Over the last few weeks (with a crunch in the last three days thus no posts) I have been working on revitalizing the go-to-market strategy for an old product.

Regular readers will know I am a big believer in brands and products that embrace what truly makes them special. Products that focus on pleasing some of the people all of the time, not all of the people some of the time.

As always, it’s been a fun exercise and one every product owners should be going through as they look to grasp the opportunities every downturn creates.

So having finished the first iteration I thought I would outline my five simple steps to revitalizing a go-to-market strategy.

Putting simplicity in context: Loosing weight is simply a matter of consuming less energy than you burn. Making a company profitable is simply a case of making more money than you spend.. Simple is not easy.

1: Know the best forget the rest

When we look for a job money is not the deciding factor. It is actually not much of a factor at all for most of us. We want a fair wage obviously, one that matches our skill set, but we mostly want a job that will help us learn and grow in a market sector that is of interest to us.

It’s the same with customers. Great customers push for improvements, are vocal about what sucks and come from strategically important market segments.

So step one is to take a long hard look at your customer list and build a short list of the customers that represent the greatest value to you. Profile each customer, identify what drives them, what they value (not just in your product but in general), what other businesses they work with, who are their customers? Know all you can know about them.

2: Slash and burn

Chances are good that over the years your big customers, not just the best customers, have influenced the product focus, its functionality and its roadmap. Now you are armed with your list of ideal customers and a deep knowledge of their business challenges its time to cut away the complexity, remove as much as you dare. Then a bit more..

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler – Albert Einstein

3: An Idea and its folklore

Someone shouts “hold the door” and Warren Buffett steps into the elevator; you have from G to whatever floor you are on (he’s going to the top) to deliver your best sales pitch and convince him to invest… ah the 80s, a simpler time.

In this new word of mouth world you need to create two things

• A simple idea your customers can remember and share
• Lore they can share that build on the simple idea and communicate trust and real value.

The idea must be the visible core of your business, you have to genuinely live it, otherwise its just a tag line.

Simple, focused software – 37signals
Unparalleled entertainment experiences – Disney
organize the world – Google

The Lore are the stories that allow the building of trust and a feeling that people get where the product is coming from, the people who created it, how passionate they are about it.

4: Experience, Experience, Experience..

It use to be all about location; open a shop in the right place and stock mediocre products and you would get business because you were providing the best XX within an acceptable driving distance.

Now the distance people travel to get a good product is not measured in miles or minutes, its measured in degrees of separation. We purchase products we hear about from people we trust.

So if you want to expand your market reach you need to give people a reason to talk about your idea and spread your folklore; but people don’t talk about products, they talk about experiences. The experience of opening a Mac, the experience of flying with British Airways or the experience of sitting at home all day for the cable repair person that never came.

5: Iterate

Your strategy, the market, your customers, their values, how they communicate all changes, all the time. The work you just did has a short half-life, go back to the beginning and start again.

1: Decide what customers you want and get to know them, 2: focus your product to their needs, 3: give them a story to tell,  4: a reason to tell it and 5: iterate. See..I told you it was simple.

Call to action: As always this is just me, shouting ideas down a series of pipes. Ideas only improve (or die a much deserved death) with feedback so please share yours.

Republished with author's permission from original post by themadpeacock .