How do you decide on the right amount of detail to share in Go-To-Market materials?

This starts with aligning with the product on what this means for your product and company. 

This probably involves meeting live to discuss the product direction etc. More tactically, we have a GTM handover template that the PM completes. And then, your job as a Product Marketer is to be a filter between the product team and GTM team, and simplify the new features to focus on the value prop vs. going deep on how it works. 

What we've done before is package/synthesize all the updates in one succinct deck, record a Loom walking through all the updates as a detailed pre-watch, and then set up a live session where the GTM teams can ask questions. We capture the questions and deliver an FAQ after the live session as well as a reference guide. Depending on how complex the changes are you may need to schedule more than one session etc. 

One thing to note is that the Support team usually need more details on how the new features work. Either the PM can handle the handover to support or it needs to be a different session. 

It comes down again to segmentation, target and positioning. How critical is the new release/features to your target segment? Alternatively, it might seem like a small feature but can unlock a new market. Depending on the answer to these, you need to decide how big a deal you want to make of it.  

The right amount of information for your GTM teams is based on their sales process. If they need a datasheet, a demo, a first+ second call deck, and supporting landing pages to match their opportunity stages, then thats what you create. But never create content for content sake - that is the source of content bloat.

Changing your positioning is a big deal. So much of your Go to Market plan relies on a positioning strategy that is well thought out and embraced by your company. 

Whenever I need to manage a change to positioning, I start with understanding whether the real need is to change the positioning or whether the need is to tune the messaging strategy. A lot of folks confuse the two. Remember: your positioning defines how you want your target audience to think about your offering. Since shifting perception takes a long time, your positioning should be stable and long-term. Your messaging strategy, on the other hand, is the full narrative and set of statements that reinforce your positioning. It is the story that cements your positioning. Since messaging can shift over time to respond to competitive dynamics or new customer insights, it is quite often that you need to tune your story, but you don’t need to change your position.

But, if I do need to reposition, here's how I start: 

First, I work with my team and stakeholders with a basic positioning statement template: For [your target market] who [target market need], [your brand name] provides [main benefit that differentiates your offering from competition] because [reason why target audience should believe your differentiation claim.]. Repeat after me: I will not rush this process. Your go-to-market strategy is only as strong as the positioning foundation on which it stands. Shoutout to Thomas Dong for providing this.

With new positioning statement in hand, I then approach rolling it out as I would a normal Tier 1 product launch (see blueprint above). This means creating a wide array of content and documents so that all of your internal and external stakeholders are aligned.

Finally, I tend to think big and creatively when there is a new positioning to be supported. For example, when my team repositioned PayPal years ago, we used the moment as an opportunity to create new messaging, a new website, enable the global sales team, and develop a new brand logo -- which meant sunsetting the giant physical logos on our office buildings (we sold one on eBay for charity!).

In my mind, enablement of internal teams is one of the most important thing you can do when it comes to repositioning or changing GTM strategy, including making it simple and effective to deliver on.

We are currently in the process of this with one of our products and audiences right now. Changing how people talk about and position a product is incredibly hard, especially when they’ve been pitching a product in the same way for months or years. From my experience, not only does it take creation of written enablement materials (e.g., FAQ docs) but also live trainings, certifications on new scripts / talk tracks, listening to calls, and an *a lot of repetition*. On top of that, probably one of the most critical things you can do is enlist the help of various team leads / exec leadership to really hit home the fact that we need to be talking about a product / service in a fundamentally different way. It starts from the top where your leadership (Sales, CS) has clear expectations and standards around how you speak about a product and your level of knowledge about it.

It really depends on the channel and material. An email will vary from a webpage or a positioning document. I would encourage you to think about buyer stage (awareness, activation, adoption, advocacy) and tailor your message and CTA by corresponding outcome. 

For example, a feature release for paying customers should highlight the benefit statements, how it works, and how to get started. Ideal materials would include:

email/in-app post (awareness), tour for how it works, help doc for how to get started, and contact/cta for conversion.

I built the 5A Framework of GTM for this question. :-) I know where you're coming from. You're proud of your incredibly, detailed GTM, but you need to present this plan to your GTM team, and you're in a sea of product documents and spreadhseets and you're unsure of what points to bring up. Create 5 sections with each of these A's, and you'll be surprised how holistic the GTM story is, and the quality feedback you will get back to pivot the GTM if need it.

This is why

1. Audience: You must understand your target(s), and how it will be best to approach them. This can open eyes on who the product is built for and if you're going after an existing customer base or expading into a new customer base. This can start landing whether or not you're driving growth or retention in your accomplishments or goals
2. Angle: What is your message/angle. This will tell your audience(s) how you solve a problem. This can address whether or not your angles/messages go along with the existing mission and other product suite. Feedback here is critical to understand if the product is in line with where the company is going, and this is critical to get buy-in. This also leaves room for your copy and marketing team to get very creative. 
3. Accomplishments: Your goals and milestones. These are also critical to get buy-in. If you're gunning for growth you will potentially have commercial objectives to hit. Either way, these will be necessary to ensure you are positiong your launch in line with the success executives want to see. This can also focus the GTM team for the right areas, and drive the right channels to hit these Accomplishments. 
4. Activate: How will you execute your plan? This is where a screenshot of the GTM checklist with highlights of your top channels and partners come in. If you're not getting push back on any of the Audience, Angle, or Accomplishments, this Activation plan will not need to change much. But if any of the preceding A's are changed, be prepared to change how you will Activate, which is why it's more tactics than a big discussion. Also if your channel team understand all of the A's, they will have great ideas of their own to Activate. Empower your team with knowledge with the 5A Framework. 
5. Assess: Evaluate and adjust. This will come in a post-launch and your plan of tracking. Everyone needs to be onboard on this for when you will regroup and what success/good looks like. This will enable the whole team to learn from each other and adapt better for the next launch. 

If your teams don't all understand this at a high level, it would be very hard for them to have agency in their contribution to the GTM. So ensure everyone has this undestanding so they can brainstorm how the best to hit these goals in your launch. 

I think this depends on the material and your audience. 

If it is customer-facing, the rule of thumb is less is more. Get to the point. The details can go in the appendix. 

Suppose your execs aren't into detailed, same as the above. However, if your execs are like those at Amazon, then do the lengthy brief. 

Again audience matters. 

Seems like whoever asked this question may be a bit familiar with my world over at Yext! :)

In the 6+ years I’ve been lucky to work here, we’ve transformed from a single-product location listings company to a search platform. Saying this transformation has been easy would be a lie. It didn’t happen all at once, but rather through a series of steps — some big, some small. To our executives’ credit, the vision has been clear since the beginning. This means that our employees generally understand the context and the big mission, which has made incremental changes feel less scattershot and easier to navigate.

If you’re in a company that is also undergoing a transformation, the biggest piece of advice I will give you is that you don’t need to communicate the full vision to every external audience from the very beginning. The majority of your product marketing, your sales materials, and your GTM team’s time should focus on how you can solve your customers’ problems today.

But, there are big benefits to sharing the overall vision when the audience and the time is right. At Yext, we have a vision deck that lays out the trends we see in the market, upon which we’ve based the vision for our product roadmap. A small team is qualified to present it in an Innovation Day-type setting. For customers who are interested, it’s a fantastic supplement to a sales cycle, especially for innovation-minded buyers.