Positioning is only half the work. Here's what comes after.
An actual intro to GTM from a brand's perspective.
You’ve done the positioning work. You know who you are and who you’re for. Now what?
Most founders and companies either launch too fast, too small, or majorly overthink the rollout. And honestly, I think that’s because most GTM comes from people who can think the strategy but have never had to really run it. I’m reflecting in this month’s issue about the bridge between brand and go to market, and why I think the people who can actually cross that bridge… are rare.
Because here’s what I’m learning: knowing positioning is a design problem. Executing the GTM, is a marketing problem. And most people tbh, are only equipped for one of the two.
Misconception of ‘GTM’
I keep thinking why most GTM plans don’t work: A content calendar is not a GTM plan. A launch email sequence is not a GTM plan. Those are just tactics, and tactics without sequencing will just become noise.
Most people also think GTM means just the launch, the channels, or literally going to the market. I also see that doing channel strategies are often misconstrued as GTM. But it starts way earlier, back in the actual brand work, because the audience, message, and moment you’re sequencing were all decided when you figured out your brand positioning in the first place, right?
Also, the design + marketing thing, let me explain.
I keep coming back to this: having both a design mindset and a marketing mindset isn’t a nice-to-have combo in this era, it has actually been my whole unlock in my career and it’s time I really acknowledged that.
Design gives you ‘the eye’, the natural instinct for what works, what feels right before you can even articulate why. Marketing then gives you the action muscle, the ability to actually craft that instinct into a campaign, a rollout that can land, and when to do what.
Most people have one or the other. The star designer often freezes if you ask “okay, but how do we launch this and to who, and what results will it yield?” Or the marketer who can run 15 campaigns in parallel but the brand feels like it’s meh, or dated.
Small confession: I’ve been redoing a bit of my own scope recently, and somewhere in that process I realized running GTM isn’t just a pillar I just do, it’s actually something I’m passionate about. It’s the piecing together part I love. Crafting the campaigns, connecting wild ideas, figuring out how audience and channel and message and moment all fit into one momentum.
That’s kinda just how my brain works, I connect things easily, and I finally realised that GTM is where that trait finally has somewhere useful to go. So yeah, this is also officially becoming more of what I’m pushing into LFG.
Back to the misconception, while I’m at it.
Which is kind of the whole point of this issue. To me, becoming good at GTM is just being good at brand, except you’re also willing to get your hands dirty with the execution. The people who are great at GTM aren’t a different species from us brand people, they’re brand people who didn’t stop at colours.
So, the takeaway: GTM isn’t just a campaign. It’s a series of sequenced pushes, and you need someone who can both design the bet and place it in the right spots.
Until Next Time?
Next issue I’m going deeper on GTM planning alongside Brand, and how it usually pens out with a real case study, and I’m thinking of building a proper playbook as I learn. Till then, keep on building, builders! 🛠️