Michele Nieberding 🚀

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!

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.

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)

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

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!

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.

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!

I am actually dealing with this right now! And there is quite a bit you can do to continue building analyst relations despite not fitting into a current Wave or MQ. * Take advantage of (free) analyst briefings: * Proactively reach out to Forrester and Gartner to set up briefings to let the analysts know what you product does, what major challenges you are solving, why you dont fit into a category, and what you might suggest to be considered as a new category. While they may not have a dedicated report, they might include your solution in relevant research. * Conduct Custom Research Reports: * Consider commissioning custom research reports from reputable market research firms. This could be analyst based and/or an organization you value the audience of (or host a conference you find value in attending) * Share the results and insights with your audience to establish authority * Seek Out and Submit Industry Awards and Certifications: * Obtain relevant industry certifications to validate the quality and compliance of your product. * Showcase these certifications prominently on your website and marketing materials. * Third Party Reviews * I would also recommend leaning into customer reviews on platforms like G2 and TrustRadius. Because these are actual customer reviews, they can be INCREDIBLY valuable for various uses including website quotes and testimonial videos. Not to mention, G2 also provides amazing marketing materials if/when you rank in your category, which tend to be more expansive than the Waves and MQs. * Partnerships * Partners can be your best advocates, and are invaluable when used appropriately. They can be an awesome extension to your sales team as they know their customers and want to help them find solutions to challenges other solutions are unable to solve.

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.