E5: "Message-market-fit": How to systematically test 13 campaigns to find asymmetric GTM results | Kellen Casebeer
GTM Engineer School Podcast
The Power of Experimentation in Marketing
This chapter highlights the critical role of experimentation in developing effective marketing strategies and crafting messages. It encourages a scientific approach to marketing that prioritizes real-world testing and adaptation based on audience feedback.
About our guest — Kellen Casebeer
Kellen Casebeer is founder of The Deal Lab, a Smartlead Certified Partner and Clay Certified Expert agency helping B2B companies achieve message-market-fit through systematic outbound testing. He runs the weekly Clay Cafe open office hours and shares GTM engineering teardowns with his growing LinkedIn following.
Before launching The Deal Lab, Kellen's diverse background included wiring ultra-luxury home automation systems, crushing quota as an enterprise SDR, and serving as chief of staff at a pre-product health tech startup. This zero-to-one experience across technical implementation, sales execution, and startup operations gives him unique perspective on rapid GTM experimentation.
Kellen is obsessed with speed to value and has built a systematic approach to dividing markets, identifying buyer segments, and rapidly testing messaging to find what he calls "message-market-fit" — the sweet spot where messaging resonates so strongly it generates asymmetric results.
Core takeaways
* The message-market-fit framework — why finding the right communication approach matters as much as product-market fit
* Market segmentation methodology — breaking down markets by segment, persona, and angle for systematic testing
* The RSS podcast scraping play — how creative signal detection generated 5% meeting rates in enterprise healthcare IT
* Experimentation over perfection — why running 13 simultaneous campaigns beats trying to craft one perfect message
* The single-issue voter principle — understanding that prospects make decisions based on one primary factor
* Asymmetric results mindset — seeking 30 meetings per month instead of incrementally improving 8 to 9
* The phone as underrated GTM tool — why voice remains the most direct path to decision makers
* Scientific method for GTM — applying cancer research methodology to campaign testing and iteration
Top quotes
Best Definition of GTM Engineering: "GTM engineering to me is a concept... basically the idea of taking the outcome or the challenge of what you're trying to achieve with your go-to-market. And I think just engineering what it looks like to build that out."
On Market Evolution: "B2B SaaS itself as an industry is extremely new. And then like these growth motions against it are pretty new... the idea that what we're participating in is the mature state of what's to come is ridiculous."
The Clay Ecosystem: "When Clay went like, hey, we have a tool set that can sort of congeal a bunch of these places in one place... it creates this little triangle where it's like the tool provider, the companies that want the benefit of the tool, and then tool experts."
Message-Market-Fit Defined: "Someone not thinking about anything. What can we say to get someone to come talk to us? Product market fits, like what do you sell? What's the price point? Will they buy it if they know what it is?"
The Asymmetric Mindset: "Clients don't want incremental, they're looking for asymmetrical... if you're at eight and you're like, I think if we did this, we could get nine, the path from eight to nine will never get you to 30."
On Experimentation: "The things that work and the things that you wanted to work are not synonymous... experimenting and deifying being in motion, running imperfect tests and allowing the results to dictate what happens next is a much faster, more effective way."
Single-Issue Voters: "People are single issue voters behaviorally... We are not inclined to figure out every single factor, measure every single factor and make our best decision. What we do is we care about of all the factors, one thing the most.
Referenced tools and resources
* Clay: Primary data manipulation and orchestration platform for campaign building
* Smartlead: Email sequencing platform for outbound distribution (Kellen is certified partner)
* ChatGPT: AI assistance for message creation and data processing with 4.0 mini for cost efficiency
* Scaled Mail: Infrastructure provider for email deliverability (Dean gets the shoutout)
* Lead Magic: Email validation and email finding data source
* Miro: Kellen's secret weapon for visualizing ideas and client collaboration
* RSS Feed: Creative data source for podcast guest scraping and engagement
* HubSpot: Preferred CRM for ease of use and integration capabilities
* The Phone: Most underrated GTM tool for direct prospect engagement
Timestamps
* (00:01) Introduction to Kellen Casebeer and The Deal Lab background
* (01:45) GTM engineering: Problem-solving approach to go-to-market challenges
* (04:30) Gradual momentum vs. before/after transformation moments
* (08:56) Clay's role in creating the GTM engineering ecosystem and job category
* (13:21) Lightning Round: Tool preferences and rapid-fire recommendations
* (15:54) System design approach: Market, segment, persona, and angle framework
* (21:10) Sample size methodology: Qualitative over quantitative testing approach
* (26:31) Favorite play: RSS podcast scraping for enterprise healthcare IT penetration
* (32:45) Essential skills for different GTM engineering: sales, technical, strategy
* (38:31) Core tool stack: ChatGPT, Clay, ScaleMail, Lead Magic, Smartlead
* (41:54) Final advice: Experiment more and follow scientific methodology
* (43:41) Where to connect with Kellen and join Clay Cafe community
How to connect with Kellen
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