Customer Campaigns Replace GTMs

The marketing frameworks that Microsoft uses to bring products to market are shifting from Go-To-Market (GTM) campaigns to Customer Campaigns. Like GTMs, the new campaigns define the main messages the company wants to deliver, its target audiences, the role that partners play, and how specific products fit into this structure. However, Customer Campaigns are intended to reach more broadly across product groups, target Microsoft’s marketing more directly at actual customer needs, let Microsoft adjust more quickly to market conditions, give Microsoft subsidiaries a larger role in marketing, and give marketing issues more prominence in product development.

Frameworks for Marketing

Microsoft’s marketing efforts typically include substantial research into customer and market behavior, resulting in a hierarchy of advertising, sales, and public relations materials ranging from very broad (e.g., nationally advertised) “air cover” intended to burnish Microsoft’s image to detailed “battlecards” that its field sales people use in customer meetings. The company also produces seminars, case studies, demos, videos, brochures, white papers, and other marketing collateral for partners and customers. The marketing collateral for a single product can include hundreds of items, whose numbers multiply further as they are translated and adapted for local markets.