Story+PD: Sharing our path to market

Part of a series at the intersection of Storytelling and Product Development.

Our GTM plan needs to have a story, a journey. What if it were more?

The audience for this kind of story is internal, often referred to as Go-To-Market Plan or just “Go-to-Market” or GTM. But sometimes, there’s a story of the inside that needs to be told outside. We see innovation stories used in marketing all the time (Brilliant idea! More on that in another post) and but this is about from the start of product development out into the market.

Take Aptera, a southern California company that is working toward their first product launch. Transparency like this is part of the Aptera PD and business journey, since they are the extremely rare example of a car company that has been significantly crowd-funded for years. Their Youtube posts explaining for example, a new piece of manufacturing equipment and the progress toward launch not only build anticipation, but trustworthiness.

Speaking of which, this kind of story is also likely to become part of the Boeing quality/safety-correction journey following the loss of public trust. First we heard something went wrong at the factory with a set of door-plug bolts. Then we’ve heard of a shift post-merger that impacted safety concerns. People need to know what’s actually going on behind the scenes that’s true and meaningful, that can redeem or repair the story they’ve heard so far, and have reasonable expectations of the conclusion: safer products. 

Fortunately, I’ve never worked in crisis PR;  mainly just with product and marketing leaders in growth and reversing declines. One of my food projects highlighted several factors that go into how consumers evaluate food and food companies. Restaurants and brands have used storytelling about what happens behind the scenes for decades. When they can tell us how an ingredient is chosen (or rejected) by a person who made the food, it makes the food not only appealing, it makes it trustworthy. Our client was able to help their brands understand the importance of this kind of story and how to apply it honestly and confidently in their marketing. 

Note: I do not have any connection with Aptera, just admiration.