AMA: Carta Vice President Product Marketing, Kelly Kipkalov on Go-To-Market Strategy

I don’t see GTM strategy as varying by product type to be totally honest.  When I read your question, I had to think back on my journey first as a packaged goods marketer and now as a tech marketer in order to gut check whether I thought the components of the strategy would be different. Meaning... if I was launching a toothbrush vs an app (I've done both!) would the components of my GTM strategy change? I landed on 'no', I don't think so. The components of a GTM strategy are just universal mark ...Read More

I'll first share the components of my GTM strategies, those don't vary if it's the first product or the 100th. The components are the same: Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Problem statement Solution description Why the problem is worth solving, and why now Competitive landscape Messaging and Positioning Success Criteria Launch plan with marketing channels For the first product at a tech company, spending additional time on the product positioning is a very worthwhile investment. I always refer peop ...Read More

One thing I’ve done to ensure quality and consistency of messaging as it gets rolled out is to convert my PMM messaging framework into approved copy (with the help of copywriters if you have them).  It’s pretty easy to brief in the type of copy you need, things like (below are just a few examples). Product page headline Email subject line Email pre-header Social post Customer email notification When you roll out a messaging framework and leave it up to the channel teams to convert into copy, you ...Read More

I’ll come at this question a few ways.  First is to lay out the components of a solid GTM strategy so we’re on the same page about that.  My GTM strategies have the following: Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Problem statement Solution description Why the problem is worth solving, and why now Competitive landscape Messaging and Positioning Success Criteria Launch plan with marketing channels If you are in the business of category creation, then the part you need to spend the most time on is the comp ...Read More

KPIs are just a reflection of the outcomes you’re looking for.  If you are looking for incremental revenue, measure the full funnel and revenue per customer.  If you are trying to drive usage, determine the usage behavior you’re trying to impact (i.e. daily active use), and measure that.  Product or feature adoption is the one metric where you should really push on the outcome because adoption just for the sake of adoption isn’t really an outcome you can do much with.  It should be product adopt ...Read More

100% ground yourself in the data.  I would start with a full analysis of the funnel to diagnose where you went wrong before making any changes to GTM.  It’s possible that the GTM strategy was the right one, but execution against the strategy was flawed whether that’s with demand gen at the top of the funnel, or sales execution at the bottom.   If you do the quant analysis and the drop off is in top and mid funnel, then you need to build a working set of hypotheses to go and test with customers t ...Read More

Based on the language you used in your question, I think you already know the answer!  Balance is the right word because the leading and lagging indicators measure very different dynamics. The leading indicators - I think about engagement, clicks through rates, paid ad conversion and sales pipeline - are all measuring top and mid funnel dynamics.  Those are a really good reflection of the success of your launch messaging and your ability to gain eyeballs and attention and can give you an early i ...Read More