Once you have a go to market strategy in place, how do you "convince" everyone on the marketing team, and get the ball rolling around the strategy you've built?

Here are a few considerations and actions you can take to build support across the team: Tie your launch goals to the greater Marketing team goals. It’s important to connect the dots on how your launch can help your marketing teammates accomplish their goals as well. For major initiatives, make sure your marketing leadership team is bought in and understand the potential impact. You have to PMM your product internally first :) Make folks feel like thought partners. I love holding brainstorm sess ...Read More

Get buy in EARLY, and share "excitement" around WHY the strategy was decided on and the potential value/opportunity it brings for the company and that specific marketing team! Once I have my messaging, positioning, and overall vision, I like doing a "kickoff call" with the marketing team to go through the "Why, What, and How"--I find that explaining how each person plays a critical role in the success of the strategy is key to getting buy in. When I deliver a market strategy to the marketing tea ...Read More

I know this isn't tactical, but I would make sure to include them in the product launch kick off meeting (which happens ever before you have your entire plan built) because it helps them understand WHY you are launching what you are launching and enables them to feel part of the journey - part of the team - that will make this launch a success. Because ultimately, it is a team that makes launches happen. It can't be done alone. I know this isn't a tactic (quite yet) but I mention this step becau ...Read More

This question is a great one. First, you don't build the GTM strategy in a vacuum. It's not an exercise of a product marketer where she goes into a dark room for ten days and comes out with a brilliant strategy. You must co-build this with your stakeholders—marketing, and sales. Otherwise, you will have a more challenging time convincing people.  In the past, I've set up checkpoints and collaboration time with key contributors and stakeholders. This approach allowed me to evolve and build my str ...Read More

I typically back up departmental asks with customer sentiment (qual) and data (quant). This makes it easier to rally team members around our why and cultivate influence towards a new GTM initiative. For example, recently we decided to issue a new survey that required cross-functional and leadership support. We created a charter for the initiative and documented why the program was necessary, then built a RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) to clearly outline responsibilities amo ...Read More

Usually lack of alignment is due to lack of information. To drive forward a GTM strategy a lot of pre-work needs to occur so that when you are ready to broadly share your plan to the marketing team it shouldn't be new information. For example, when you're creating your messaging matrix you should be consulting with your marketing stakeholders to get their feedback on how this launch intertwines with your overall company positioning. Presenting the plan also shouldn't be the first time a marketin ...Read More

I want to answer this one because I think it’s important to take note of the framing :) The marketing team shouldn’t have to be “convinced” after you’ve already created a plan. They should be aware of/excited about your launches well ahead of that. Sit down with the team and do quarterly or monthly campaign planning centered on expansive stories where your launch can be a key pillar holding up a lot of their own efforts. If the launch isn’t big enough to influence their plans, that’s okay! It mi ...Read More

You need to get buy-in to the GTM strategy before you build it that includes: involving the team in the strategy development process, as this can increase their ownership and commitment to the GTM plan providing clear goals and objectives to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals for the launch  Involving stakeholders early on can help to ensure that the GTM strategy aligns with the overall goals and objectives of the company and that it takes into account the needs and perspecti ...Read More

I've found in my career that when I create the strategy on my own, it's much harder to convince everyone else to buy into it. However, suppose I include those other marketing teams much earlier in the strategy, getting their input and setting goals/strategy/plans together. In that case, they're much more vested in the plan's success, and it takes little convincing.  In the absence of being able to do that, the next best option is to understand the goals of everyone else on the marketing team and ...Read More

Getting everyone on board after you're done is a lot harder if they haven't been involved from the start. Give the GTM plan an iterative process treatment. Start with a rough draft and shop it around. Get people to buy in on it. Ask for feedback and ask questions so they feel involved. Make suggested changes if it makes sense—and if it doesn't, work to reach a consensus.  Once you've gone through a couple of rounds with the primary stakeholders, the GTM plan should be fairly polished. Everyone w ...Read More