How to launch a successful go-to-market strategy.

What is a go-to-market strategy?

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a thorough, step-by-step plan that details how a business will bring a product or service to market. It outlines methods for promoting products to the intended target audience, highlights various marketing and sales strategies and channels, and aligns key stakeholders.

Don’t be fooled by the name of this framework – a lot of planning goes into a go-to-market strategy. The strategy should align your sales, marketing and product teams to ensure that all key stakeholders and departments are on the same page.

What is a GTM strategy vs a marketing strategy?

The main difference between a GTM strategy and a marketing strategy is that a GTM strategy focuses on marketing a new product or service. It helps to ensure that the product is placed in front of the right people, educating potential customers on its uses and benefits. Meanwhile, a marketing strategy is typically broader and used as an ongoing means of promoting a product and the overall brand over time – often featuring a series of campaigns.

Why use a go-to-market strategy?

A go-to-market strategy can bring a host of benefits to your business. Implementing this framework can help you ensure your new product or service reaches the right audience, at the right time, with the right message.

Here’s a breakdown of the key benefits of a GTM strategy:

Clear direction.

A go-to-market strategy can bring clarity to the way you introduce and promote your product to the world. It helps you align all contributing departments — from marketing to sales, product, and customer service – and ensures they all have one clear, shared vision, encouraging them to work towards the same goal cohesively.

Ensure your product fits with the market.

Using an effective go-to-market strategy can help ensure that the new product you’re launching fits in with the right market. Identifying the target audience is an important part of a GTM strategy. And the information you learn from analysing your specific market – such as their needs and suitable messaging and pricing – can help to ensure the product is a good fit.

Get to know your competition.

Competitor research is a key part of an effective go-to-market strategy. Not only can this provide you with vital information on the state of the market, but it can also give you a hint at what your target market responds well to and help you differentiate your new product from what your competitors are offering, increasing the appeal.

Reduce errors.

You could help mitigate risks by implementing a solid GTM strategy. While there’s no way of perfectly executing a marketing plan, a well-structured go-to-market strategy can help you manage expectations and identify any potential issues before they occur. For example, by conducting competitor research, you could pinpoint tactics that have and haven’t worked for similar businesses in the market.

Save time and money.

An effective GTM strategy will save you both time and money as you’re less likely to waste effort and budget on processes that don’t help you meet your goals. Your plan will make all your decisions more strategic and focused, ensuring that you spend your time and money on what matters.

Go-to-market strategy examples.

There are different types of GTM strategies, each with different focuses and benefits depending on your goals. To help you select the right plan, here are some examples:

• Product-led. This is the main way to attract customers. It places focus on providing a standout user experience, so the product ultimately sells itself.
• Sales-led. With this strategy, a sales team plays a central role in building relationships and converting customer sales through personal interactions.
• Channel-led. This involves third-party partners like agents, retailers and distributors selling products as well, to extend market reach without significant upfront investment.
• Marketing-led. With this approach, demand generation and brand awareness are at the forefront of the strategy. Marketing campaigns are used to attract leads, inform prospects, and nurture them until conversion. All elements of marketing are leveraged, including content, SEO, advertising, email marketing, and events.
• Community-led. This framework helps to build a loyal customer base who connect with the company’s values and interact with the brand on social media such as Instagram and TikTok.
• Outbound GTM. This involves contacting potential customers via cold calls, email, and social media to engage with them and foster personal connections to encourage conversions.

How to build a go-to-market strategy framework.

Ready to build your own go-to market strategy, but unsure where to start? Not to worry, simply follow our step-by-step guide to creating one that attracts the right audience and clearly communicates your value to set you up for success.

1. Choose the right go-to-market strategy template.

A go-to-market strategy template can save you tons of time and effort by helping you organise your plan into clear, manageable sections. Launching a new product can be overwhelming, with plenty of tasks to complete and people to liaise with. Selecting a ready-made, customisable GTM template can help to keep everything and everyone aligned and focused.

2. Identify your target market.

When it comes to your go-to market strategy, you should always put the customer first. To do this, you must first identify who your target market is. This will include the people who are most likely to use and benefit from your product or service.

To understand this audience, you’ll need to conduct research to find out factors such as their demographic data, behaviours, preferences, disposable income and pain points. Creating buyer personas is an effective way of gathering this data and identifying your ideal customers.

3. Craft a compelling value proposition.

A compelling value proposition will clearly communicate the benefit your product provides to consumers, as well as highlight the problems it solves. It tells the target audience why they should buy your product instead of a competitor’s. A competitive analysis will help you gather information for this, but you can also ask yourself:

• What pain points does your product solve?
• What’s unique about your product?
• What difference will the product make to the target market’s lives or experiences?

4. Determine pricing strategy and guidelines.

Price is another factor that plays a vital role in your go-to-market strategy. The information you gathered while identifying your target audience will help you select a suitable price for your product, as you’ll have an idea of what your ideal customer can and cannot afford to purchase.

You don’t want to set a price too high, as this can deter people from buying the product, and a price too low can result in you losing profit. Ideally, your price should fit your business objectives, match your customer profile, and make you competitive in the marketplace.

Ask yourself these questions:

• How much does it cost to manufacture your product?
• What price do you need to set to make a profit?
• How much do your competitors charge?

5. Select effective promotion channels.

Your promotion strategy will serve as an action plan to promote your product, considering all the data you’ve gathered. It involves creating an effective marketing plan that sets out what you’ll do and what you’ll spend, and the marketing channels you’ll use to deliver them.

The way you decide to promote your product will depend on the product or service you’re offering and who you’re offering it to. For example, a B2B software company might outline in its go-to-market strategy that it’ll focus on LinkedIn campaigns, webinars, and email nurturing, while a B2C brand may lean heavily on Instagram ads, influencer collaborations, and user-generated content.

6. Establish metrics and track performance.

Goals and metrics are key for assessing the performance and effectiveness of your go-to-market strategy. Not only will this help you keep track of progress, but it will also allow you to make any necessary changes to achieve better results.

Take a look at these common metrics for measuring the success of a go-to-market strategy:

• Cost per dollar of sales expense
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Conversion rate
• Length of the sales cycle.

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