Understanding market demand for abstract things
GTM requires knowing market demand, but what if it's ambiguous? #ProductMarketing #GTM
You can predict market demand for most tangible offerings (a product, a service),
at least to the point where you feel confident in testing before fully committing to distributing it. If John struggles with an important problem X, and I provide the solution Y, chances are John will want my product. John’s problem X is a leading indicator that there’s some market demand for my product.
The same can’t be said for abstract things that lack leading indicators: advertising creative, brand identity, and similar. Unless you have some deep cultural insights (usually only available to the biggest research firms), there is no telling whether your creative will work out and if it does, how effective it will be. This is even riskier when you base your entire brand on an ongoing creative theme. When it works out, it has a chance to differentiate your brand more than your product ever could.
My point will be better made through an example.
The Case of Visualize Value
Back in 2019, a graphic designer Jack made a Twitter account called Visualize Value.
It features ideas from businesspeople and philosophers, communicated through minimalistic visuals (hence the name Visualize Value). This is not just one-and-done creative execution, it’s the core of Visualize Value’s brand and all of its marketing. It turns out that the creative concept is a success. Every Visualize Value post nearly always goes semi-viral. Unsurprisingly, the account grew quickly and it created a category of its own, with many VV imitators popping up later. Visualize Value has monetized its fame: it sells courses on how to communicate ideas visually, how practitioners can productize their skills as Jack productized his graphic design skills, and it even sells branded merch!
Visualize Value vs the traditional GTM approach:
Try to look at this through the traditional, top-down Go-To-Market lens and think if Jack could have known this was going to be a success, or if there was any demand for this at all. Were there any leading indicators that a 51-year-old CMO will enjoy this type of content and share it with their network? Did Lucy, a 29-year-old Venture Capitalist ever think: “Man, what I need right now is for some dude to come along and start posting philosophical quotes, but visually!”?
I have no evidence to support this, but the answer is probably no. Jack himself calls Visualize Value “a side project of a side project”. This hints that Jack did it as an unconstrained experiment, without expecting anything. There wasn’t a deliberate, well-researched GTM strategy, it emerged. At least that’s what it looks like to me, from an outsider’s POV.
In organizations with many decision-makers, you need to bring data to make a case for even the most trivial things. If Jack were in this situation, he’d probably have about a 0,01% chance of getting buy-in. He would have been laughed out of the room. That’s why most companies get similar results whereas Visualize Value unlocked exponential growth. Memorable marketing always comes with a risk, and that takes balls. Some things, such as demand for, well… however you might categorize the need Visualize Value fulfills, cannot be researched. They can only emerge out of execution.
Market demand insights exist across 5 domains:
1: KNOWN
These insights are facts we already know. We know B2B sales cycles involve many stakeholders. We know that 95% of our TAM isn’t in-market at any given moment. We know that Tottenham Hotspur has never touched the Premier League trophy. These facts serve as a foundation for further research.
2: KNOWABLE
As their name suggests, they can be understood with market research: surveys, talking to people, and collecting 3rd party data from the internet (Reddit discussions, monitoring Facebook groups, and similar). An important note is that collecting these insights must be realistic and actionable, meaning you can get them in a reasonable time frame without having to stretch your resources too much.
3: UNACTIONABLE
This domain considers market demand that can only be understood with sophisticated market research that is out of reach to most people and companies. This involves nuanced studies that may take years or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It also considers market demand that requires you to take steps you are not capable of taking to influence demand or a far-fetched chain of stars that have to
get aligned for demand to happen.
Example: If we’re a bootstrapped startup, and we learn that it takes 4 OOH campaigns to make people want our new feature, then that’s an unactionable insight.
4: UNSTABLE
Unstable is a cousin of the Unknowable. Any market demand that is loosely held, changes perpetually, and is very susceptible to randomness is unstable. These are insights you cannot build a lasting strategy around, nor can you execute on them 9/10 times. By the time you’re ready to execute, the demand has already changed or simply stopped existing. This kind of market demand may not be rooted in “evergreen” needs. It’s situational and unpredictable. Neither is it a defining feature of one group of buyers - so you can’t target it with ICP frameworks or segmentation. It can belong to anyone randomly. There’s no telling.
This is why brand marketing exists. Since you cannot perfectly time the demand no matter how much data you have (I’m looking at you, ABM), you offset that by showing up at all times, so that by the time they’re ready to buy in their limited buying time window, they come to you.
5: UNKNOWABLE
Self-explanatory… but I will repeat it for the 3rd time. It’s the demand that cannot be predicted, cannot be understood, cannot be explained before it happens - only surfaced by putting the thing (product, feature, creative campaign, etc.) in front of people and letting reality give you the answer.
What do you think?
For my fellow market demand obsessives reading this, the Visualize Value case raises some questions to ponder:
Was there always a demand for philosophical quotes in a minimalistic visual format, and Visualize Value just revealed it?
Was there no demand for this, but Visualize Value created it?
If we assume 5 domains of understanding market demand, in which ones did Visualize Value exist?
Which domains would you add that aren’t mentioned here?
Shoutout to Jack Butcher and his brand, Visualize Value!
www.visualizevalue.com
twitter.com/visualizevalue