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When it comes to go-to-market strategy, good is rarely ever good enough (I’m an overachiever 🤓).

This was the thesis of the session Rebecca Shaddix and I presented on Thursday at Hubspot’s Inbound conference.

We took four core components of GTM — market insights, messaging & positioning, enablement, and launch — and walked through what a good, better, and best version of each would look like.

To be honest, we almost didn’t make it on stage 😅 But 4 hours of sleep, a food poisoning scare and one lost button couldn’t hold us back.

In today’s edition, I’m going to share my top 7 takeaways from the talk. Want the full thing? Read to the bottom to grab a copy of the slides.

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Good vs Better vs Best-in-Class GTM Strategy

Our talk was 45-minutes long — bless all of you who sat in the audience that long listening to us. We don’t quiiiite have time for that today, so I’m going to share my favorite bits instead (think of it like a tasting menu).

Here’s 7 things you need to know about how to level up your go-to-market 👇🏻

Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.

When you’re the person who brings data to the table, you’ll have a greater chance of shaping the strategy. AND you’ll build a better strategy. That’s a “win win” for you and the business.

You’re never too old to change your go-to-market.

“We’ve been around forever, it’s too late for us to change strategy now.” Ever heard that before? I bet the team at Stanley had too.

It was already a 100-year-old company when they were approached with one market insight that changed the entire trajectory of the company. Historically they had marketed their products to male buyers and positioned the mugs as occasional outdoor items. The new play? Sell the Stanley mug as an essential everyday item to a female buyer. Same product, new colors, new revenue.

Stories are more powerful than products.

In the words of Seth Godin, “marketing is no longer about the stuff you make but about the stories you tell”.

You may have a better product than your competitor, but if you can’t position that value in a compelling way, you don’t stand a chance of winning.

Positioning ≠ Messaging

These two words are often referenced together, but in fact, are not synonymous. H/T to my friend Zach Messler for the best explanation I’ve come across to date:

Positioning is how you want to be seen. Messaging is what you say. Copy is how you say it.

Identify the people you’re willing to alienate.

If you’re marketing to everyone, you’ll resonate with no one. To get REALLY clear on your ICP, you need to be able to answer both 1) who are we targeting, and 2) who are we willing to alienate in order to resonate with our target.

Rebecca shared an amazing (and polarizing) example of this on slide 18.

Even the best strategy can crumble with bad enablement.

How do you prevent bad enablement? Here’s our take:

Good → Internal teams understand what’s launching and why it’s relevant to their role. 

Better → Customer-facing stakeholders feel like part of the launch.

Best → Every team is excited to support the launch and knows how to do it in their role.

Build increased momentum with rolling thunder launches.

A storm isn’t over with one boom of thunder, and your launch shouldn’t be either. Rolling thunder launches build excitement, capitalize on demand, and keep the chatter going post-launch.

Just like a thunderstorm, your launch should begin with a low rumble that slowly builds over time (each thunder getting louder as it approaches). It’s loudest on launch day, and then dissipates as slowly as it came in (not abruptly).

My fave example of a rolling thunder launch? Canva’s Magic Studio.

CAMPER ESSENTIALS

📚 Reading List: I promised slides, and I never break promises. Here’s the entire 39-page slide deck from our talk “Good, Better, Best-in-Class GTM Strategy”.

🗓️ Events: Are you the captain of your product launches? Spoiler alert: you need to be. Mark your calendars for a LIVE episode of The Marchitect on September 26 where I’ll be talking all things product launches with Rowan Noronha, Julien Sauvage and Beth Caplow.

🗓️ Events: Come hang out with me in Vancouver (MY CITY!!). My friends at Klue are hosting Compete Week virtually and IRL this year, and it’s literally down the street from where I live. October 28/29 - I’ll be there, will you?

Until next week,