The GTM strategy will be laser-focused on one audience and it will be your Ideal Customer Persona (ICP). Selling a product is about creating value for the customer. This can be tricky in EdTech because the users (teachers and students) are different than the buyers (principals and supers). You will need at least one persona for the teachers (decision influencers) and principals/supers (budget authority). The key is that both personas need to see value in your product.
Teachers and administrators are not monolithic target markets and this can make finding your ICP challenging (see Figure 1 below). There are actually many educator personas (see Figure 2 below) based on demographics (i.e., school type, location, grade/subject, etc.) and they have different priorities and problems.
Brian Balfour suggests starting with the target market and then the problem you are solving. Remember that each potential target market will likely require a different GTM because the target market will have different characteristics. Your target buyers will be easy/difficult to find. The Lifetime Customer Value (LCV) is high/low. It is inexpensive/expensive to attract and convert them. Their problem is somewhat/very chronic. The GTM will impact the product and the channel.
As you evaluate target markets, consider the trade-off between larger and smaller target markets. Going after broader markets can potentially be easier because of the number of users to target, but this might not lead to a higher CTV because of low premium conversions and retention. One benefit of a broader target audience is the more significant brand awareness. A more narrow target market requires solving a majority of the target audience’s pain points and problems, which often results in a more narrow target market. The upside is that the more narrow target market will pay a premium for a specialized product. For example, all schools have information systems to manage students (e.g., attendance, report cards, etc.), but products for independent schools are more specialized to support tuition and contracts. A target market segment should consider the following segmentation characteristics.
Remember, you are creating the processes necessary for your business to scale. The size of the business — a lemonade stand, food truck, storefront — is less important than laying the foundation for the next phase of growth.
Part 1 of this series can be found here.
Part 2 of this series can be found here.
Part 3 of this series can be found here.
Part 4 of this series can be found here.
