How do you size/tier GTMs? What are some of the best ways to dive into competitive intelligence?

Regarding GTM tiering...

We have three tiers for our GTMs.

• Tier 1 is generally reserved for the products that have the most commercial/revenue upside and/or the greatest customer impact or change quotient. Generally speaking, our business launches 3-5 Tier 1s per year. In any given quarter, we might be working on one Tier 1 launch, one Tier 1 new-product pilot or test, and a couple Tier 1 new-product market validations.

• Tiers 2 and 3 are medium- and small-size in terms of commercial upside and customer impact, respectively. There might be about 3-5 T2 launches per quarter.

Our team reserves the bulk of our GTM resourcing and bandwidth for T1s. These launches have the most custom or bespoke GTM treatments and often mobilize the vastest cross-functional marketing resources (i.e.: web, customer marketing, growth/demand gen, events, content & social, PR).

By contrast, Tier 2 GTMs are bundled together in a single quarterly moment and might share the spotlight together in a joint launch blog post, combined customer launch email, etc. They might be featured in an event but wouldn't be the "hero" product per se. They might not get their own pitch deck but would get a callout in an existing solutions-oriented sales deck, for example.

Tier 3 launches generally receive little marketing support save for an update to our Help Center and maybe a mention in an internal product FAQ used by our sales org. This is not only due to their lower level of individual impact; it's also because the best way to drive awareness and adoption of smaller point-solution features is, in my experience, via in-product notifs, alerts and nudges, rather than traditional marketing channels and tactics.

I gave some thinking on GTM tiering in a previous answer so to expand with a few examples using a 3-tier system:

Example:

• Tier 1: Flagship product launch (e.g., a new hardware device). This is usually a first to market launch or a highly requested product. This involves a full-blown campaign, launch events, and global promotion.

• Tier 2: Major feature enhancement (e.g., integrating with a third-party tool). This could involve targeted outreach to existing customers and select industries.

• Tier 3: Small UX updates or bug fixes, communicated through release notes or minor in-app notifications.

On competitive intelligence, here's a process I use to get started:

1) Define competitive landscape (direct competitors, indirect competitors, up and comers)

2) Identify the goals for which you want to leverage CI for (is it positioning, sales enablement, product development, messaging?)

3) Gather data from free and/or paid sources

4) Analyze data and pull together insights

5) Operationalize insights

6) Stay updated on competition

Example Competitive Intelligence Workflow:

1. Create a spreadsheet to track competitors, focusing on key areas like pricing, product features, and messaging.

2. Use Crayon or Klue to automate data collection from websites, ads, and social channels.

3. Conduct monthly win/loss analysis with the sales team and incorporate insights into your materials.

4. Build and maintain competitive battlecards, updating them as you collect new insights.

5. Share competitive insights during quarterly business reviews to ensure alignment across teams.

Generally, for tiering GTM Launches, I like to think about the extent to which the product experience & how we market the product changes. Here's the tiering system I recently implemented at you.com that has been battle tested in 50+ launches:

• Tier 1: Major Product or GTM Shift

  • Description: Product experience and/or how we market the product fundamentally changes

  • Frequency: 2-4/year

  • Campaign Strategy: Dedicated Campaign

  • Example Distribution Channels: Heavy PR push, eEvents

  • Pre-launch testing: Beta program with enterprise customers
    

• Tier 2: New Feature or Enhancement

  • Description: Meaningful product addition or improvement

  • Frequency: 10-12/year

  • Campaign Strategy: Align to existing campaign / Customer marketing push

  • Example Distribution Channels: Blog post, sales training

  • Pre-launch testing: UXR with power users

• Tier 3: Iterative Evolution

  • Description: Subtle evolution of product experience

  • Frequency: 20-30/year

  • Campaign Strategy: Align to existing campaign / Customer marketing push

  • Example Distribution Channels: Email, social

  • Pre-launch testing: Internal bug bash

• Tier 4: Usability & Bug Fixes

  • Description: Minor usability tweaks and bug fixes

  • Frequency: Weekly

  • Campaign Strategy: No campaign

  • Example Distribution Channels: Help Center update

  • Pre-launch testing: Internal bug bash
    

For competitive intelligence, the best approach is to step into the shoes of their customers—dig into how the product is being marketed (FB ad library is a great resource for this!), sign up & use the product, and talk to their customers.