What Is a Go-to-Market Strategy? How to Develop One?

Whenever businesses intend to release a new product or service, there are factors that they need to consider.

To win customers over, and ensure that their new product is successful, a business must consider their audience reach, first impressions, pricing, and so forth.

Altogether, these factors are part of the so-called “go-to-market strategy”. But what does that mean exactly? Let us find out together.

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What Is a Go-to-Market Strategy?

Quite simply, a go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a blueprint for how a company plans to engage with customers, convince them to buy their product or service, and gain an advantage over competitors.

A well-thought-out GTM strategy should identify a market problem and position the product as a potential solution. It allows you to gain a comprehensive understanding of the marketplace, target groups, promotional channels with the highest ROI, and potential issues that discourage users from buying your product/service.

Now, let’s cover the main points of a go-to-market strategy.

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How to Build a Go-to-Market Strategy: 9 Crucial Steps

1. Analyze the Market
2. Define Your Value Proposition
3. Position Your Product
4. Pick Marketing Channels
5. Create a Sales Plan
6. Choose a Pricing Strategy
7. Think About Distribution
8. Plan the Launch
9. Develop Customer Acquisition and Retention Programs

1. Analyze the Market

If you want your new product or service to be successful, you must start your go-to-market planning by identifying your target market, and how to properly position your product/service.

This is achieved through analyzing the current market trends, investigating your competitors, and establishing what customers really need. Answering these questions will help you figure out how big and how much your market can grow.

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2. Define Your Value Proposition

A business value proposition is a statement that encompasses three fundamental elements:

1. Relevance, which outlines how your product/service can address a customer’s issue.
2. Quantified value, which outlines the specific advantages of your solution over other existing solutions.
3. Differentiation, which demonstrates why individuals would choose you over your competitors.

Basically, it is a way of convincing your target audience why they should purchase your product.

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3. Position Your Product

Next, you need to make sure to position your product/service properly. For example, if you want to launch a new brand of canned soup, and market it to middle-class families, you could position the product as affordable.

Also, you would want to highlight key features and benefits that differentiate your offering from competitors. For instance, you could highlight the fact that your canned soup is more nutritious and has more vitamins than others, or how convenient, and easy to prepare it is.

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4. Pick Marketing Channels

Ideally, you want to reach out to your target audience in the best, and most effective, way possible. It could be through social media, email, content marketing, advertising, events, etc.

Based on your target audience’s preferences and behaviors, you could even consider advertising offline as well as online.

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5. Create a Sales Plan

Another important step in your go-to-market planning is to create a sales plan. This includes lead generation, lead qualification, and conversions.

It is also a good idea to determine the roles and responsibilities of each of your team members. This way, you can effectively communicate to your customers the value proposition of your products and/or services.

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6. Choose a Pricing Strategy

There are various types of pricing strategies, which is why it’s necessary to pick the best pricing tactics for your business. The value of the product should be reflected in the price.

You should also take into account factors such as production expenses, competitor pricing, and the perception the public has of your products/services.

You can test out different pricing models, like subscriptions, one-time purchases, free trials, and so on, to find the optimal strategy.

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7. Think About Distribution

Sooner or later, you need to think about how you will distribute your product or service to customers. It would be best if you do this during your GTM planning.

The distribution depends on your industry, and business type (e.g., direct sales, retail, online
marketplace, partnerships). If necessary, you need to develop business partnerships with distributors or resellers.

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8. Plan the Launch

The launch of a new product or service is one of the most important phases of your entire go-to-market strategy. It is important that you prepare yourself well.

One of the best practices is to create a timeline for the launch of your product or service. At this phase, many organizations prefer to coordinate marketing, sales, and operational efforts to ensure a smooth launch.

Generally, the idea is to try to generate buzz and excitement through marketing campaigns and promotional activities.

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9. Develop Customer Acquisition and Retention Programs

Developing client acquisition and retention programs requires a strategic approach that focuses on recruiting new consumers while ensuring the loyalty and happiness of existing ones.

For instance, you can decide to develop customer retention programs to keep customers engaged and satisfied, or collect feedback from customers to keep on improving your offering and customer experience.

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Benefits of a GTM Plan

Using a go-to-market plan can be beneficial in several ways:

1. Product-Market Fit. With a GTM plan in place, you can hopefully prevent any unpleasant surprises that launching a new product might bring, including a poor product-market fit, as it allows you to better prepare.
2. Reduced Cost. Having enough time to prepare, and creating a strategy, will help you avoid wasting time and money on tactics that do not work.
3. Alignment. Designers, marketers, writers – everyone needs to be on the same page when it comes to launching a new product or service. Go-to-market planning makes sure the proper design and setup are maintained throughout the entire product lifecycle.
4. Eliminate Errors. Of course, a GTM strategy does not guarantee success. However, it does give you the time to work on errors and manage expectations before the actual release of the product.
5. Improved Branding. Since a go-to-market strategy also includes picking marketing channels, researching target audiences, and so on, you have the chance to brand your product/service better, which can help increase brand recognition. This includes establishing stronger relationships with your customers and building trust.

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Summary

Of course, developing a new product or service always comes with a lot of challenges and obstacles you need to overcome. However, now that you know what a go-to-market strategy is, and how to build one, why not establish it for your own business?

Preparation is half the battle, and in case you need help to win the fight, you can always rely on DevriX.