AMA: Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions, Daniel Kuperman on Go-To-Market Strategy

There are plenty of blogs and reports out there that can give you a full list of assets by funnel stage. Typically, you want to think about it in terms of helping the customer get educated about your product, gain more insights on the problems you help them solve, and then show them examples and 'proof' that you are the best choice for their needs. I'd like to give you a twist to this typical approach: what assets can you provide that will enable the customer to make the best choice for their needs? Sure, you will still have blogs and whitepapers as TOFU assets, then case studies and videos as MOFU, followed by product demos and ROI Calculators in BOFU but make sure that you are not just pushing your product but rather giving the customer additional information for them to better understand if you are a good fit. And one more thing: you have to do this for every major buyer persona. The assets that work for an Executive will not be the same for an Admin or practitioner.

Communicate -> Plan -> Communicate -> Execute -> Communicate... No kidding, the 'communicate' step is the most important of them all! I have seen too many GTM plans flail and struggle to be executed due to poor communication and not involving the right stakeholders early enough. So let's take it from the beginning: 1. Setup goals: what is the desired outcome? i.e., generate leads? enter a new market? drive signups to a new product? increase the number of upgrades? reduce churn? Get it documented and explained (don't assume everyone understands your metric). 2. Align stakeholders: identify all the stakeholders required to successfully execute the plan and who will contribute to the expected outcome. 3. Segmentation and targeting: identify the market segment to go after, with specific firmographic, demographic, and other attributes required to narrow down the target for your GTM, including buyer personas and buying groups. 4. Create messaging & positioning doc: the foundations of how you'll position the product, feature, or campaign that is part of this go-to-market plan. 5. Identify routes to market: will this be a direct sales play? will require alignment with channel partners? or primarily web or PLG motions? 6. Pricing & Packaging: how will the offering be priced and whether it impacts how the product is packaged today, what other pricing considerations (discounts, bundles, trials, etc.) need to be part of the offering. 7. Campaigns & Comms: marketing campaigns and communications plans, including analysts, press, etc. 8. Launch: execution of the activities identified in the GTM plan, and monitoring results to course-correct if needed. Note: depending on how you want to track results, some instrumentation may be required prior to launch (e.g. creating dashboards or reports) and may require help from other teams. This should be part of our stakeholder alignment step earlier on. 9. Debrief: review and discuss what went right and what needs to be improved next time, as well as next steps in the GTM plan.

When you see increasing traction (e.g. signups, usage, activations) convert into actual revenue (MRR, ARR, Bookings) in a consistent manner, every quarter.

There are three elements that I typically use in such conversations: * customer proof; * competitor analysis; * analyst insights; * revenue potential. If you bring evidence of what customers want, how competitive the feature is, and additional market insights (e.g. analysts) as unbiased sources, there's a good chance you can make your case for why certain features should be prioritized. Last, but not least important, is revenue potential. If you are able to identify a number of sales opportunities that have not been able to close because of a feature and the revenue impact it had, that's also a good argument. The caveat to this last item is that it can be very difficult to get the data and also difficult to validate.

First, you've got to find out who will be impacted by it. Sales, support, operations, marketing... all of these teams need to come together for a successful GTM execution. There are so many moving parts, that having clearly articulated goals for the GTM and getting alignment across teams is what will define success.

Some of the core docs I've used include: * Executive summary: clearly and concisely articulates the why, what, how of your GTM plan. It is the doc you share with other execs at the company and it should only take them 2 minutes to fully comprehend it. * Assumptions and Risks: you can't know everything and don't want to fall into the paralysis by analysis trap... some times you don't have enough data to tell you precisely what you need, but you do have enough to give you a good direction. Document assumptions and identify what are the inherent risks, especially as you align with other teams for execution. Get it all out there so people understand. * FAQ: a simple list of questions that you will be asked by those trying to understand the GTM and specific execution aspects. Will pricing change? What is the plan for Europe? Will the marketing campaign be multi-lingual? You get the idea. This helps get other teams aligned as well because some questions will be directed to specific stakeholders or workstream owners. * Timeline or Launch plan: what are the main phases and timing for execution, as well as specific dependencies? This can be in a calendar format, Gantt chart, etc. * Plan overview: outlines the major components of the plan, key milestones, and links to individual components. For example, you may have a high level overview of the marketing plan which then links to the detailed doc that describes each campaign, budget, etc. * Roles and Responsibilities: typically part of the 'executive summary' doc but could also be it's own document depending on the size of the launch. Clearly indicates who owns what part of the plan. * Decision Log: for bigger launches it is especially useful to keep track of major decisions made along the way. Documenting the issue at hand, what was decided, who was part of the decision-making progress will help later on when someone asks "why did we decide to ...". It is also a great doc to review post-launch for a post-mortem analysis and lessons learned.

For category creation, your GTM plan - in my experience - needs to be a multi-year affair. You may need to start with market education, analysts influence, etc even before you launch a product. Also, after launching the product you will need to keep ongoing market education to help get the new category in the minds of your customers. Some key elements to help your GTM in this case are: * Customer proof: the more customer testimonials, case studies, quotes, and videos you can create and disseminate, the best. Have your customers talk about the category so that others will hear them saying it, not you. * Analysts: In the B2B Tech world, you want to have Gartner, Forrester, IDC and other top analyst firms on your side because they can help tremendously in establishing the new category. It takes time and multiple briefings and meetings but is well worth it. * Competitors: identify the other players in the market... after all, you don't want to be the only vendor talking about the new category. The more the other vendors mention the category, the more validity it has. * Channel partners: leverage implementation or consulting partners, resellers, and other channel companies based on your industry to help augment your own brand and messaging efforts. * Thought leadership: prepare to create a lot of content to educate the market, and have a good distribution strategy to get your POV published and read. * Trade shows: identify specific trade shows and events your target customer attends and submit speaking sessions and promote the category in your messaging at the booth. * Advertising: be ready to spend in both online and off-line advertising to promote the category via thought leadership and look for opportunities where you can place stories and customer testimonials. * Community: a big element of new category creation is understanding who will be the decision-maker for that category, what job titles the person has, what they care about, and how to get that group together so they can discuss their needs and challenges. At one startup we started with a small happy hour event that grew into multi-city user groups. I've seen first-hand how user groups and community-driven gatherings can light a fire under the people that care the most about the category. The advice I give about category creation is to first think hard on whether you truly need a new category. It takes a lot of time, effort, and budget to launch a new category and if you need to show results soon, you might be better off latching to an existing category and dominating it.

It all depends on the impact, in terms of revenue, that the feature will have overall. For smaller features that are important but will not result in a big increase in sales, you don't need a full scale GTM plan with press releases, analyst briefings, etc. A product-level GTM will typically be more involved, require additional teams to support, and more dedicated time to plan and execute.