Recently I had the privilege to work on some Go-To-Marketing strategies for a few of our partners. All innovative, brand new products and offerings with a clear value to the market. It is there that I clearly noticed something that I was confronted with for many years now during my job as a digital strategist, product blindness.
All new products are the result of a clear market need, whether this could be clearly identified as a gap in the market or a brand-new latent opportunity. Meaning that the creative process of developing an offering is always based on a need, but we tend to forget this along the way and start falling so much in love with the product itself that we almost forget that it was once developed to create real value.
Product blindness can probably be considered as one of the biggest threats when developing a GTM strategy. The truth is, nobody really cares about your product. What they are interested in is what problem it can solve or new opportunity it can bring. Never sell your product, focus on the added value it can bring when defining your GTM approach. Profit is always the downstream outcome of creating value.
All great GTM strategy starts with value driven storytelling. Your entire approach and campaign should read as a very recognizable bedtime story, where the hero that saves the world is your fantastic product at the end. Careful, not the engine it runs on, just the problem it will solve. The technical details can be discussed in a later phase when you got the prospect’s attention, and you start the pre-sales track.
If you want to master the art of product selling, spend some time watching the shopping channel and you will quickly understand what I’m talking about. Practicing the art of storytelling with “real-life” cases has the power to convince almost anyone of us that they absolutely need to buy that great plastic table and pay 3 times the value for it.
So next time you need to develop a GTM strategy ask yourself the following questions:
- What am I going to solve with my product?
- Who is going to buy my product?
- Who is going to use my product?
- How can I easily tell my story?
- What are the channels my target group are in?
- What language and tone of voice should I use?
- What kind of media should I use to bring my message?
Start developing a plan. Take some distance, go over it again. Test it against some potential target customers. Do some research. Do they get it? Do they see the value? Refine your message and than slowly start testing on smaller campaigns. GTM is like an equalizer, it will take some time before you get that beautiful sound and that is only related to your ability to test, adjust, and have some patience.
And remember ...
“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” ― Albert Einstein
