A Guide For The Modern Marketer’s Go To Market Strategy

Modern Marketing Engine podcast hosted by Bernie Borges

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A marketing executive’s go to market strategy depends on whether their company is in an established category — going after market share gains — or if they are in a new category that requires awareness building for the category itself. Utpal Bhatt is the SVP of marketing at Qubole, a SaaS platform that processes cloud data and provides support for many large companies such as Oracle and Lyft, as well as many start-ups.

Utpal heads up marketing and is responsible for brand awareness, product marketing, and lead generation. In this episode, Bernie and Utpal discuss the different go to market strategies that should be used when entering a cold market versus a hot and happening market. Listen to learn how to determine if you should create a new marketing category or if you are in an existing category and need to differentiate your product.

This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com Where Should You Start When Creating A Go To Market Strategy?

According to Utpal, the first thing a marketing leader must decide when determining how to market a new product is whether the product belongs to an existing category or needs to be defined as a new category. All subsequent decisions such as team building, content strategy, and marketing direction stem from this initial decision.

Determining if your product belongs in a new category versus an existing category requires looking at your competitors. Do you have competitors that have very similar products and services? If so, you’ll likely be entering a “hot” market. If you do not have direct competitors, then you will need to consider building a new category to market your product or service.

How To Create A New Category

If you find that the best strategy is to create a new category, prepare to build the audience for the category. The key to successfully creating a new category is to drive awareness, encourage adoption, and look to capitalize through monetization.

Driving awareness requires having the right spokesperson, someone able to describe and articulate the value of the category and how it addresses a business problem for your target customer. You then need to build awareness by creating content that supports the thought leadership of your product within the category and provide training initiatives. Once you have a spokesperson and content for this person to share, you then need to create a platform for your speaker to market from. Hosting events and creating a social media platform are just two of the ways that your spokesperson can reach your audience.

After you have driven awareness to and about your product within the category, you then need to encourage adoption of that product. This is done by creating a community of people who are excited and motivated to spread the word about the value of the product. Your community will want to write blogs and post on social media because they “love” the product and the category.

Finally, the goal of every marketing campaign is to capitalize on monetization. When creating a new market category, monetization is a long game that is best enhanced with appropriate targeting and segmenting of the community you built during the adoption phase. As awareness grows and adoption solidifies, monetization occurs with a portion of the loyal community you have built.

Differentiation Is Key To Marketing In A Hot And Happening Category

If your product already has a category to market within, then the key to a strong go to market strategy is differentiation. How does your product differ from others in the category, and how are those differences beneficial to your target customer? Take hold of market-share by creating content and a messaging strategy that works together to differentiate your offering from the rest of the competition.

Should Your Go To Market Strategy Change Based On Category Heat?

Going to market in a new category versus one in a hot and happening category requires a very different team building strategy. When you are building out a category, you initially need a renaissance sales rep, a person who will approach all aspects of the product and can hand-hold each prospect through the entire process. Once the category is established and built out, the type of salesperson you need to hire is very different.

In a hot market, the category has already been created and built out. Rather than explaining the value of the category to a prospect, the salesperson needs to identify the most likely prospects based on recognized need. The goal is not to go after every single person in the category but to target those businesses and prospects who are most likely to recognize how your product meets their need in the category. For example, when analytics was a new category, the renaissance sales reps explained the value of analytics. Now, data analytics sales reps sell the unique virtues of their specific analytics system to prospects who are best-fit candidates for their analytics product.

If you are creating a new category, your content needs to speak to the benefits and of your product and how to use it within the category. In a hot market, your content needs to show how your product is unique and valuable as measured by authorities in your niche.

While there are many other concepts and ideas to consider when evaluating entering a hot versus new market, this conversation provides a wonderful high-level overview of considerations when choosing your marketing category and strategy. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from this conversation with Utpal Bhatt!

Featured on This Episode

• Connect with Utpal on LinkedIn
• Utpal Bhatt on Twitter: @bhatt_utpal
• Qubole - the company where Utpal serves as SVP of Marketing
• Qubole on Twitter: @qubole
• Qubole on Facebook: @qubole
• Connect with Qubole on LinkedIn

Outline of This Episode

• [1:50] Introduction to Qubole and Utpal’s role as SVP of Marketing
• [2:54] Should you create a new category or enter an existing category?
• [4:20] Where do you start when creating a new marketing category?
• [5:30] The three-step approach to creating a new category
• [5:55] What does it look like to drive awareness, adoption, and monetization?
• [7:00] Awareness: You need the right salespeople, content factory, and exposure plan?
• [10:10] Adoption: Easy to access education, training, tips and tricks, and samples
• [12:00] Monetization: Requires targeted audience segmentation based upon the community that was built in the adoption stage
• [14:55] Build your team gradually beginning with the awareness and adoption groups
• [17:58] When in an established category the strategy should be differentiation-centric
• [20:10] Distinction in going to market in a new category versus an established category
• [25:15] Bernie’s summary of the conversation

Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com

• Hubspot’s 2019 Inbound Event
• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine

• https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://instagram.com/bernieborges
• https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast

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