AMA: Postscript Vice President Of Product Marketing, Sam Melnick on Go-To-Market Strategy

When building a B2B Enterprise product GTM strategy, four key pillars stand out: ICP, Messaging/Positioning, TAM, and Company Goals. These need to be in sync for success. Start by triangulating between ICP (who exactly are you targeting), Messaging/Positioning (why should they care), TAM (is there enough market to go after), and Company Goals (does this align with where leadership is taking the business). If your ICP is off, you’re chasing the wrong customers. If your messaging doesn’t resonate, you’re losing deals. And if your TAM is too small or doesn’t align with your company’s vision, growth will be stunted from the start. Get these pillars locked in and aligned—everything else builds from there.

To me it starts with right people to target (ICP) and the right message. I've talked about ICP in other answers so for this I want to talk about clarity and simplicity in messaging. If you're not maniacally committed to simplicity and clarity in your marketing messaging, you're going to confuse your customers and prospects. Think about it: You spend 30-60 hours a week (or more!) thinking about your company, its product, and mission—probably even in your off-hours if you're like me. 🙃 But your customers? They aren't dedicating anywhere near that much time. At Postscript, our customers tell us they spend 1-6 hours a week thinking about SMS. At Allocadia (my last company), people were only thinking about marketing budgets once a week or even monthly. Then in the Marketing Technology industry (where I've worked for awhile) there’s Scott Brinker's massive Marketing Technology Landscape with 14,106 companies in it this year… talk about overload. This is the same in all industries. So, when you're crafting your messaging, challenge yourself to make it more simple and clearer. Your customers don’t have the time or attention to wade through the nuances—you need to get to the point fast. That's one of the biggest risks in your GTM plan, overcomplicating messaging.

It depends. The right amount of detail to include in Go-To-Market (GTM) materials should be driven by what your sales and customer success teams can realistically digest and act on. First, consider their capabilities: Are they seasoned with your product and messaging, or is there a learning curve? How much is already on their plate, and what’s going on in the business (end of quarter, new hire ramp, etc.)? Timing is key—think about what part of the year it is and how critical this GTM activity is to hitting their number (and, in turn, your overall goals). Then, tailor the amount of detail accordingly. For example, if it's a mission-critical launch during a busy period, stick to high-level, actionable insights they can absorb quickly. If it's slower or more foundational, you can go deeper. Finally, think about how to share this information effectively. Different channels suit different needs: Live or scheduled training for more complex material, wiki or knowledge base for quick reference, and sales materials for at-a-glance guidance. The balance is all about helping them succeed, without overwhelming them.

This is all about the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) comes in. I'm going to start with the three main use cases for your ICP aka operationalizing: 1. For your GTM team the its meant to focus outbound marketing and sales efforts and to help you qualify in/out inbound leads. 2. Your ICP is the “Who” of companies that get the most value from your offering. Put it to work by defining outbound lists, ad targeting, creating lead scoring, building discovery and qualification questions, case studies to target, etc. 3. Don't use it to straight up DQ an inbound lead that doesn't check off all the boxes, rather use the ICP to qualify in/out that lead more aggressively. Okay, what should the ICP look like? I have a few sections I try to include: Must Haves: Target accounts must have 100% of these are the characteristics. There should be no edge cases this is the foundation of any segmentation you create. Nice to Haves: These are the bonus characteristics you should look for in GREAT fit prospects. Rarely will you find companies that check off everything on this list. So don't waste time looking for those - instead use it to narrow your segmentation and test different combinations of characteristics. Messaging should strongly align with these as well. Proceed with Caution: These are typically characteristics that don’t disqualify a prospect. They could be a positive for your deal... but they could also be a deal killer. These should be used in discovery to know when to really double down on a topic to qualify in/out prospects. Stay Away: These are the characteristics you should segment out of any paid or outbound target list. For inbound these should be used for discovery to see if a prospect has low potential to be a good fit - note don’t auto-disqualify here!

Yikes. This is a big one! If your GTM strategy isn’t working, product marketing can’t overhaul it alone, but they can identify when it’s failing. Look for red flags like declining win rates, rising churn, or consistently losing to competitors. If you spot these issues, it’s time to escalate to leadership—especially your CMO, Head of Sales, and CPO. They need to be involved in determining if the current GTM motion is broken. Once there’s alignment that things need to change, don’t rush into a full-scale pivot. Start by testing small adjustments to different aspects of your GTM strategy (messaging, targeting, channels) in short bursts. This lets you experiment and refine before committing to a major shift. Adjust, learn, iterate—until you find the right approach that resonates.