Sales and Growth

Go-to-Market Strategy: What Is It?

Prepare yourself for a new product launch or relaunch

Published:

Anam Jalil

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Every business is trying to sell something, which is why they utilize marketing channels to target customers. However, all of their marketing efforts are in vain if they don't have a proper go-to-market strategy or competitive advantage.

It is important for the sales team to be able to differentiate your product from others when speaking to the target audience and it is important for the marketing team to clearly address how your product/service caters to customer pain points.

However, what if you haven't achieved a product-market fit? What if your customers don't need the type of product/service you are providing or you are targeting the wrong customers?

Go-to market strategy matrix

Also Read: Customer Lifetime Value for SaaS

Let's back up here and go through a few definitions.

What is a go-to-market strategy?

Gartner describes a go-to-market strategy as "a plan that details how an organization can engage with customers to convince them to buy their product or service and to gain a competitive advantage."

Basically, you can't just create a product/service and put it in front of your target market. They need to know why they should buy from you, what makes you better than the others, what's your value proposition, and how you are going to convey it to your customer base.

Let's explore the concept of product-market fit.

What is product-market fit?

To develop a great go-to-market strategy, you must ensure a product-market fit. A poor product-market fit means that your go-to-market strategy will fail.

Mailchimp describes a product-market fit in the simplest and easiest terms, " it means you are in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market."

So your product is something that the target audience wants/needs and is willing to buy. For example, a company that is offering video calls with doctors in remote villages hasn't exactly done its market research effectively.

First of all, their prospective customers may not have access to video conferencing devices or the internet and the market is not ready to accept medical advice via video - they are only satisfied with in-person doctor visits.

The sales process will be highly extensive in this case, if successful at all, as sales teams will have to educate the audience, and perhaps completely change their opinion, to achieve their business objectives. Their business model may be exemplary but their target customer is wrong.

Now, let's explore what else you have to look at for your go-to-the-market strategy.

How to develop go-to-market strategies (GTM)

Before your product launch, you need to develop a go-to-market strategy that is an amalgamation of a marketing strategy and a sales strategy. You must ensure your go-to-market plan caters to your marketing objectives and that your marketing messaging is correct and delivered to the right target market at the right time.

Whether you are launching an existing product in a new market, launching a new product in an existing market, or going for a new product in a completely new market, you need a plan to ensure you don't make expensive mistakes.

First of all, let's answer a few basic questions:

1. What is your product and what unique value does it provide? What is your value proposition?

2. Who is your customer group? Have you developed buyer personas to identify potential customers?

3. Where are you going to pitch your product? What's the product's existing market and what new market can you enter?

4. How are you going to get in touch with your customers and develop customer relationships? What is your marketing plan and what is the market landscape like? Will you engage in content marketing? What will your sales funnel be like?

These questions form the basis of a solid GTM strategy. You first begin to answer these questions. Now, to expand upon and write out your GTM strategy, you need to follow these simple steps.

1. Identify the problem that you want to solve and consider the buyer's perspective. What will they see in your product? What does it solve for them?

2. Outline your buyer persona/personas and set a pricing strategy. What can they afford? How much are they willing to pay? Consider your customer acquisition cost and set the price accordingly. Consider how to reach these people and which media to use to advertise.

3. Research competitors and their existing customers. Check out their buyer's journey and decide how yours can be different or similar. Consider how you can provide a better customer experience.

4. Draft your main message. Consider mapping out a value matrix that lists your buyer personas, their pain points, and what value you are providing them with your product. Accordingly, you can draft your messaging.

Value matrix for GTM strategy

5. The buyer's journey needs to be mapped out. Are you offering a self-service model? product-led growth? or will sales reps and customer success reps help in growth? Decide what information and content you will be offering at the top of the funnel, in the middle of the funnel, and at the bottom of the funnel.

6. Make a marketing plan. It isn't all up to your engineering team. To achieve huge success, you need to get the word out. Consider what your initial marketing campaign will be and which marketing platforms you want to engage on. Your chief marketing officer can help organize this facet of your go-to-market model. Marketing campaigns need to be properly targeted, engaging, and cost-effective.

7. Confirm your sales plan. This involves discussing your distribution model. You can use a self-service model, field service model, or an inside sales model with no human involvement, the sales manager working on big enterprise deals, and a little sales involvement respectively. You can also partner with established companies selling similar products to yours for a better sales strategy.

8. Set goals and measure success. Set KPIs and consider what you want to achieve in what period of time. Measure what you actually have achieved in that time and then reset your KPIs accordingly. You will need to mend and reconsider often but it is important to set realistic standards.

Bottom Line

For an effective GTM strategy, you need to involve all of the high-level management and customer-facing roles, and the marketing team. Consider your buying process and your marketing strategy, and the channels you are using to promote your product.

It is important to remind you that email marketing should not be ignored as one of the most effective marketing channels. As long as the customers in your new product's market have email addresses, you need to send them emails and drip campaigns.

However, you also need to ensure that your emails are seen after they land in the Priority Inbox. That's where GoCustomer comes in to improve your email deliverability, spike up your open rates, and increase conversions!

We hope your go-to-market strategies are designed for success!

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Table of Contents

    In a nutshell

    The go-to-market strategy includes a strategic plan detailing how companies plan on executing the successful product launch and promotion, and eventually the sales to consumers.
    Product, price, promotion, place, and people. These elements, commonly known as the "5 Ps," are critical to achieving marketing objectives and creating a competitive advantage in today's dynamic business landscape.
    GTM strategy is an approach to influencing a customer's purchasing behavior and to gain a competitive advantage.
    The five go-to-market strategies include: Direct sales, Channel sales, Partner ecosystems, Freemium, Self-service.
    The 3 main components of a go-to-market strategy are: market intelligence, market segmentation, & product messaging.
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