Product Go To Market Strategy – The best GTM strategies help companies define their target audience, craft their messaging, and align key business units around a single, coordinated plan to build and launch better products to the right people, at the right time.
In this post, we’ll go into more detail about what this type of strategy is and provide a template and examples so you can create and run your own holistic, customer-centric go-to-market strategy.
Product Go To Market Strategy
A go-to-market strategy is a tactical plan created to position a product for launch. A successful GTM strategy shows who the product is intended for, how the product meets the needs of the market and how it differs from competitors. It usually consists of multiple components, including buyer personas, a pricing model, a marketing plan, and a sales strategy.
A Strategist’s Go To Market Strategy Guide — Rational Vc
Each GTM strategy is unique depending on the product and market, but each should answer the following questions:
When will you launch your product? The success of any product launch depends on timing. For example, if you launch too late, you may enter the market when it is oversaturated. That’s why your GTM strategy should include a timeline with clear milestones.
Let’s say you are launching a new product in an existing market or launching an existing product in a new market. Before doing this, you’ll want to know who your ideal customers are, what problem your product solves, and how it differs from existing solutions on the market.
The GTM framework can help you answer these questions by combining market analysis, competitive research, and marketing and sales strategies.
Chapter 14: Three Pillars That Support A Successful Product Led Gtm Strategy
Without a GTM strategy, some of these questions may go unanswered and result in failure. Take C2, for example. Introduced in 2004, C2 was Coca-Cola’s largest Diet Coke product launch. With half the calories and carbs and all the taste of original Coke, C2 was designed for men in their 20s to 40s who loved the taste of Coke and the calorie-free aspect of Diet Coke, but not the calories and carbs of the previous or the taste of the latter. However, the launch was ultimately deemed a failure. Men didn’t find C2 different or attractive enough, and women preferred Diet Coke – especially since C2 was more expensive. It also launched the product just as the low-carb diet phenomenon was dying down.
These issues may have been discovered prior to product launch with an extensive go-to-market strategy that included more market research.
It’s important to note that go-to-market strategies can help you launch more than just physical products — they can be used to launch a new service, process, customer loyalty program, ecosystem, and more.
Now that we have a better understanding of GTM strategies, let’s look at how to create one.
Free Go To Market Strategy Templates
Before you launch your product, you need to understand who it is for. This will allow you to best communicate the value of your product specifically to your target audience.
Creating buyer personas is a great way to identify your product’s ideal consumers. Personas can include demographics, psychographics, digital lifestyle preferences, specific work experiences, and any other information that will help you understand who your prospects are, what their pain points are, and what motivates them.
To identify your buyer persona, consider using a combination of research, surveys and interviews. You should research and gather feedback from customers as well as potential customers, referrals and consumers outside of your database of contacts that align with your target audience.
Once you’ve completed your research, go through your data to identify patterns and commonalities that can be attributed to different people. Each person should have some information about their demographics, goals or motivations, pain points or challenges. Quotes and marketing messages are a bonus!
Go To Market Strategy Case Study
Creating a clear picture of your target audience can be difficult and time-consuming. If you don’t have the time or expertise, consider working with an outside go-to-market specialist.
Once you’ve identified your buyer persona, create a value matrix that details each persona’s pain points, how your product solves those pain points, and what messages you can use to show that your product is the solution.
Despite its simplicity, this is a crucial step in developing your messages. It lays the foundation for how you will communicate the value of your product to your target audience in a way that aligns with their various pain points. It also begins to lay out the key phrases and tone you’ll use when speaking to different segments of that audience.
To position your product in the existing landscape, you need to know what products and unique values your competition offers.
Comprehensive Guide To Product Marketing
To get started, look at their product pages and other parts of their website to answer the following questions:
Then look at their social media channels, blog, campaigns and other marketing collateral to answer the following questions:
Finally, look at your competitors’ product reviews on their websites, review sites like G2, or on blogs and other third-party sites to answer the following questions:
All this information will help you to better position your product in the market as a unique solution for a specific audience whose needs are not met. This is true whether you are launching a new product to the market or launching an existing product into new markets.
Startup Go To Market Strategy Template To Rein Your Boss In
If you are analyzing the competitive environment to expand distribution, consider working with a consultant to develop a strategic growth plan.
Now you are ready to set your pricing strategy. There are five common strategies you can choose from, as outlined below.
This strategy adds up all costs that contribute to the sale of a product and adds a fixed percentage or margin to the subtotal.
This strategy sets the price based on what the competition is charging. You can match what your competitor is charging, charge less than your competitor regardless of whether they raise or lower their prices, or charge what you want regardless of what your competitors are doing.
Steps To Implement New Product Go To Market Strategy
This strategy sets a high price and lowers it over time as the market develops and becomes more saturated.
This strategy sets a low price to enter a competitive market and build a customer base, then raises it later.
Each pricing strategy has its advantages and disadvantages. The most important thing to consider is what price will be consistent with your messaging and how you would like to be seen among your competitors.
Next, you’ll need to decide how you’re going to market to your target audience. There are four common sales strategies that you can use individually or together, depending on your product, business model and industry. They are listed below.
Creating A Solid Go To Market Strategy: A Guide
Customers buy the product themselves. This is a common strategy for e-commerce companies, especially those that sell simple products at a low price because customers can find and buy the product online. This strategy requires an agile marketing team to drive traffic and conversions to your website, but not a dedicated sales team.
Sales reps nurture prospects to convert them into customers. This strategy is ideal for more complex products in the middle price range. This will require a dedicated sales team of inside representatives.
The sales team sells complex, high-priced products to large enterprises. This will require a dedicated sales team of field representatives, which can be expensive, but the potential profits are high.
An external partner sells the product for you. Ideally, the partner will sell similar products. This strategy does not require a dedicated sales or marketing team.
Free Go To Market (gtm) Templates
Next, you’ll want to create a marketing plan to attract your target audience. This plan may consist of some or all of the following components:
Content is probably the most important part of your marketing plan because it generates inbound leads. Inbound leads are potential customers who discover your brand through your blog, social media or other organic marketing channels and show interest.
Content should target keywords that your target audience is already searching for. It should also be created for all stages of the buyer’s journey.
Finally, you must decide on measures of success and how to measure progress. Without this step, it will be hard to tell if your go-to-market strategy is working or if it needs some adjustments.
Chapter 7: From A Traditional Go To Market To A Product Led Go To Market Strategy
Below are common frameworks you can use individually or in combination to set meaningful, measurable, operational and motivational goals.
KPIs are metrics used to track the performance of a company, team, or individual against goals. A go-to-market strategy can have KPIs for the product, marketing and sales team. Some common KPIs are website traffic, number of qualified leads, customer retention rate, and monthly recurring revenue.
OKRs define the goals you want to achieve and the three to five key results you will use to measure progress. They are usually more ambitious and at a higher level than KPIs. You can write an OKR in a sentence using the following format: “I will [goal] by [key results].” For example, “The content marketing team will increase awareness of the new product as measured by the following key results: increase blog subscribers by 30%, convert 15% of newsletter clicks into demo requests and drive 5,000 web visitors to the product page. “
Backlog goals are one overarching goal divided into a series of smaller goals, which are further divided into smaller goals and tasks. This provides a practical roadmap for achieving an end goal, such as a 25% increase in trial signups.
Pitch Deck Go To Market Slide
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