Why good products fail: The crucial role of a clear Go-to-Market strategy
The road is littered with great products that just didn’t sell
The Myth of "Good Products Sell Themselves"
This common misconception that a good product will naturally find its way to success often leads to the downfall of many promising innovations. Whilst good products stand a much better chance of success, it is the art of how these products are presented in market that defines a great product. I’ve been involved in taking products to market for many years but have often come up against challenges when doing so.
Go to Market (GTM) is one of the most widely used but misunderstood acronyms in business today. It's applied more liberally than peanut butter on my kids toast!
A good GTM strategy is based on a true understanding of external factors, including market fit and segmentation, and it must be flexible. GTM is not something to be handed to a team at the end of the product development process; it should be built alongside the product, evolving with it. The best GTM approach is one where you have "strong opinions that are weakly held," meaning you should be prepared to adapt and build change into your GTM approach.
The importance of a clear GTM strategy
A robust GTM strategy encompasses several key components, including internal channel alignment, market segmentation, sales tactics, and marketing efforts. When these elements are not well-defined or aligned, the chances of success diminish significantly. Here are some areas I believe need careful consideration when building a solid GTM framework:
Market Segmentation: Identifying and targeting the right market segments ensures that your product reaches the audience most likely to benefit from it. Without proper segmentation, marketing efforts can be wasted on uninterested or unsuitable audiences.
Internal Channel Alignment: Ensuring that all departments (e.g., product development, marketing, sales, customer support) are on the same page is crucial. Misalignment can lead to conflicting messages, inefficient processes, and a fragmented customer experience.
Sales and Marketing Integration: Coordinated sales and marketing efforts create a seamless journey for potential customers, from awareness to purchase. Disjointed efforts can confuse customers and weaken the overall impact.
The dangers of overlooking GTM
Believing that a good product will sell itself can lead to several pitfalls. History is littered with examples of great products with poor GTM execution. On the flip side, there are examples of distinctly average products with phenomenal success (Microsoft’s Xbox One springs to mind!) Issues related to a poor go to market strategy include:
Poor Market Penetration: Without a clear strategy, even the most innovative products can struggle to penetrate the market effectively. (Anyone remember Apple’s Newton? Me neither!)
Missed Opportunities: Failure to identify and target the right segments can result in missed sales opportunities and wasted resources ('everyone' is not a customer segment!)
Negative Customer Perception: Inconsistent messaging and poor customer experiences can tarnish a brand’s reputation, regardless of the product’s quality. (New Coke! Nah!)
When Good Products Fail
Innovation over understanding
Some notable examples of what I believe were great products, executed poorly include Google Glass - This was one of the first innovative wearable technologies (well before Meta VR) that offered a glimpse into the future but failed due to poor marketing and privacy concerns. Despite its potential, the lack of a clear GTM strategy led to its demise in the consumer market. Segway, heralded as a revolutionary mode of transportation, the Segway failed to gain widespread adoption due to some basic challenges (not all the fault of a poor GTM btw!) It was a product, not a solution.
Where can you park it? How do you charge it? Do you use it on roads or sidewalks? Our towns and cities are designed for pedestrians or speedy vehicles and this was neither so it had no proper infrastructure to support it. Fast forward to today and the dearth of e-scooters littering the pavements point to a similar problem albeit with a change in form factor and a better ecosystem for charging (Lime Juicer anyone?) Segway failed to understand how the product would work in its market, how its customers would use the product beyond the hype.
Perhaps the most notable failure of recent times (OK, I’m Gen X!) Is the war between VHS and Betamax. Sony's Betamax offered superior video quality compared to VHS. However, Sony's reluctance to license the technology and limited marketing efforts caused Betamax to lose the format war, (same could be said for how Sony lost the digital music war but that is for another day!) These examples however illustrating the need for a good product to have a great GTM strategy.
Key questions to ask yourself in order to create a clear and simplified GTM approach
GTM can mean different things to different people. Put simply it’s about how your product or service gets to its customer (its market). To ensure a clear and effective GTM strategy, organisations should ask themselves a few key questions. It’s not rocket science but is often overlooked to thrown to a marketing team to solve at the 11th hour of a product release. GTM should be woven into the fabric of a products development.
Who is your target audience? Understanding the demographics, needs, and preferences of your potential customers is crucial for tailoring your GTM strategy.
What problem does your product or service solve? Clearly defining the value proposition helps in positioning the product effectively in the market.
How will you reach your target audience? Identifying the most effective marketing and sales channels ensures that your efforts are focused, impactful and efficient.
What are your key performance indicators (KPIs)? Setting measurable goals helps in tracking the success of your GTM strategy and making necessary adjustments. (KPI’s or OKR’s, as long as it’s get a ‘k’ in it!)
Who are your competitors, and how do you differentiate ourselves? Analysing the competitive landscape and identifying unique selling points (USPs) allows you to stand out in the market. You don’t have to be unique, just know what you stand for and why.
The Essence of a Successful GTM
Designing a go-to-market strategy is part craft, part creativity, and all about keeping the execution in mind. A clear and well-aligned GTM strategy is essential for the success of any product or service. Good products can fail without it, while even mediocre products can succeed with a robust GTM plan. An old Irish proverb once said “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story” (or was it Mark Twain? Sometimes the internet sucks!) Anyway, the point being that a good GTM strategy is one that tells a great story (your value proposition ) to a captive audience (your segment) who are bought into the narrative and want more. (the sale).
In today’s competitive market, a good product is simply not enough. Success hinges on how effectively you can bring that product to market, present it to your teams, sales organisations, and most importantly, your customers.
“Understanding your Go-to-market strategy as a function of the primacy of sales or marketing is paramount. If you’re marketing-intensive, the product is bought. If it’s sales-intensive, the product is sold.” - Mark Leslie.
Organisations need to move from a sales-intensive approach, where the product is "sold," to a marketing-intensive approach, where the product is "bought." Products that are “bought” as opposed to “sold” have a 92% greater chance of success (ok, I made that stat up but I think we can all appreciate how we feel when we buy something as opposed to being sold something).
A good GTM strategy is a collaboration, not the role of a single mastermind
Collaboration is critical in driving revenue growth and profitability, ensuring that everyone plays a role in good GTM strategies. Building a framework that emphasises the interaction of market, product, channel, and operation models as part of one constant ecosystem. You cannot think of these elements separately. Building a great product alone does not guarantee successful company growth.
Great products have failed, while terrible products have grown into huge companies. To succeed, you need a hypothesis for how each element will work together to build an ecosystem. You do not prove all the hypotheses at once but formulate them from the start before building anything.
By focusing on the essentials and clarifying the scope and purpose of a GTM strategy, businesses can reduce confusion and foster better collaboration across teams, ensuring that good products have the best chance of success.
