In the highly competitive SaaS economy, marketers and revenue leaders are tempted to focus on demand generation and marketing strategies when planning a new product or service launch. After all, foundational marketing is fundamental to driving revenue.
But a sound go-to-market strategy (GTM) cannot be overlooked when planning your product or service release. An effective GTM can be fairly straightforward, but it should always provide the strategic underpinning on which future marketing efforts rest.
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A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is an action plan that defines how a business positions its products or services in the marketplace. It provides a blueprint for reaching and serving customers, often outlining a unique selling proposition (USP), customer personas, competitive landscape, and marketing and sales strategies.
A GTM strategy is a pivotal aspect of your business plan. It aligns the organization's goals and resources with its marketing and selling tactics, ensuring a seamless customer journey from awareness to conversion. Without a GTM, businesses risk launching products or services that don't meet market needs, resulting in wastage of resources and potential failure.
A GTM strategy should address four key points:
There are two major methods for developing a GTM strategy, the funnel and the flywheel:
Before we dive in, let's get on the same page regarding the difference between a marketing strategy and GTM:
Therefore, GTM should be integral to any product or service launch plan. It helps create a roadmap for increasing revenue and achieving sustainable success by considering the total buying experience, from initial contact through post-sale customer service. A GTM strategy should include a detailed plan for understanding the target market, segmenting customers, and pricing and packaging products or services to maximize revenue and market share.
GTM strategy also helps ensure that all business activities are planned, coordinated, and executed promptly. It's important to ensure that the launch is well-run and meets all expectations to leverage increasing revenue opportunities fully.
An effective go-to-market strategy should be tailored to the target audience and incorporate product market fit and positioning, pricing strategies, sales enablement, digital marketing tactics, and partnership development. It should also be agile enough to adapt to changing customer preferences and market conditions. Finally, the strategy should focus on increasing revenue through increasing product adoption from existing customers while simultaneously acquiring new customers.
By taking a data-driven approach, leveraging automation tools and measurement techniques such as A/B testing or personalization technology can help ensure that your campaigns are optimized for success. Implementing a comprehensive GTM strategy alongside your marketing strategy can maximize customer engagement and drive revenue growth and ROI for the long term.
While the level of complexity and detail can vary, along with the format of the documentation, here are the fundamental components you'll need to include in your GTM documentation:
To know how to introduce a product to a market, you need to understand the market you’re entering. The best way to gain that understanding is to conduct market research.
Many resources are available to help you gain insight into your market, from publishers like IDG to research companies like Gartner. Additionally, tools like the Ansoff Matrix can be effective frameworks for vetting your research. The Ansoff Matrix was developed by a mathematician and breaks product market introductions into four paths:
Market penetration, where you sell an existing product to an existing market
Market development, where you sell an existing product to a new market
Product development, where you sell a new product to an existing market
Diversification is where you sell a new product to a new market.
Understanding not just the market but also how your product relates to it is essential to developing your GTM and guiding your research and your messaging later on. Additionally, it is essential for your GTM documentation to contain a thorough competitive overview, including points of competitive differentiation. These can range from differentiated features to pricing or functionality. Challenging yourself to create a simple answer to the question of "What problems does my product solve" will pay significant dividends in your longer-term sales and marketing strategy.
The second element in a successful GTM is market segmentation. The findings from the market research you completed in the market intelligence phase determine who will most likely purchase your product, solution or service.
The market segmentation phase takes your market research one step further to help you understand the decision-makers within that market. Rather than defining your target market as CMOs at mid-sized SaaS companies, use your market research to create a buying center and buyer personas.
The B2B buying center consists of the various roles involved in a purchasing decision — from research and evaluation to actual purchasing. Understanding each buyer's role enables you to craft messages that appeal to the right person.
If you’re following the product development path, conduct research on your existing customers so you can best speak to their pain points. If you’re following the market development or market penetration path, survey your current customers about their experience with your product to inform how you frame your value proposition.
Developing buyer personas and ideal customer profiles (ICPs) will enable you to segment your market to target the best-fit customers. For example, instead of simply targeting CMOs at mid-sized SaaS companies, you’re targeting CMOs at mid-sized SaaS companies who are struggling to set up a reporting structure to prove the ROI of their marketing efforts.
The final component of your go-to-market is how you convey your key value proposition. The value proposition is the unique blend of product features, advantages, and insights that your company offers. It explains why customers should choose your product or service over others.
You understand the market you’re entering and who your customers are. Develop your product positioning and messaging strategy to stand out from your competitors and resonate with buyers.
When creating your product messaging, ask yourself:
Positioning is often considered a "marketing function." However, the most effective GTM strategies build cross-functional alignment on core product messaging long before marketing activates campaigns and sales initiatives, so building positioning into your GTM strategy early will benefit your entire business.
When it comes to pricing structures, there are a few key things to keep in mind:
By understanding what customers value most about your offering, you can ensure that your pricing structure reflects that value and encourages continued loyalty and engagement.
In addition to the main components of a GTM strategy, there are several other factors to consider when launching a new product or service in the SaaS and subscription economy.
Digital Presence: A strong online presence includes having a well-designed and user-friendly website and activity on social media platforms that are popular with the target audience. Utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) tactics can also help improve the visibility and ranking of the website in Google.
Strategic Partnerships: Identifying and building partnerships with complementary businesses or organizations can help increase reach and exposure for the product or service and provide access to new customer segments.
Lead Generation: Lead generation involves attracting and cultivating potential customers for a product or service. This tactic can be done through tactics such as creating marketing materials and utilizing social media and lead nurture strategies to increase visibility and drive conversions.
Sales Enablement: Sales enablement involves providing the sales team with the necessary resources and training to sell a product or service effectively, including sales collateral and training on the product or service and the sales process. Sales enablement helps improve the overall customer experience and drives revenue growth by ensuring that the sales team has the tools and knowledge they need to sell the product or service.
Customer experience and support: Providing a positive customer experience and offering high-quality customer service and support can help increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, leading to increased retention and potentially even upselling opportunities.
Data and analytics: Regularly tracking and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of the GTM strategy and help inform future optimization efforts.
Marketing Mix: The marketing mix refers to the various elements that can be controlled in promoting a product or service. These elements include product, price, place (distribution channels), promotion, people, process, and physical evidence. The marketing mix should be considered when developing a GTM strategy to ensure that all elements are effectively aligned to achieve revenue goals.
Understanding your customer is crucial when preparing your product for the market. The "buying center" refers to the group of decision-makers involved in purchasing a complex B2B solution. Identifying these individuals and understanding their roles can help tailor your product to their needs.
A value matrix helps identify the business problems each buying center persona faces and how your product can solve those problems. It also includes a relevant marketing message that ties the problem and solution together.
Once your value matrix is in place, test your messaging by advertising on various platforms. This will help you understand which messages resonate with your audience and optimize your larger campaigns based on these insights.
Understanding the journey a potential customer will take is crucial. This journey can be viewed from the buyer's perspective and from the perspective of your company. The buyer's journey can be divided into three stages: attract, engage, and delight.
Choosing a sales strategy that aligns with your product and business model is crucial. There are four common GTM sales strategies:
Attracting your target audience's attention is crucial for filling your pipeline. This can be achieved through demand generation, which can be facilitated by both inbound and outbound strategies.
Inbound leads are generally easier to convert and cheaper to acquire than outbound leads. Content marketing is key to generating inbound interest, as it drives traffic to your site. Your content marketing team will drive this inbound traffic by finding and targeting keywords that your potential customers would search for and then creating and posting related content on your website.
To bring the concept of a GTM strategy to life, let's explore three practical examples based on New Breed's large arsenal of customized strategies that lead to our clients' success stories. These instances demonstrate how diverse teams have successfully implemented their unique GTM strategies to meet their goals.
This SaaS company aimed to boost product adoption and stimulate revenue growth by attracting new customers. Their GTM strategy was multi-dimensional:
This B2B manufacturer aimed to cultivate relationships with potential customers, enhance customer satisfaction, and boost revenue. Their GTM strategy was comprehensive:
This B2B provider sought to elevate customer satisfaction, streamline the sales cycle, and drive revenue growth. Their GTM strategy was robust:
The components of a go-to-market strategy are simple: market intelligence, market segmentation, and product messaging. But, the execution of those steps can be more complex depending on your product and the market you’re entering. Being methodical about each step and doing your due diligence will help set you up for success.
To learn more about the importance of demand generation in the success of a GTM strategy, check out our Essential Guide to Demand Generation.
This post was originally published June 7, 2019 and has been updated and refreshed for relevance.