What is a Go-to-Market Strategy: How it helps in business growth?

A Go-to-Market Strategy can be crucial for an established business for efficient sales. In this article, you will know "what is a Go-to-Market Strategy?”.

We will also elaborate on its importance, core components, benefits, and the right way to build one.

What is a Go-to-Market Strategy? Why is it important?

What is a Go-to-Market Strategy? Go-to-Market Strategy, also known as GTM strategy, is a business plan established companies use to introduce a new service, product, or entrepreneurial endeavor in the market. The Go-to-Market Strategy helps mitigate the risks involved in introducing new products by keeping a view of the market profile, marketing plan, distribution, and sales strategy.

Every business has a different market position, and the Go-to-Market Strategy helps optimize potential success and minimize the risk of failure. Thus, the company gets a better opportunity to play in the tough market competition with its new product. Some other factors that make the Go-to-Market Strategy very important are:

·   A clear plan for all stakeholders

·   Better changes to deal with customer desires

·   A planned path for the product

·   Better regulatory compliance

Along with these, we will discuss other benefits of the Go-to-Market Strategy later in the article.

What are the key components of a Go-to-Market Strategy?

While the Go-to-Market Strategy itself is very effective, to benefit from it up to its full potential, it is necessary to understand the core components of this market strategy. There are 5 core components of this market strategy which are

1. Market Definition: The markets or groups of people that you will be targeting

2. Target Customers: Your specific target audience among those groups and markets.

3. Distribution Model: A plan of delivering the product or service to the end customer.

4. Product positioning in the market: Seeing how your product is positioned in the market with its unique aspects compared to already available options from your competitors.

5. Pricing: Pricing of the product considering different customer groups and markets.

These components must not be based on the business's efforts and values for that product. Instead, these must be based on the market position and target audience. Targeting customers and setting your strategy accordingly offers the best chance for growth.

How to build your Go-to-Market Strategy in 6 steps?

You need to work on some key factors when building your Go-to-Market Strategy. These factors have a different role in ensuring that the product hits the market with more chances of success. So, it is necessary to work on all of them, and in the six steps below, you will learn how to develop your Go-to-Market Strategy.

1. Begin with identifying your target market

You need to begin building your Go-to-Market Strategy by identifying your target market. It does not matter if you will introduce a service, a new product, or a newer version of an old one. Despite all these factors, it is necessary to identify the specific target market from which you will gain your customers. To identify the target market, you can check the following questions:

·   Are you going to sell with a B2C or B2B business model

·   What problems will your product be solving for the target market

·   What factors will define the target market? (psychographic, demographic, or any others)

·   Are there any pain points in the target market? If yes, what are those?

2. Clarify the value proposition in the market

Next, you need to see how your product benefits customers and what problems it solves. These tell why a customer will be interested in buying your product, which is called the value proposition. A clear value proposition is critical for the Go-to-Market Strategy as it will help define your marketing management efforts. The following things tell about the value proposition of your product for the target market:

·   How is your product brings the difference from competitors' products

·   What are the problems your product solves for the target market

·   What are the unique features of your product

3. Design the pricing strategy

Now you will be designing the pricing strategy. For a successful business, it is the key to selling the product or service at the best price, which is neither too much nor too less. Otherwise, the profit and number of customers will not be high enough. For designing the pricing strategy, you again need to answer some questions which are:

·   What does the manufacturing cost?

·   How much can you sell the product for to make a profit

·   What is the cost of your competitor’s product

·   How much is your target market willing to pay for this product

·   Will you sell this product using a transactional method or subscription method?

This way, you can keep the prices attractive for customers and benefit your business.

4. Define the promotion strategy

Creating your promotional strategy is as important as everything else in your Go-to-Market Strategy. The promotional strategy tells how you will promote your products to your customers. Remember that the marketing plan can differ depending on the product or the service you are promoting. Some questions that will help you in this phase are:

·   What is the best way to reach your target audience

·   Will inbound marketing like SEO or outbound marketing like phone calls make a better option

·   What marketing plans can you work on according to your budget

·   Where does the target audience spend most of their time? (social media, TV, Internet browsing, etc.)

5. Select distribution and sales channels

After you make your product reach out to your target audience, you need to make it physically available to them for purchase. So, here you need to select the distribution channel and sales channel. Some options here include buying directly from the manufacturer, buying from a wholesaler, and buying from a retailer. To know which of these is the best, you can see:

·   What are the specific sales requirements of your product

·   Where does the target market prefer to buy products from

·   Which option brings a seamless buying experience for your customers

6. Set goals and monitor the performance of your strategy

By now, most of your Go-to-Market Strategy is designed. You only need to work on the performance of your market strategy. So, according to the strategy, you can set some goals using different matrices.

Now see how your Go-to-Market Strategy goes practically and measure the performance. Also, keep an eye out for any room for improvement. Some metrics to measure the performance of your strategy are:

·   Conversion rate

·   Sales cycle length

·   Customer acquisition cost

What are the benefits of the Go-to-Market Strategy?

When you design a Go-to-Market Strategy, you will get many benefits from launching a new product in the market. The following are some of the benefits of a successful Go-to-Market Strategy:

·  Helps set the business goal

This strategy helps you set your business goal with a clear mission. It also brings the opportunity to review everything in the organization and look for any room for improvement. Thus, it helps ensure that all the efforts are made correctly and efficiently.

·  Market understanding

GTM Strategy designing includes understanding and researching the market. It includes understanding your product's target market, marketplace, and competitors. With thorough insight into them, your organization can thrive in every business area by planning the right steps.

·  Higher growth potential

A business can increase its growth potential if it successfully plans and executes a Go-to-Market Strategy. While the chances of growth depend on things like market data and niche, placing all steps in the right direction can help increase the chances of growth.

·  Cost Reduction

The marketing costs can be kept down because the Go-to-Market Strategy will focus only on using the marketing channels with the highest ROI. Thus, you will be efficient with your budget as no useless marketing tactics will be used. Such content and marketing plan will also resonate with the target market.

·  Reduced time to market

Time to market will be reduced as you will launch more successful products in the market in less time. It is done by planning product positioning, prioritizing tasks for the efficient launch of products, and defining the logistics distribution for higher market impact.

·  Improved brand awareness

Lastly, your brand awareness will increase if your business expands in new niche markets. Thus, your customer base will also increase with increased brand awareness through proper promotion.

Conclusion

What is a Go-to-Market Strategy? Why is it so important? There must be several such questions about the Go-to-Market Strategy, and we hope we have answered them all here. Remember that a successful Go-to-Market Strategy will always be backed by insightful research about the market, competitors, and, most importantly, your customers' needs.

So, when you back things up with research and design your strategy, you can save the business from imminent failure. It is because your Go-to-Market Strategy will help you plan every step.