Without analyzing the market demand, time, and situation, unveiling consumer products pose a significant risk to an unprofitable business. So, It is time to focus on the market and product development at a time, as most failed companies only focus on the product.
This comprehensive guide will cover everything you need to know about developing and implementing a go-to-market strategy with examples that will help your business thrive.
Definition of Go-to-Market Strategy
The Go-to-market (GTM) strategy is the most stirred buzzword in the business world. Every business owner has their own go-to-market framework to create hype about the product or service they are about to launch to the customers.
A go-to-market or GTM strategy is nothing but a plan of the organizations before bringing up their product or service to the market. This strategy draws the details of the target market, audience, competitors, pricing, Etc.
It utilizes outside resources, unique value propositions, and competitive advantage to enrich customer engagement with the product.
The upshot, a GTM strategy aims to help a company achieve its revenue and growth objectives by effectively bringing its products or services to market.
*Note: Establishing a strong online presence is vital to a successful go-to-market strategy. This includes having a professional website that accurately represents your brand. In our most recent blog post, we've compiled a list of the top website builders to assist you in getting started.
Goals of a Go-to-Market strategy
The ultimate goal of a Go-to-Market strategy are,
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Product awareness,
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Engage and persuade potential customers,
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Maximizing market share,
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Increasing customer engagement,
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Outperforming competitors,
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Strengthening brand positioning,
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Reducing costs,
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Drive revenue growth.
The steps of developing a Go-to-market strategy
The steps of the go-to-market (GTM) strategy are easy as pie. Following these 7 steps mentioned below, anyone can create their own market strategy framework.
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Step 4: Creating a pricing strategy
Without further ado, let's quick on the draw,
1. Identifying and Understanding the Target Customer
Define who would have the possible buoyant demand for your coming product or service. Also, define the market where your buyer persona gathers most.
Any company that creates a go-to-market strategy, builds a buying center at first with 6-10 people in charge to define the target customer. Each person plays an individual role; however, many roles credit a diverse person. The roles are:
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Initiator - initiator starts the process of buying with the initial interest.
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Influencer - this role can be played by the sales or marketing manager of the company to convince others to purchase the product.
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Decision maker - this role is to approve the final purchase decision.
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Buyer - this role can be played by the CFO, who owns the budget.
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User - this role can be played by the operation managers who use the product regularly.
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Approver - This role can be played by the company CEO or COO, which states initiative on a large scale according to the buying center result.
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Gatekeeper - the role of a gatekeeper is to let the product be implemented or approved.
However, the role can change according to the company's size and product.
2. Developing a value proposition
After defining your target customer, follow the steps to develop a value proposition to create a Go-to-market strategy:
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Identify your product's unique benefits and features: Consider the fantastic benefits and features that align with your target customers' needs and address their pain points.
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Craft a value proposition statement: Use the insights you gained from your research to craft a message that clearly communicates how your product can solve your customers' problems and provide value to them.
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Test and refine your value proposition: Test your value proposition with a small group of target customers and gather their feedback. Use this feedback to refine and improve your value proposition until it resonates with your target customers and effectively communicates the value of your product.
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Use your value proposition consistently: Once you have developed a strong value proposition, use it consistently across all of your marketing and sales materials to create effective communication with the value of your product to potential customers.
3. Identifying the most effective distribution channels
To identify the most effective distribution channels for your Go-to-market strategy after defining the target customer and value proposition, you can follow these steps:
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Evaluate different distribution channels: Research and evaluate various channels to determine the most likely to reach and effectively serve target customers. There are various distribution channels, such as online marketplaces, retail stores, distributors, direct sales, Etc.
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Assess each channel's pros and cons: Consider each distribution channel's pros and cons to determine the best fit for your business and your target customers. The pros and cons contain cost, reach, and customer experience.
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Select the most effective channels: Based on your research and analysis, select the distribution channels that are most likely to reach and effectively serve your target customers, and develop a plan for implementing and managing these channels.
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Monitor and adjust your strategy: Monitor the performance of your selected distribution channels and make adjustments as needed to ensure that they are effectively reaching and serving your target customers.
4. Creating a pricing strategy
To create a price strategy for the Go-to-Market strategy, you can follow these steps:
As you already know your target market and value proposition,
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Analyze your costs and profit margins: Carefully analyze your costs, including the cost of goods sold, overhead, and marketing and sales expenses, to determine your profit margins.
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Research competitors' prices: Research the prices of similar products or services offered by your competitors to gain a sense of the market rate and the pricing strategies they are using.
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Set your prices: Based on your research and analysis, set your prices at a level that aligns with the value of your product or service and allows you to achieve your desired profit margins.
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Monitor and adjust your pricing: Monitor the performance of your pricing strategy and make adjustments as needed based on market conditions and customer feedback.
5. Developing a marketing and sales plan
To promote your product, you must develop a market and sales plan. The following steps will help you to build your marketing and sales plan for the Go-to-Market strategy,
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To develop a marketing plan: outline the tactics and channels you will use to reach and engage your target customers, such as advertising, content marketing, and social media.
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To create a sales plan: Develop a sales plan that outlines the specific strategies and tactics you will use to generate leads, convert them into customers, and retain them. This plan should include the roles and responsibilities of your sales team and any sales and communication tools, such as contact center, and processes you will use.
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Set goals and metrics: Set "SMART" goals for your market and sales plan, and identify the key metrics you will use to track and evaluate your progress. The "SMART" contains Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
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Monitor and adjust your plan: Monitor the performance of your market and sales plan and make adjustments as needed based on market conditions and customer feedback.
6. Establishing metrics and tracking systems
In the Go-to-market (GTM) strategy, the metrics and tracking system are essential to establish. Here I am describing some steps to help you to establish your metrics and tracking system. Let's get started.
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Identify your goals and objectives: Clearly define the specific goals and objectives of your go-to-market strategy, such as increasing market share, generating leads, or increasing sales.
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Choose the right metrics: Choose metrics relevant to your goals and objectives and can accurately measure the performance of your go-to-market strategy. Examples of metrics commonly used in go-to-market strategies include revenue, customer acquisition costs, lifetime value, and satisfaction.
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Set up tracking systems: Establish a strategy to follow the customer relationship management (CRM), software and marketing automation tools metrics.
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Monitor and analyze the metrics: Regularly monitor and analyze the metrics to track the performance of your go-to-market strategy and identify areas for improvement.
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Use the metrics to make adjustments: Use the insights from the metrics to adjust your go-to-market strategies, such as changing your pricing, marketing tactics, or sales processes to achieve your goals and objectives.
7. Ongoing optimization and adjustment
Ongoing optimization and adjustment of the Go-to-market (GTM) strategy are essential to ensure that your strategy remains effective and aligned with market conditions and customer needs.
Regularly monitoring and analyzing the metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) you have established for your go-to-market strategy and making adjustments based on the insights you gain from these metrics will help the ongoing optimization and adjustment.
For example, if you find that your pricing needs to be aligned with the value of your product or service, or if you need to generate more leads or sales, you may need to adjust your pricing strategy or your marketing and sales tactics.
Similarly, if your target customers' needs and preferences are changing or new competitors are entering the market, you may need to adjust your value proposition, distribution channels, or other elements of your strategy.
Keeping the go-to-market strategy adequate and relevant is very important. To ensure the flow, review and analyze the performance of your strategy regularly and make adjustments as much as possible. This approach will allow you to continue delivering value to your customers and business.
Tips: Instead of using the same go-to-market strategy, consider optimizing the strategy depending on the customers and competitors.
Those who rated their GTM process maturity as a 9 or 10, witnessed at least a 76% success rate with launches.
Ignition
Case Studies and Examples of Go-to-Market strategy
Now, let's look at some Go-to-Market (GTM) strategies that successful businesses implement.
Upscope - an online screen-sharing service
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Pain points
Quick and responsive screen sharing - Upscope can see the customer's screen in one click and navigate with their mouse while solving the issues.
So far, it has reduced the length of each call by 30%, but more importantly, both agents and clients like the convenience of not having to install a third-party screen share tool.
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Buying process
When their developer makes changes, they test the program locally before deploying them to production.
The customer service, account management, and support teams will next test the program.
Finally, a security department will review if their product is tied to banking or health.
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Marketing Plan
The target market of Upscope is evolved, but how they contact them is the same–through content and integrations.
They are constantly following the wave of Intercom, LiveChat, Zendesk, Drift, and others' growth pathways. So they built interfaces with these technologies to be listed in their app stores. In addition, Upscope developed some quality content that helps them appear as the #1 of google when a user searches for technologies such as Intercom.
They recruited SaaS creators by blogging about their SaaS journey, including onboarding letters, SaaS pricing, and pieces like this.
They're now building more CS, account management, and enterprise support marketing channels, including further integrations, advertisements, emails, and content.
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Buyer Persona and Their Journey
Upscope's buyer persona journey, or funnel, was designed in three steps: attention, deliberation, and decision.
Attention - they attract users when they visit their landing pages at the top of the funnel.
Deliberation - lets users use a demo and/or ask questions via live chat in the middle of the funnel.
Decision - they assess the trial phase and induct the appropriate pricing to allow the consumer to make the purchase decision at the bottom of the funnel.
Microsoft Surface
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Pain Points
Microsoft Windows has long been the dominant operating system, and for a good reason– nearly all computer makers sell Windows laptops and desktops.
First, Microsoft set out to fix a frequent problem for tablet users in its go-to-market plan for its Surface tablets, as tablets were primarily mobile devices.
Microsoft clarified its viewpoint when it unveiled the third iteration of the Surface tablet.
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Competitive Analyze
Compared to its main competition, the Apple iPad, the Surface tablet had more capabilities for the same price.
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Marketing plan
Microsoft's Surface laptops make the decision easier for target audiences such as college students and regular users. These devices compete with Apple's macOS products and are meant to connect easily with all of Windows OS's capabilities.
Mailchimp - Email automation application
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Pain Points
Mailchimp began its journey by focusing solely on small businesses and individual customers.
They provided a free service to entice prospects with limited budgets and generated buzz through SEO, PR, and word-of-mouth marketing.
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Marketing Plan
To keep expenses low and acquisition simple, they implemented a product-led strategy that placed their platform at the heart of their new sales organization.
After a few years of steady growth, they revised their pricing approach and introduced paid-for subscription options based on expanded features, third-party integrations, and volume.
TaxJar
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Pain points
TaxJar is an end-to-end solution for sales tax calculation, reporting, and filing in its development. Regulatory and eCommerce trends have generated a massive tailwind for growth across all client segments. TaxJar now had over 20,000 users and intended to shift upmarket to capitalize on its window of opportunity.
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Marketing plan
At the very beginning to support their startup go-to-market strategy, they launched an information and branding campaign to raise awareness of both their market niche and the firm itself.
TaxJar created a profusion of excellent material and concentrated on SEO advertising. But, of course, having no competition allowed them to position the company as an authority in internet sales taxes.
Best Go-to-Market Strategy Templates
SlideModel
Here is another creative Go-to-market Strategy presentation template you can use to prepare your presentations on Go-to-market. With 29 slides, this Go to Market Strategy Template for PowerPoint & Google Slides offers everything one needs for making successful presentations, from timelines to goal-setting charts, visual diagrams, and editable placeholders.
Since this template is originally created for PowerPoint, it is highly customizable & intuitive for users who use Microsoft Office. It is also visually appealing, ensuring that your audience won't get bored. Every slide includes elements like graphs, charts, and text boxes so you can easily customize the design for your presentation.
The power of visual slides combined with a large variety of layouts & charts helps presenters quickly draw their audience's attention while giving them a comprehensive overview of the topics at hand.
Pitch
Pitch has contributed an editable free ppt template. The PPT was well-organized, with a total of 26 slides. The slides are extensive; anyone can create a go-to-market strategy by filling in the blanks.
Hrvoje Grubišić
Like the previous one, this colorful free PPT template is for a go-to-market strategy. Anyone can edit and create their own strategy with this template. The summary, market, buyer profile, channels, pricing, KPI, and other slides are well-organized in this template.
Jotform
This template is well-aligned with important step-by-step points, such as company information, product information, market problem and strategy, price, value proposition, external marketing, and metrics. Using this template to create a go-to-market strategy will be very clear and bold.
Miro
It's a centralized warehouse for your research, insights, and data, as well as your business plan, target audience, marketing strategy, and sales strategy. A go-to-market is especially critical for rapidly growing companies, and they must make split-second choices while entirely in sync.
What defines an efficient go-to-market strategy?
An effective go-to-market (GTM) strategy is reaching out and selling to a company's target customers. Several critical factors define a successful go-to-market strategy:
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A well-defined target market
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Value Proposition
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Channels of marketing
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Metrics for the Sales Process
An effective GTM strategy should be well-thought-out, targeted, and connected with the company's broader business goals. It should also be regularly examined and updated in reaction to market changes or the organization's capabilities.
What are the core Benefits of a go-to-market strategy?
A well-crafted go-to-market (GTM) plan has various advantages:
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Focus: A go-to-market strategy assists a company in concentrating its efforts and resources on reaching and selling to the customers most likely to benefit from its products or services.
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Efficiency: A go-to-market strategy can help a company sell more successfully and efficiently by clearly identifying the target market, value proposition, and sales process, decreasing the time and resources required to close agreements.
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Higher revenue: A well-executed go-to-market plan can assist a company in reaching and selling to a more significant number of customers, resulting in increased revenue and profitability.
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Competitive Advantage: A go-to-market strategy suited to the individual demands and preferences of the target market. This strategy gives the company a competitive advantage over its competitors.
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Improved customer experience: A go-to-market approach centered on satisfying the demands and resolving problems for target consumers can result in a better overall customer experience, increasing customer loyalty and retention.
Overall, a go-to-market strategy can assist a company in effectively reaching and selling to its target customers, resulting in more significant revenue, profitability, and competitive market advantage.
What are the Challenges of go-to-market (GTM) strategies?
Companies may encounter various problems while establishing and implementing go-to-market (GTM) strategies:
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Identifying the correct target market
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Creating a compelling value proposition
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Choosing the proper marketing channels
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Managing the sales process
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Tracking and measuring results
Overall, designing and implementing a GTM strategy can be complex and challenging, but it is critical for businesses to contact and sell to their target customers effectively.
What is the difference between a Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy and a marketing strategy?
A firm's go-to-market (GTM) strategy describes how it will take its product or service to market and reach its target client. It entails selecting the target customer's value proposition and messaging and deciding on the marketing channels and methods to reach and engage the customer. A go-to-market strategy aims to get the product or service in front of the right customers and generate demand for it.
On the other hand, a marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan that defines the steps a company will take to attain its marketing goals. It includes researching and analyzing the target market, generating messaging and positioning, and deciding on marketing channels and techniques to reach and engage the target audience. Marketing strategy comprises continual efforts to establish and manage a brand, generate demand, and promote consumer loyalty in addition to the debut of a product or service.
In brief, a go-to-market strategy is a precise plan for how a company will advertise its product or service. In contrast, a marketing strategy is a broader plan for reaching marketing objectives.
What are the types of GTM?
There is no set number of "types" of go-to-market strategies, as each company can create a unique approach based on its needs and goals.
The Bottom Line
A well-crafted go-to-market strategy is crucial for any company's growth. It generally requires a thorough understanding of your target market, a distinct value proposition, and a strategy for reaching and engaging your customers. You can create a strategy that will help you successfully launch and scale your business by following the steps outlined in this guide.
Always remember to analyze and adjust your strategy as needed, and don't be afraid to take calculated risks and try new things. You'll be well on your way to achieving your company's growth if you have a solid go-to-market strategy in place.
