When coming up with positioning and messaging as part of GTM plan, which key stakeholders/teams (in addition to product and sales) should weigh in?

Getting feedback from stakeholders is valuable to capture insights and feedback from customer-facing teams and to foster healthy internal partnerships. That said, positioning and messaging by consensus is one of the biggest mistakes a product marketer can make. To avoid this, set clear expectations by defining roles and responsibilities upfront. I suggest using a simple DACI framework and asking everyone to agree with their respective roles when you kick off the exercise. DACI stands for Driver, ...Read More

Looks like this question got the most upvotes so let me start with it and try and give as much context as I can. At Google we had the following heuristic for marketing which was:  1.) Know the user2.) Know the magic3.) Connect the twoIt informed our marketing overall, but especially our positioning and messaging. You asked about both and I would actually separate the two. For positioning it's always a good idea to start with the product and engineering teams. They are typically the closest to th ...Read More

Customer Success or Customer Marketing teams are your secret weapon when thinking about Positioning & Messaging frameworks and GTM strategy. Retention is a key metric for the business, so who better than Customer Success Managers or Customer Marketing leaders to represent the voice of the customer in your marketing narrative? They have seen the good, the bad and the ugly and have a more in-depth perspective with what resonates with customers, where customers get frustrated or struggle, and w ...Read More

Any client-facing teams I believe should provide feedback on your messaging/positioning. For example, your client strategy/customer success teams get a ton of feedback from your customers who are actually using your product and have a great perspective on what resonates with your prospects and customer base. Secondly, a part of sales, but a key subset of your sales team are sales engineers. Sales engineers have a natural way of telling a great demo story and are boots on the ground hearing direc ...Read More

Below are the key stakeholders and goals I have during my stakeholder interviews for positioning and messaging: Focus Groups [Prospective Buyer Focus Group] Dive down deep into pains, problems, and expected benefits [Customer Advisory Board] Dive down deep into pains, problems, and expected benefits Product Managers: Identify what pains the new features/products is designed to solve Understand how this provides a differentiated experience Understand the value we want to deliver BDR/SDR Understan ...Read More