Marketing Strategy Template Doc – Every company looking to attract users or customers needs a go-to-market strategy. Find out how to make your own and what looks good.
A go-to-market strategy is a plan for how to launch a new product or service to the market or launch an existing product in a new market. As such, market strategies tend to focus on the short term, but effective strategies also consider how immediate success can be sustained over a longer period of time.
Marketing Strategy Template Doc
There is no standard format for a go-to-market strategy. Different companies have to consider and prioritize different elements, according to their maturity, their existing presence in the market, their business model, their way of organization and financing and all their exit plans.
Digital Marketing Strategy Plan Template
Every project that aims to attract new customers needs a strategy to go to market. Some of the obvious scenarios include:
Even companies and products that are considered established can benefit from regular strategy reviews to go to market as a way to be aware and prepare for new competition and other market forces. So should your business have one? For sure.
You can be successful without a go-to-market strategy, but for that, you need a once-in-a-generation product or a huge amount of luck. A good go-to-market strategy is designed to reduce risk and maximize return on investment (ROI) by gathering knowledge before the event and using that insight to take the most effective action.
Company A and Company B have new software products with equal capabilities. Company A opens for business early, without an exit strategy. You might get a lucky few early bird sales, but soon the new customers will dry up. He doesn’t know where to go to get new clients, or really what kind of people to talk to, or what to say even if he finds them. They try to cover all the bases, but find that their marketing budget is spread too thin and their advertising messages just don’t cut it. They are quickly done by competitors. Meanwhile, the customers who did become increasingly frustrated with the lack of support and end up going elsewhere.
Your Essential Guide To Building A Membership Marketing Strategy
Meanwhile, Company B produced a detailed strategy of going to market before even taking a dollar on sales. Their marketing budget was concentrated in only a few countries that they thought were the most profitable, and their advertising was designed to resonate with a specific professional group. They also took the time to build a purchase process that is not only easy to follow, but encourages new customers to increase their use of the product. And by tracking a few key user and financial metrics, they are able to authoritatively predict how they will grow, and thus the additional resources they will need to enable that future growth.
But a go-to-market strategy is not enough on its own. Going to market is one of the three necessary strategies for growth; with product strategy and revenue delivery strategy being the other two.
A product strategy must clearly define the challenges that the solution aims to overcome, who benefits, and how these benefits are realized (for example in cost savings, time savings, higher performance or improved security). The product strategy should also compare the capabilities of the product to similar solutions in the market, and articulate how it is better, and where it is lacking.
A revenue delivery strategy explains how the operational components needed to support product growth will be organized. A revenue delivery strategy is broad, covering how orders are received and processed, how customer records are maintained, how users are onboarded, supported, charged and recognized, and what needs to be done to the right side of financial and legal regulations.
Marketing Strategy Template
So, the best products (derived from the product strategy) fail without customers (provided by the go-to-market strategy); And the best products, with many customers, will fail if sales cannot be processed and service levels maintained (a step forward in the revenue sharing strategy).
But not every go-to-market strategy falls neatly into the middle of this journey. How you approach your go-to-market strategy depends on what will drive your growth. Basically, there are two options: product-led growth; and driven sales growth.
A product-driven sales strategy puts the product at the heart of growth. The product is not only a solution to a business problem, but also acts as a silent seller that allows customers to buy, renew and upgrade everything without leaving the product. The key to the idea of this self-service sales model is not only the absence of a salesperson at the time of purchase, but also the discovery and research phase of the sales journey. In theory, everything a potential customer wants to know, from solution features and technical requirements to pricing options and contract terms, should be available in the product.
Product-driven marketing strategies are a volume game, with tactics like a freemium offering designed to attract users first, before converting them to paying customers later.
Saas Brand, Marketing And Content Strategy
In product-oriented marketing strategies, the product is the main sales channel, so the distinction between a product strategy and a market strategy is more blurred. Elements such as website architecture, product design, UX and copy all determine the customer journey, and thus become more important to the marketing strategist.
A market-driven sales strategy sees sales initiated and closed by a salesperson. Although the product will be a central part of any sales conversation, the sale itself (and any future renewals and updates) takes place outside the platform. This tends to be the approach taken when the product is so revolutionary, or complex, or expensive, that the purchase decision involves many actors and many communications, over several months. The sales process is resource intensive, and in turn, the business focuses on making fewer sales at higher profits.
Because market strategies are driven by people-oriented sales, the product plays less of a role, so the ongoing relationship with product marketing is weaker. Instead, in a sales-driven growth plan, product marketing and go-to-market strategies work closely at the beginning to define the benefits of the solution and the target audience. Equally, in a market-driven sales strategy, where the product is not the order processing tool, the product delivery and revenue strategies are more disconnected.
Whether launching a new startup or a new product; And regardless of whether you’re following a product- or sales-led growth path, a good go-to-market strategy includes some core components. Here we look at four of the main elements that you should consider when creating a strategy to go to market.
Marketing Plan Template For Word (free Download)
As we have seen with the relationship between market strategies, product and revenue, these elements are not linear. There is interdependence, meaning the answer to one question will inform (or cancel) another. However, any go-to-market strategy has to start somewhere. This is often driven by the history or culture of the business.
Startups whose founders set out to solve a problem that frustrates them will probably start to adapt the product to the market and engineer a business case around it; Whereas an enterprise supplier with the means to innovate quickly can be driven by what their customers tell them they need. Equally, an opportunistic entrepreneur might conclude that every product in a range is too expensive or suffers from poor customer service and sets out to fix it.
Where you start with your go-to-market strategy is not as important as making sure you focus on all four elements simultaneously. This will ensure that your final go-to-market strategy is holistic, thorough and consistent.
Markets can be defined in different ways, and each must be considered in a strategy to go to market. Markets can be a specific sector, profession, demographic or physical location. Sometimes, you need a little thought. Clearly, an employee management software platform has to be aimed at HR professionals. An app that provides public transport timetables for Japan is unlikely to find much success in any other country. But sometimes there is more than one purpose. For example, a user of your product may not be the person who decides to buy; And there can also be a separate person who must sign the budget.
Marketing Plan Basics
Making things more complicated is the different way businesses are structured and decisions are made. In one business, you only need to convince a single middle manager, while another may require more senior approval. If your product is software or other technology, the IT and security perspective will likely want input to ensure it can integrate with their other systems. There may also be influencers – both internal and external to the prospect – who claim to have the power. The key is to build people for every possible purpose that helps move the strategy from the abstract, closer to reality.
The same applies to choosing your market segment. Products designed for a particular industry – think compliance software for banks or security equipment for construction companies – need only a specific sector. But for a product with multi-sectoral appeal, (ie because it supports a general business function, such as finance, HR or CRM) the plan becomes