Start Good Trouble: Why go-to-market is the new moat

Welcome to episode 2 of Start Good Trouble, an Intercom webinar series where we host discussions with startup leaders.

It’s designed to equip founders and teams with unique insights and modern tactics to help navigate the challenges of building and scaling a company.

In this episode, we talk with Nick Telson-Sillett, the co-founder and CEO of trumpet, a B2B sales tool designed to replace traditional sales PDF decks with engaging, personalized micro-sites.

We dive into trumpet’s innovative branding and go-to-market strategy, and Nick shares valuable insights on their systematic approach to leveraging customer feedback for product development and prioritization.

Key takeaways

Invest time and resources into tools and strategies that drive user interaction and feedback

Trumpet strives to maintain a balance of customer feedback, prospective feedback, and its founders’ strategic vision – a crucial tip for any growing business. In trumpet’s approach, customer feedback plays a pivotal role in feature refinement and product enhancement. By using tools like Sleek Plan, trumpet encourages customers to upvote or downvote features and keeps them informed about their requested feature implementation. Such transparency, coupled with a proactive approach to customer feedback, makes for a friendlier, more accountable B2B business.

Craft your brand voice that’s coherent and relatable across your business, including your marketing communications and customer support discussions

Trumpet believes in embracing a B2C flair amid a B2B brand. They utilize vibrant colors, a friendly tone of voice, and aim to impart lightness to their consumers’ daily happenings. Concurrently, they endorse asynchronous communication, well received by younger buyers who are often unwilling to endure lengthy calls. Engaging consumers in a manner they appreciate can increase brand loyalty.

Employ multiple strategies to create a sense of intrigue and Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) among potential customers for boosting demand

Sharing strategic insights into building customer demand for your product is an expedient takeaway from the conversation. Trumpet achieved this feat through multiple pragmatic channels – personal brand-building on LinkedIn, creating intrigue with limited information, developing a waitlist with an engaging newsletter, employing viral loops for referrals, and rewarding referrals with high-quality t-shirts. A company’s marketing strategies can pave the path toward enticing brand exposure and increased demand in today’s market landscape.

Invest in quality content creation, which is easily digestible, shareable, and resonates with your customers’ needs and values

The pivotal role of transparent, highly relatable and shareable content cannot be ignored. Trumpet emphasizes the content’s quality over the channels it’s posted on. The shift in recent years demonstrates that businesses now require a powerful outbound sales team and adept marketing strategies to stand apart, given the advancements in AI and no-code options.