Every business wants and needs growth, but it is impossible to grow intelligently without a strategy. When there is no plan, business owners can easily spend time, budget, and resources and make no progress.
When bringing a new product to market, the pressures are unique – including looming deadlines, heated competition, and stretched resources – meaning that every move should be planned for and calculated to execute most efficiently. This is where a go-to-market (GTM) strategy becomes critical.
A GTM strategy is not just another piece of paper to stick to your wall for casual reference. It is a detailed guide that supports your business in various situations, from launching that innovative new product to tweaking your brand.
GTM Strategy Defined: A go-to-market (GTM) strategy can be defined as an in-depth, all-inclusive action plan that outlines the activities and proper steps needed to achieve critical objectives, including attracting and winning new clients, entering additional markets, increasing market share, and reaching projected sales and marketing goals, revenue, and ROI.
When a new product or service is unsuccessful, that failure can typically be traced back to an inadequate product launch. Organizations can prevent that situation with a well-conceived, easily implemented GTM strategy that develops a competitive advantage and can be modified based on trackable analytics and client feedback.
What Should Be Included in a GTM Strategy?
There are three primary reasons go-to-market strategies are essential in today’s competitive marketplace.
- A GTM strategy will explain the reasons for launching a new product or service offering and identify potential customers and why they will be attracted to the offering.
- A GTM strategy considers all the potential issues the customer may experience when dealing with the new product or service. This ensures future customer satisfaction and builds trust and brand loyalty from the onset.
- GTM strategy exists primarily to “align” the organization on necessary actions, when these actions occur, and who is responsible to achieve the expected outcomes.
Here are questions that need to be addressed in a comprehensive go-to-market strategy:
- What is the market fit for the product? A new product or service will only succeed if needed or wanted by a target audience, and it must solve a specific issue or need for consumers.
- Who are your potential customer personas? Companies must identify who their clients are, including their needs, preferences, frustrations, interests, and how they fit our ideal customer profile.
- How does your strategy support your potential customers? Keeping in mind the above characteristics, how does your GTM support or provide an answer to those specific people? This stage may identify potential issues as well as solutions to be proactive.
- Who or what represents your competition? It is essential to truly understand who your rivals are, what they offer, and how their GTM strategy works to effectively position your business and your offerings against the competition.
- What are the parameters of your market? You must establish how to market your product or service by answering a few questions. You should identify the size of your market, confirm whether the company will utilize B2B or B2C strategies, and what pricing structure is appropriate.
- What is your value? Your GTM strategy will define how your product or service fits into the organization’s overall business plan.
- How will you develop a market strategy? The market strategy addresses how you will organize and engage with customers and create value across your defined markets.
- How will you organize to optimize the implementation of the GTM Strategy? This includes defining clear expectations for the functional areas of the business & how the extended sales team and sales channels are defined to properly pursue prospects and cover existing customers. This is not solely a customer-facing concern. In fact, how services and other operating functions are aligned should be considered.
- What is your external marketing plan? When it comes time to inform your potential market about your product or service, what types of marketing will be used? Companies should consider branding, lead generation, content, marketing portals, advertising, and events.
A go-to-market strategy is a concise guide to developing product positioning and messaging, generating demand, and guaranteeing a successful launch. You will be well on your way to strategic implementation and ensuring success by addressing the above questions.
Stay tuned for Part 2 in this series, when we address the primary benefits of creating a solid GTM strategy.
Distribute Your GTM to Your Organization
The long-term success of an organization relies on the comprehensive integration and implementation of best practices and SOPs. This may be best achieved by aggregating this information into digital knowledge guides and playbooks and uploading these to information portals that are available for access by all relevant employees.
An intuitive search portal allows all employees to quickly and easily source the information they need (e.g., accessing Knowledge on Demand), saving time and money by never having to “reinvent the wheel” in their day-to-day workflows.
Call today for more information on the innovative KLONE Organizer and how this powerful tool can align your organization to the new GTM Strategy, streamline your business processes and activities, and aggregate the knowledge your team needs to access for their daily work contributions.