A framework for GTM prioritization crowded markets

This article is based on Mark’s brilliant talk at the Product Marketing Summit in Toronto, in 2022. Product Marketing Alliance members can watch it in its full glory here.

In case you hadn’t guessed, I’m a bit of a product marketing nerd. I firmly believe product marketing is among the most exciting and dynamic fields in marketing, if not in all of tech. That's why I'm thrilled to share my learnings from this field today.

I’m going to share how product marketing can prioritize go-to-market activities, not just in crowded markets, but in any organization where products are being launched continuously.

Many of us have been in the position of supporting multiple product teams – sometimes three, four, or even five of them – single-handedly.

When you're constantly being bombarded with releases (sometimes at the very last minute!) it can be hard to decide how much attention you or your organization should allocate to each one. I’m going to provide a framework to help you tackle this problem.

In this article, I'll focus on:

• The challenges of crowded markets
• Why old frameworks need to be replaced
• A GTM prioritization framework
• How to quantify business value
• How to quantify customer value
• Who should be involved with prioritization frameworks
• The other keys to priority alignment

The challenges of crowded markets

Now, you’ve probably heard this a thousand times, but markets are crowded. This is a universal challenge. Take martech companies for example – there are over 8000 of them.

Can you imagine trying to compete in that arena? It's a monumental task to stay on top of not only your own strategies to remain competitive but also your competitors' activities. There's just so much going on.

This has several significant implications for us as product marketing managers. The first and most important is that customer attention spans are incredibly limited.

I’m willing to bet that you, in your life as a customer, have companies sending you updates about their latest features or improvements every week, or even multiple times a month. It can be overwhelming, can't it?

Now, put yourself in your customers' shoes. Imagine how they must feel about receiving five or six updates about new functionalities or products from your company every month.

They’re probably also subscribed to updates, releases, and newsletters from your competitors. How can they possibly stay on top of it all? And how can you keep them engaged and willing to listen to you amidst all the noise?

Another challenge is the scarcity of true innovation in crowded markets. By "true innovation", I mean something entirely new – something the market or category has never seen before.

Most of the time, we're playing catch-up, offering functionalities to match our competitors and stay in the game. It's rare to go to market with a never-before-seen product or feature unless you're a market leader who can afford to take significant risks – not all of us are that fortunate.

On top of all this, introducing something new is costly. Customer acquisition costs have been steadily rising, not just due to increased competition, but also because the channels we use to reach new customers know the demand for their services is high, so they charge more.

All of this leads us to a critical question: is it time to end our relentless focus on growth?

Of course, to some extent, constant growth is essential – that's how businesses thrive. But something has to give. Perhaps, instead of focusing solely on growth, we should concentrate more on keeping our current customers happy with features that will secure their loyalty in the long run.

Out with the old…

If you’ve been in product marketing for a while, you’ve probably come across Intercom’s rubric for prioritizing product announcements.

You know the one – you have a horizontal axis with “retain customers” at one end and “attract customers” at the other end, then there’s a vertical axis with “new innovation” at the top and “‘me too’ feature” at the bottom, and the priority you give to your launch depends on where it falls on this rubric.

Well, no offense to the folks at Intercom who developed it, but I don’t think this framework is relevant anymore.

It was introduced in 2016, back when the SaaS space wasn't as competitive as it is today. It served us well then, but I think it falls short in a couple of crucial areas today.

First, this framework prioritizes acquiring new customers over retaining existing ones.

Given the rising costs of customer acquisition, can we definitively say that acquiring customers is inherently more important than retaining them? Not always.

It depends on the stage of your company's growth, the maturity of the market, and the intensity of competition within the market. So, treating customer acquisition as more important than retention might be a bit of a misstep.

Second, this framework fails to focus on the customer. As product marketers, we have it drilled into our heads that we need to be customer-obsessed at all times. When you apply a model that doesn't factor in the impact on customers, you may inadvertently set yourself up for failure.

Remember, customers aren't always swayed by the latest shiny object. They eventually grow numb to the constant bombardment of new and exciting features. What matters is the value the customer derives from your product or service, and Intercom’s framework doesn’t focus on that nearly enough.

Lastly, in a market with rampant competition, it’s challenging to keep generating new, groundbreaking ideas.

You probably got into product marketing because you wanted to do exciting things like launch groundbreaking products and features, but how often will you genuinely have the opportunity to do that? Does it really make sense to build your whole prioritization framework around those once-in-a-blue-moon launches?

Personally speaking, I got into product marketing because I wanted to be part of exciting go-to-market launches. If I join a company and find out that I might only get to work on a top-priority launch every few years, it takes away some of the fun of the go-to-market process.

I believe we deserve better. We deserve a framework that provides ample opportunities to get excited about the go-to-market activities we're spearheading while maintaining a customer-focused lens.

More importantly, our customers deserve better. We don't want to run go-to-market motions simply to keep product teams off our backs or because senior leadership might wonder why we're not showcasing anything new. Ultimately, our actions need to resonate with our customers – otherwise, what's the point?

… and in with the new GTM prioritization framework

I propose it's time for a new framework – one that prioritizes both customer value and broader business value.

This sounds great in theory, but defining the value of a new product or feature (whether that’s from a business perspective or a customer perspective) can be challenging. This is particularly true when you have to align on that value with other members of the organization.

Some teams might want to focus on a particular part of the product because they believe customers care about "X". Another team might argue for prioritizing a different part of the product, thinking that customers care more about "Y". Shouldn’t they be saying the same thing?

Having worked at several organizations, I've been surprised by how frequently different teams have different interpretations of customer value. This is a red flag, obviously, but it underscores the need for a well-defined, universally understood concept of customer value within an organization.

Let me share the solution. If you forget everything else from this conversation, I'd like you to remember the next part.

This is a simple framework developed by myself and a couple of other very talented individuals at Jobber. It considers not just the business value of a new product feature or activity, but also its impact on the customer. Ultimately, you want to align your actions across both of these dimensions.

We'll delve deeper into each of these axes shortly. But before we do, I'd like to briefly discuss why my team and I chose this framework and the benefits it offers compared to the one I shared earlier.

First and foremost, it's straightforward. We deliberately set out to devise a framework that didn't require additional spreadsheets or calculations. There's no need to plug in numbers to determine your priorities.

The framework is not only simple, but it's also very intuitive. You could present it to anyone in a product marketing organization, and they'd grasp it immediately. There's no need to understand the minutiae of go-to-market strategies and positioning. They can look at this and immediately see why a particular activity has been assigned a certain level of priority.

Additionally, the framework serves as a guide. As we define both customer and business value, you'll notice that it's directional in nature. It's not intended to definitively assign a priority to a feature or a new release.

Instead, it guides you in the right direction, enabling you to have a dialogue with your colleagues within product marketing and product teams, and ultimately land on the final priority.

This guidance is also directional for the product team and the broader product organization.

For instance, this tool will come in handy when you're planning your product roadmap and assigning priorities to different planned functionalities. Suppose at the end of that planning process, you realize there aren't any P1s slated for the year – that's a red flag.

You can bring this to the attention of the product team and challenge them on whether they’re doing enough to drive both customer and business value. Are we okay with not having any P1s this year? This framework helps steer product teams’ direction and adjust their course as needed.

The framework also necessitates what I like to call "the chat". This isn't “the chat” you might have had with your parents when you were growing up. Rather, it's a chat about defining business value and customer value.

Some teams might have different interpretations of these terms, but this framework forces you to sit down with your key stakeholders and get on the same page about what business value is and what value you're delivering to the customer. That’s crucial for the long-term success of the business.

Lastly, the framework is flexible. Depending on your business's stage of growth or even what your competitors are doing, you can adjust your definitions of business value and customer value and use them to reassess the priority of upcoming functionalities.

For instance, there might be a quarter when the business is heavily focused on top-line revenue growth or perhaps on cutting costs. You can redefine values across the axes based on where your business stands at that point in time.

How to quantify business value

Our new framework prioritizes go-to-market activities based on their business value and their value to the customer, which can each be considered high, moderate, or low.

Based on these values, the go-to-market is then assigned a level of priority from P1 (highest priority) to P4 (lowest priority).

“But Mark,” you might be wondering, “How do you define business value and customer value?” Let’s take a look.

​​Businesses exist to generate profit – that's a given.

So, when you're considering a new feature and how to quantify its value to the business, you want to ask yourself: does this have a direct impact on profit? Will it help us acquire new customers, increase customer lifetime value, or improve retention? Can it generate cost savings?

If the answer to any of these is yes, the feature has a direct impact on profit, so it carries a high business value.

A product or feature with moderate business value has an indirect impact on profit. That means it improves core KPIs that will eventually lead to profitability, for example by providing new expansion opportunities or generating a positive brand lift.

There's no need for a tangible money-line item for this moderate value. It just might be a case of going to market with a new feature and telling a compelling story that reflects positively on the brand.

Then we have features that offer low or no measurable impact on profit. These typically include quality-of-life improvements, bug fixes, and UI/UX enhancements.

As a product marketer, you might not typically do much for these features, but the framework at least allows you to go to a product team that's been spending several sprints on a bug fix, for example, and say, “I understand this is a lot of work for you.

However, in terms of business value, this is a necessity, not a preference, so it will be prioritized accordingly when it’s time to take it to market."

How to quantify customer value

Now, let's talk about customer value. Again, we have three categories:

1. Low customer value: No measurable impact on _____.
2. Moderate customer value: Indirect impact on _____.
3. High customer value: Direct impact on _____.

I’ve left the definitions intentionally blank because customer value will be defined by your business, the customers you serve, and the markets you operate in.

For example, in my previous job at a two-sided marketplace for freelance creatives, we defined customer value for our freelancers as their ability to secure more work and land more jobs.

Any feature that directly enhanced a freelancer's ability to generate more work would have high customer value in our view. Other elements like their ability to send out proposals more swiftly or interact with clients faster would have moderate to low customer value.

Or consider a company like Jobber, which offers business management software to home service providers. If we can help these providers become more profitable, which is likely their primary concern, then that would arguably be a high-value feature from the customer's perspective.

So, when you approach this framework, define your own holy grail of customer value. If a new feature has a tangible, direct impact on that, it gets a high rating. Then, you work your way back from indirect to minimal impact.

Who should be involved in this framework and when?

Let's shift gears a little bit. We've gone over the framework; now, I want to discuss where it fits into the product development cycle and who needs to be involved in implementing it.

First, let me ask you a question: How many times have you been pulled into the product development cycle just a few weeks before release? I'm sure everyone has experienced this pain at some point, right? It happens all too often.

Ideally, this framework will allow you to engage with the product teams much earlier in the process.

While this isn't a silver bullet – other elements need to fall into place too – I want to help you understand when in the development cycle this framework can start being leveraged to ballpark the priority level of your launches and spark conversations about prioritization with other teams.

You’re likely familiar with the five stages of product development: Define, Discover, Design, Develop, and Deploy. At the Define stage, we're examining what problems are worth solving.

This is where you can begin to ask what customer value and what business value your launch might bring. Through that conversation, you should be able to estimate the go-to-market (GTM) priority of that task very early on.

As you move into the Discover phase, you're almost reevaluating the value of the potential solution to the problem. Having roughly determined the priority of the problem and defined the solution, you can decide its ultimate final priority.

Finally, in the Deploy phase – when things go live and your go-to-market activities are underway – you can assess whether you achieved everything you hoped to achieve with the level of launch priority you agreed upon.

For example, if this was a P1 launch and you threw the maximum amount of resources at it, did that pay off? Do you achieve the business value you were aiming for? Did you deliver the value you were hoping to deliver to your customers?

If not, you have to ask yourself: Was the issue with the product itself? Was it with how you’re measuring the product's performance? Or was it with how you’re defining business value? Even though you're now deploying and executing, you're still assessing the framework's effectiveness once the product is on the market.

The other keys to priority alignment

As we wrap up, it's crucial to understand that your product team isn’t the only stakeholder you need to align with on the priority of your go-to-market activities.

Obviously, you want to make sure that product is on board, but other stakeholders will benefit from engaging this framework too.

Firstly, there’s marketing. With this framework, you should be able to communicate to your marketing team that you have a P2, a P3, and an exciting P1 coming up in the next quarter.

Armed with this information, they should be able to plan their resources effectively to deliver all the necessary materials to make those launches successful.

Next, there’s sales. In any organization, there are lots of releases happening, and that’s hard not only for product marketers to stay on top of, but it’s also hard for our sales partners.

They're constantly seeing updates about releases going live, and it can be tough to keep track of them all so they can convey these new functionalities to potential customers.

But with a prioritization framework like this, they can focus on P1s, P2s, and maybe P3s while potentially ignoring P4s. This helps them understand which updates should command their attention because of the impact on both customers and the business. It also guides how much time and effort they should dedicate to discussing these new features during sales conversations.

Lastly, the same logic applies to our customer success partners. Customer success managers conducting regular touchpoints with accounts can use these launch priorities to guide their discussions, only mentioning P1, P2, and occasionally P3 releases in their updates.

This approach ensures they focus only on the new functionalities that matter most to customers. No customer wants to sit and listen to a laundry list of new features they've probably already heard about from emails or notifications.

Since these touchpoints are often short and may come around only once a quarter, it's crucial that your customer success partners concentrate on elements that deliver not just business value, but the most customer value as well.

That’s a wrap!

Alright, that's the framework, how it should be applied in the product development process, and who needs to fully understand and buy into it.

At Jobber, we’re actively applying, testing, and refining this framework; I encourage you to do the same and figure out what works best for you, your business, and – most importantly – your customers.