Sam McLaughlin
All work

Go-to-market for a newsroom software product

A media software vendor wanted to grow its newer products in media workflow and news production. Over several sprints we sized the market from real deployments, spoke to buyers, and turned the findings into a go-to-market plan and sales battlecards.

The question

Where are the best opportunities for a modern, integrated newsroom and media workflow product, who buys it and why, and how should the company position, price and sell it against both legacy systems and newer rivals?

Approach

  • Market sizing from real deployments: the media workflow market was built up from more than 200 known deployments by around 15 vendors, giving deployments per year, buyer types and regions.
  • A newsroom deployment database of more than 250 newsroom system and news video deployments across 170+ buyers, analysed by vendor, year, region, company size and buyer segment.
  • First-hand buyer interviews on workflow needs, technology preferences, pain points and purchase drivers.
  • Competitor profiling of the vendors most comparable to the client, plus a wider landscape.
  • Buyer dimensions: a framework placing newsrooms on four scales (multi-platform focus, sophistication, culture and buying focus) to tailor the go-to-market approach.

What we delivered

  • An overview for the client's Board of Directors on the addressable market, gaps and opportunities.
  • Go-to-market strategy: segmentation and focus, what "modern SaaS" means to buyers, SaaS against traditional sales models, channels and routes to market, partnerships, the importance of company culture, and a product SWOT.
  • 15 sales battlecards, one per buyer segment, each with an addressability score, the opportunity, typical buyer characteristics, a SWOT and key competitors.
  • Recommendations on target accounts, competition, positioning, differentiation and channels.
  • Price points and pricing models, and a first look at adjacent markets.

What I did

I conducted research interviews, worked on the deployment analysis and data, and put together the slides and deliverables.

What it shows

  • Sizing a market bottom-up when no official data exists.
  • Combining deployment data with buyer interviews.
  • Turning research into tools a sales team can actually use, from battlecards to pricing guidance.

The client is described anonymously and no confidential figures are shown.