So, you have a great product or service that solves a problem, want, or need.
That’s great. It means you already have the makings of a successful business.
Now, you need a go to market strategy that finds and influences the people who need what you have to offer.
A successful go to market strategy clearly defines who you’re targeting, how to find them and the messaging and tactics you will use to engage with them.
But where do you start?
Here, we will guide you through everything you need to do to create a winning go to market strategy for your own brand.
But first, let’s define exactly what a go to market strategy is.
What is a Go To Market Strategy?
A go to market strategy is a detailed blueprint designed to position your service ready for market launch.
Your strategy should map out each phase you need to complete to get your service into the hands of your ideal customer profile.
These phases will include defining your target market, creating effective messaging and implementing a marketing strategy that clearly maps out your sales process and customer journey.
Your market plan will detail who your target customer is and plan exactly how you are going to bring your product to market.
It should showcase your services unique selling points and show your potential customers why they should choose your product even in a competitive market.
Your marketing plan will also detail how you will convey that message to your potential customers using your different marketing channels.
But when is the right time to market your product?
When is the Best Time to Create a Go To Market Strategy?
You will need to create a go to market strategy whenever you have something new to offer.
Whether you are a start-up company ready to launch yourself as a new brand, or you are an established company ready to release a new product or service, you will need a market plan.
The same applies if you are planning on expanding into new markets or testing a new product.
A GTM strategy is there to compliment your overall marketing plan, not replace it.
It serves to hone down specifically on one offering and presents a model your team can follow to release it effectively to your target market.
The Benefits of a Go To Market Strategy
The benefits of a go to market strategy include targeting the right customer base to increase engagement and drive more sales.
Launching a product without a clear plan is like shooting in the dark. You don’t really know if you’re going to hit your target, it’s just guesswork.
Having a detailed marketing strategy allows you to be guided by metrics, not feelings.
So, casting emotions aside, can you answer the following question about your service:
“What evidence do you have that your service solves a need for your target market?”
This question is important, as it requires proof which will validate that the market out there exists for the product or service you are trying to sell.
Without this metrics-based proof, you are risking all of your time and marketing expenditure on an inkling that you have a winning product.
Therefore, gathering relevant information during a GTM strategy will give you informed decision making to reduce risk of error and wasted time and expenditure.
A detailed strategy to get your product to market will not only limit your chances of failure, but it gives you clear goals to aim for, specific timelines and a template you can use again to repeat your success.
Taking the time to create a detailed market strategy template before your product launches is fundamental for your success.
In fact, according to research from CoSchedule, organised marketers are 674% more likely to be successful.
Now, you just have to decide which type of GTM strategy will best suit your needs.
Different Types of Go To Market Strategy
There are several different types of strategy you can use to plan your product, service or brand launch.
You can choose one, or pair these methods together to create a successful campaign.
Here are the main four GTM strategy methods:
1) Inbound
Inbound GTM strategies attempt to attract potential customers organically.
You can do this at each stage of the buyer’s journey using methods such as organic SEO, blog content, or content marketing.
By creating engaging content, you can pique the interest of people who are already looking for the solution you are providing.
This method also helps to build trust and start long term relationships with your audience, and can direct people through your sales funnel.
2) Sales Enablement
The sales strategy is all about upskilling and empowering your sales team through training.
The idea behind this method is to increase sales conversions and productivity within your sales team by improving performance at each stage of the sales cycle.
It can be a good idea to pair this method with other GTM strategy methods to see the best results for your brand.
3) Account Based
Account based marketing strategy is about combining the marketing and sales efforts to target specific accounts for strategic or financial reasons.
This method is about going after bigger and more valuable clients. It may be rarer to get one of these clients over the line, but if you do, it reaps instant rewards.
As well as a huge return on investment, you can create a great case study around a well known brand.
The strategy includes locating and targeting specific accounts and using valuable content and comprehensive cross-channel campaigns to engage with top-rated B2B clients.
4) Demand Generation
Demand generation tactics are more geared towards conventional outbound sales tactics.
The strategies will typically include cold calling, mass email campaigns, paid advertisements and webinars.
The idea is to turn cold leads into warm prospective customers and pass on leads to trained sales reps who will provide a demonstration and go for the close.
Do this BEFORE you Roll Out Your Marketing Campaign
Two huge parts of your go to market campaign come before distributing your marketing efforts. The first is:
Defining your Ideal Customer Profile
To identify your target customer persona, you must clearly answer the following questions:
Who is your perfect client? Where are they located? What’s their budget? What are their problems, needs and wants?
Then try to answer how your service will help solve these problems, needs or desires.
Good practice is to paint a picture of what your ICP’s company looks like before they decided to go with your service, and after they successfully used it.
To make this process more valuable from a marketing view, try and look at happy clients you have already dealt with.
Why did they decide to buy from you? What benefits did they get from your product or service?
If you’re not sure, ask them. You could even use the case study as part of your market process.
Creating the Right Messaging for your Brand
After you’ve built your ICP and identified your product positioning, it’s time to convey that in a way which will resonate with your target audience.
A good way to do this is to focus on the end user.
Think of it this way. Let’s say you are standing as part of a group and a photographer takes one photograph of you all.
The photographer then shows you the photograph. Who is the first person you are looking for in the picture?
That’s right. It’s you!
Your potential customer will be the same. They want to hear about themselves, not about you.
So don’t talk only about your product and how it works.
Show them how you understand who they are and what their needs are. Then focus on how your service solves this for them, and how it benefits them.
That’s how to effectively market your service.
How to Evaluate Your Go To Market Strategy
Measuring the success of your go to market strategy, again, comes down to metrics.
Each and every time you bring out a new service, you should make tweaks to create a new, bespoke strategy.
By reflecting and evaluating your marketing efforts after each campaign, you should see improvements with each service launch.
Here are some of the most important key performance indicators you can use to reflect on your campaign:
Return on Ads Spend
Return on Ads Spend (ROAS) will show you how well your paid adverts are performing.
Divide your paid ads revenue by your advertising expenditure to find your ROAS.
Lifetime Customer Value
Your lifetime customer value (LCV) forecasts on average how much revenue you are likely to bring in from just one customer.
To work this out, multiply your gross margin by your average customer revenue and divide it by your churn rate.
Churn Rate
Your churn rate is how often your existing customers are cancelling your service.
Divide your lost custom by your total custom to work this out.
Click-Through-Rate
Your click-through-rate (CTR) helps you to measure the effectiveness of your content, paid or organic. Specifically, it tells you how well your call-to-actions are performing.
Work this out by dividing the number of total clicks on your landing page by the amount of impressions.
Bounce Rate
Your bounce rate helps you to determine the effectiveness of your landing pages. You want to reduce the speed in which the visitor ‘bounces’ away from your site. Another way to measure this is the ‘time spent on page’.
To work out your bounce rate, divide the total number of one-page visits by the total number of website entries.
Customer Acquisition Cost
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the average amount it costs to bring in new custom.
It’s simple to work out. Just divide your expenditure by the amount of sales.
Let’s Recap
To recap, before you are ready to market your product, you need to create a plan.
This plan, or go to market strategy, will help you map out how you are going to effectively sell your service to the right people, in the right location, at the right time.
There are many different sales strategies you can use to attract potential customers during their buying journey.
To implement one or many of these strategies, you must have full knowledge of your service, as well as your ideal customer profile.
Once you have gathered evidence that there is a market out there interested in your offering, it is time to create your messaging.
This messaging should be geared towards the customer and how it will benefit them.
After your campaign, you should reflect on its performance using success metrics.
If you need help with bringing your service to market, or growing your sales performance, get in touch and we can help you to start growing your business today.
