Yify Zhang

The size of your target customers influences the types of channels you lean into with your communications and the motion of each. The question to ask yourself is: where are your customers showing up, what does it take to convince them to use your product (or take the action you want). GTMs targeting enterprise customers would require: * more thorough Sales enablement, one that is perhaps segmented for each persona at an enterprise who are decision makers versus influencers versus users. * potentially showing up at industry events, where your target enterprise people are attending. Or throwing events to celebrate the launch of the product itself, and invite these enterprise people. * white papers demonstrating the thought leadership of your organization on topics related to the product that is launching. Using these to supplement your paid social or search ads, and email. These are far more effective in driving adoption with enterprise customers. The list of example channels and motion goes on. For small businesses, you would simply tailor the channels and motion based on where these folks are showing up, and what their decision making criteria looks like.

* Collect insights through customer research. Research should be done regularly to get feedback from prospects or existing customers to find out what their needs are, and how to best position yourself during each point in their discovery journey (sales being a touchpoint in that journey). You can also ask them to evaluate the various types of materials and give feedback on which ones are compelling in their decision journey * Set up any new enablement materials as a test - with clear metrics to measure and audiences / other enablement materials to compare against. For example, you can compare that one pager you're launching versus another asset by setting up an A/B email test, and measuring engagement

A GTM typically includes risks around how certain groups of customers may react to the change in experience, be it the product, service, or pricing. Generally, these negative reactions manifest into risks across these business areas: * Revenue Drop: churn in existing customers, erosion of conversion in new customers. * Operational Overwhelm: customer backlash or confusion, inundating internal support teams' capacity to deal with the amount of inquiries incoming. * Negative Press: customer backlash escalating to negative press via social or media platforms. To mitigate revenue related risks you'll need to clearly understand: * how you'll be monitoring upside versus downside. * what metrics will you use, and plan out scenarios that would require a different set of actions - e.g., launching added messaging via email, offering special discounts to select groups of customers, or in the worst case scenario, rolling back the change. To mitigate operational overwhelm, you'll need to: * develop reactive talking points for customer teams on commonly asked questions. * ensure support teams are appropriately staffed, especially if the GTM launches just before a holiday or weekend. * work with the team leads to develop scenario planning, where there is flexibility to scale resources up/down quickly. To mitigate negative press, you'll need to develop: * reactive talking points for social and press teams * it's generally good to have the option of getting positive affiliates or influencer stories. You can activate these as a component of the GTM, or lean into them if significant backlash happens

* Gamify the session as much as possible - ask questions to recap each part of the session, and reward points * Make it really clear at the start of session what's in it for the sales person. You're here to help them succeed. And that it's in their best interest to be fully present so that they get the most out of the session * Lastly but most importantly, make sure your content is actually engaging. You can do this by getting feedback from sales leaders before the session, and a few sales people you have a safe relationship with.

I would map out the customer journey and identify stages where either there are leakage in leads, or the conversion process is not as efficient as it can be. To do this, I would listen to recorded sales calls if they're available, or ask to sit in on a few calls. Ensure that the calls cover a variety of customer types. Then, I would identify priority stages in the journey where enablement would be most helpful. Then, you can identify the assets or processes that could make the biggest difference in each stage, and sequence them by level of priority based on effort required vs. impact.

Generally, GTMs accomplish one or of more of the following goals: * Increase market share in a new, strategic market * Increase market share in an existing market * Increase revenue through updated pricing or add-on adjacent products * Increase conversion through features that capture customers' interest more quickly * Increase retention through features that keep customers engaged * Shift the brand perception of your target customers You should orient KPIs around each goal. * Typically, large product releases that fundamentally shift the value proposition of your company have ramifications on brand perception, market share, and revenue. * Small to medium product enhancements are more about increasing the ratio of conversion or retention of your existing base of traffic or customers Aim to have 1-2 primary metrics, and a few secondary metrics. Depending on the strategic magnitude of the GTM, you can focus primary metrics on goals such as brand perception, market share, revenue, versus ratio oriented optimizations (e.g., conversion, retention).

Measuring sales enablement effectiveness requires a combination of business metrics and internal metrics. Ultimately, you need to ensure that enablement is making an impact in Sales teams' ability to win deals and retain customers, while making sure that the process to do so is efficient and effective. * Business metrics should be mostly include ratios, not just the absolute number of deals or revenue. Classic metrics include - win rate, renewal rate * Time to close deals * Sales team readiness feedback collected through a survey or one on one internal interviews.

Ultimately, prioritization should be based on business outcomes. One-sheets on a feature could be just as impactful on win rate as a pitch deck, if it's an unmet need that customers care deeply about and is currently not offered by other competitors. I would ensure that you're clear on the impact each asset can have, then assess through that lens.

* I would prioritize based on business outcomes. Across the various product lines with sales enablement needs, which one is the most impactful in terms of getting customers to choose you as their provider? * Are there also ways that you can combine the various product lines into themes of value props, so that your enablement assets are speaking to a need customers have, as opposed to single features. This also allows you to tie together needs across different product lines.

A strong GTM framework should include: * Product strategy: why are we doing this - is it helping the company enter an untapped market or increase share in an existing market that is strategic to its success. * Goals and metrics to show whether or not you've achieved them. * Target audience: who is it for / not for - structure this by segments / personas, or geographies. * Positioning/messaging: what are the value propositions that would help convince a customer to take the desired action. * Channels * marketing: paid media (SEM, paid social), SEO, organic social, email, blog, press * sales/enterprise: sales enablement via leave behinds and talking points * customer support: reactive talking points, help center article, FAQs that go live on a landing page * In-product: surfaces within the logged out or logged in experience to talk about benefits of the feature(s) to new and existing customers at key points in their journey * Milestones, timing, roles/responsibility.