Communication and approval gates
An acquisition message is an operational promise. Do not send it before the corresponding customer path, support process, and ownership model exist.
Segment by consequence
| Audience | What they need | What not to assume |
|---|---|---|
| Active customers | What changes, what stays, operator identity, support path, required action | Marketing permission or readiness for a forced migration |
| Open opportunities | Continuity of contact, offer, next step, and data handling | That a parent-brand pitch is more persuasive |
| Opted-in leads | Relevant value and clear sender identity | Permission for unrelated parent-company offers |
| Historical leads | Usually no campaign until permission and relevance are re-established | That CRM ownership equals outreach permission |
| Workers or applicants | Product/service continuity and privacy-relevant changes | That they are sales leads |
| Partners and suppliers | Contract, contact, routing, and operational changes | That public rebranding changes commercial terms |
Approval map
Require explicit approval from the accountable human before:
- customer, lead, worker, partner, or supplier bulk communication;
- changing the sender identity or reply destination;
- describing legal, contractual, billing, privacy, or security consequences;
- promising continuity, migration dates, feature parity, pricing, or support levels;
- importing a segment into a campaign or changing suppression rules;
- publishing public acquisition, endorsement, or retirement messaging.
Route drafts for specialist review when they contain legal, privacy, tax, employment, regulated-market, or contractual claims. The GTM operator identifies the issue; they do not invent the answer.
Message structure
Every external message should answer, in this order:
- Why is this person receiving the message?
- What changes for them?
- What remains unchanged?
- Is action required?
- Who owns support or the next step?
- Which identity is contacting them, and why?
Keep the acquisition narrative shorter than the customer consequence. “We are excited” is not a substitute for a working login, a known support address, or a clear commercial owner.
Pre-send checks
- Recipient segment and permission basis are documented.
- Suppressions, bounced addresses, objections, and unsubscribes are retained.
- Sender, reply path, and support owner are live and monitored.
- Links, forms, login, and stated destinations are tested.
- Terms, prices, dates, and product claims match approved sources.
- Exact recipient scope and exact message have human approval.
- A small, approved test is read back before any bulk launch.
- Ambiguous send results are investigated, never automatically retried.
Post-send checks
Monitor replies by issue type: access, commercial, privacy, confusion, churn risk, and opportunity. Route each type to a named owner. Pause the next batch if the message exposes a broken path, wrong segment, unexpected objection pattern, or unsupported promise.