Are you trying to craft the perfect go-to marketing strategy for your business? If so, it’s time to get creative and find an effective way to reach new customers or stay in touch with existing ones. A great go-to marketing strategy should be tailored to meet your specific business needs and should include a combination of tactics that work together to drive awareness, engagement, and sales. In this blog post, we’ll cover the best practices for crafting a go-to marketing strategy that will deliver results.
We’ll discuss how to choose the right channels and tactics that suit your business, create compelling content, engage with customers on social media, use data to inform your marketing decisions and track the effectiveness of your campaigns. By the end of this post, you’ll have a better idea of how to craft a brilliant go-to marketing strategy for your business that will help you reach new customers and drive more sales. Let’s get started!
What is a go-to-market strategy?
Before launching a new product or expanding an existing product into a new market, it’s crucial to have a go-to-market (GTM) strategy in place. This type of plan sets your initiative up for success by answering key questions, such as:
Who is your target customer?
What channels will you use to reach them?
How will you create and deliver value?
A well-crafted go-to-market strategy should include a mix of tactics and activities that are tailored to help you achieve your business goals.
A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is vital when…
A GTM strategy should be crafted before launching any new product or entering a new market. It’s an essential part of the success formula, as it provides actionable insights into customer needs, competitive landscape and potential opportunities for growth. This type of plan is also important when revamping existing products or services. You’ll need to take into consideration how the current customer base will respond to your changes. And the adjustments should be made in order to maximize the impact of your relaunch.
Go-to-marketing Strategy versus a Marketing Plan
A go-to-market strategy is used to launch a product or expand into a new market, while a marketing plan explains how you’ll execute your general marketing strategy.
Your marketing plan should be long-term and help you achieve your objectives. A GTM strategy will come from your marketing plan, but it is focused on one specific launch. Your marketing plan should include details about the channels, tactics and content you’ll use for your launch.
Marketing plan example:
You want to increase brand awareness by 10% over the next year. The plan will focus on creating and executing a content marketing strategy that includes developing engaging blog posts, utilizing social media channels and leveraging influencers.
Go-to-market Strategy example:
You are launching a new product line in the next two months. The GTM strategy will include developing a prelaunch campaign, creating a website and landing page to showcase the new product line, running email campaigns to potential customers, using paid search and social media advertising, leveraging influencers and utilizing PR tactics.
Steps to crafting your go-to-market strategy
Identify the problem you’re solving
The first step in any go-to-market strategy is to understand the problem your product solves. What unique pain points does it address for customers? You also need to know who your ideal customer is and what market you’re entering. This will help you build an effective go-to-market strategy that resonates with your target customers. Develop positioning and messaging once you know the problem you’re solving and who you’re targeting, create a positioning statement and other marketing materials that communicate why potential buyers should choose your product over the competition.
Define the target audience
You need to know who your ideal customer is, what their needs and pain points are, and how they make buying decisions. Conduct market research to identify potential buyers, create buyer personas, decide on go-to-market channels, and get a better understanding of the competitive landscape.
Research competition and demand
Competition research will help you determine what kind of competitive advantages your product has, while demand research will tell you how much opportunity there is in the market. Researching both will give you a better understanding of what options are available, who the competition is, and how customers feel about them.
A competitive analysis will allow you to understand the market landscape and how your business stacks up against others in your industry. This research-based method identifies both direct and indirect competitors, as well as their strengths and weaknesses relative to your business.
Key Message
To make sure your messaging resonates with each type of buyer, construct a value matrix. This helpful tool illustrates every persona, what sort of pain points they have, the value that your product offers, and an essential message about how your product can solve its distinctive problem. It should be specific and focus on the problem you’re solving—not just features and benefits. Your tone should also reflect your brand values and speak directly to your target audience.
Buyer’s Journey
You need to understand the journey potential buyers take from awareness to consideration, purchase, and post-purchase experience. This will help you determine which channels and strategies are most effective for reaching your target customers.
Top of the funnel: During the research phase, customers are looking for solutions to their problems and may not be aware that your product exists yet. Your goal during this phase is to grab their attention so they consider your product as a possible solution.
Middle of the funnel: = Customers compare your product to other available options. Your goal during this phase is to convince potential buyers that your product is the best option.
Bottom of the funnel: The goal of this phase is to convince customers that your product is worth purchasing.
Marketing Channels
When it comes to marketing channels, you need to decide which ones are best for reaching your target buyers. This could include a combination of paid and organic channels like search engine optimization (SEO), social media, email marketing, display ads, content marketing, etc.
Align marketing channels to your ideal audience: Different channels should be used for different phases of the buyer’s journey. For example, SEO and content marketing are great for raising awareness, while email campaigns and display ads can help move prospects further through the funnel. Make sure you create an effective mix of tactics that will reach all stages of the buyer’s journey.
Sales plan
Your go-to-market strategy should also include a sales plan. After all, no matter how great your product is, you still need to sell it. Consider which channels are best for selling the product and whether you’ll need a sales team or just rely on automated systems.
Concrete goals
Setting concrete goals will help you measure the success of your go-to-market strategy. Think about what kind of metrics you want to track, like sales volume, customer acquisition cost (CAC), market share, etc. Make sure to set SMART goals, which are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
Measure success
The last step is to measure the success of your go-to-market strategy. Set up a system for tracking your KPIs and OKRs so you can see where your efforts are having the most impact. This will help you iterate on the strategy over time and make adjustments as needed.
Following these steps will help you craft a successful go-to-market strategy that meets your objectives and helps you reach your target audience. By having a clear plan in place, it’ll be easier to launch new products and services, pivot when needed, and keep track of your progress.
Create clear processes
Finally, you need to create clear processes for executing your go-to-market strategy. Consider who will be responsible for each step of the process and what tools they’ll need to do their job effectively. This will help ensure that everything runs smoothly when it comes time to launch.
There are some key points that you need to consider:
Collaboration with team members on the go-to-market strategy
What processes can be standardized or automated to help streamline the launch process?
Tracking your goals and course-correct if necessary
How will you ensure that everyone is accountable for their tasks throughout the execution of the plan?
By following these steps, you’ll create a comprehensive go-to-market strategy that helps set your product up for success. Make sure to involve all relevant stakeholders in the process and keep them informed of progress. Finally, don’t forget to document everything—from decisions made to results achieved—so that your team can use this information when launching future products.
Launching a new product or service can be both exciting and stressful. A go-to-market strategy is critical for ensuring that your launch is successful. By following the nine steps outlined above, you’ll have a strong plan in place for reaching your target customers, creating demand for your product, and driving revenue. So get started today—your future success depends on it! If you need any help do not hesitate to contact our team of experts.