every GTM plan so that other teams know what to expect and can also track progress and links to deliverables!

We used a RAPID framework and set up 1-2 hour sessions to review with the executive leadership team. The RAPID framework stands for: Recommended Agree Perform Input Decide You outline key exec stakeholders in each, and allow them to Approve/Reject and provide "input" while outlining all the reasonings for your (specific) recommendation. I can walk through an example LIVE of how we did this for GTM strategy in 2023!

It is important when thinking globally that you understand the nuances of each region/country. This typically impacts key teams including: Pricing (currency, rates, overall pricing), Product (localization, languages, support, data centers), Security, Legal (contracts and terms may be different) You also need to consider the maturity of customers in those areas. I like to create a crawl, walk, run approach and enable sales in each region on how to speak to that process so that the product can always be seen as "applicable and approachable"

The biggest risk I typically see in GTM strategies is that it doesnt work. Somewhere, something was missed, or the messaging, product, etc. doesnt resonate with prospects and customers. ' I have found that your webiste is a great place to experiment to ensure this doesnt happen. It has historical data to anaylze various aspects of your GTM strategy including verticals, personas, messaging, sales motions, customer marketing, etc. Training the org is another big risk. If there is a new revenue-driving feature that CS/CSMs/SEs dont know how to technically talk about or sell, that new feature will fall flat.