A Go-to-Market strategy is an awesome guide that will help launch your product and direct it toward the right audience. Here, we’ve gathered the most important things to know about Go-to-Market strategies – and 3 steps to create one.
Launching a product is kind of like a relay race with way more handovers. As a product owner, you might cover the first distance before handing over your baton to marketing and sales. Who will run side by side, passing their batons back and forth and hopefully run in the same direction. You may even run alongside them to support, steer and align, but no matter the specifics you’ll need a solid go-to-market strategy in place.
Why you need it? Well, the go to market strategy acts as a map and will help the teams move forward and stay on track. Which will be beneficial, as launching a product without one would be like running that relay race at night without knowing where you’re going or where you’ll end up.
So, what do you need to know to set a great go to market strategy, and what steps does it involve? To get to the bottom of this, we’ll start at the very beginning and work our way forward.
What exactly is a Go-to-Market strategy?
Hubspot has a pretty great definition of a Go-to-Market strategy, and that explains it as “a step-by-step plan created to successfully launch a product to market.” This strategy goes beyond one department and also includes sales and marketing. Which means that you should put your product in the context of the market it’s going to be launched to, and set up a plan for how to market it as well a strategy for how sales should operate.
What does your Go-to-Market Strategy need to include?
Ok, so a go-to-market strategy is a step-by-step plan that goes across functions and departments, but what does it need to include?
This is a somewhat hard question to answer, since it will depend on the specific organization you’re in. That said, you’ll probably find that a few key things always need to be there. Including:
- A definition of your market: What market are you aiming for and where will your product end up?
- Ideal customers: Who are you targeting with your product?
- Your distribution: How will you sell your product?
- Pricing: How much will you sell it for?
- Positioning & Messaging: What are you actually selling and what’s the value for your target audience?
What are the steps to a great Go-to-Market strategy?
Now that we know what a Go-to-Market strategy is and what it needs to include, it’s time to actually create one. Where we’ve set a high-level view of the steps you need to take below (worth noting is that these steps can blend into each other and are not steps that each department goes through alone):
Step 1: Make the case for your Product
Why are you launching this product now? Here, you can give a brief explanation about how the product is lined up with other offerings and what the goal is. This is really the foundation that you build your strategy on, so it’s worth being detailed and thorough.
In this step it can also be a good idea to figure out how you’ll work with marketing and sales along the way. Or, at the very least, how they’ll get the information they need to get going. Where SP_CE can give you a way to easily communicate product details and goals, drive the launch forward and get a nice visual of how the process progresses (but more on that later).
Step 2: Set a framework and action-plan for Marketing
Here, you’ll find your ideal customer and set your positioning and value prop for your product. You should also develop personas for the people who will ultimately come to buy your product, and use this to construct the message that should go with it.
This can then inform a marketing plan, and that includes things like:
- What content will be created?
- Who will you create it for?
- How should it look?
- How will you get your content to the right people?
In this step you might also want to set a plan for how marketing will work with the messaging and content. Where our SP_CE Showroom can offer a space for marketing to work and collaborate in and that can also be used as a channel to get the product out in no time.
Step 3: Set a guide for Sales
How exactly will Sales go about selling the product? Here, it’s important that sales get the right info about the product and has a good structure for getting it out to their accounts and prospects. Where the questions to ask and answer can be:
- What presentations and content should be shown to what customers? Here, Sales will have a much easier time if they can easily get a hold of the right material. Especially if it’s nicely sorted and ready to use.
- How will we cut the time to close? If there are any objections the persona may have, it’s a great idea to think about getting around them. It can also be worthwhile to look at sales enablement that can help sales reps in their work.
- What accounts or customers will sales start with? Finding key accounts or companies that fall within your ICP can give sales a good place to start.
- How will we go about selling the product? Will it be field sales or their digital counterparts? The answer will help you give sales the proper tools to get your product out and inform your strategy. As digital sales are quite different from field sales.
Here, our SP_CE Showroom can be used by marketing to share material with sales and structure it so it can be applied in an instance. Plus, SP_CE actually has a dedicated Sales Room made especially for B2B sales. A tool that can help sales manage long deal cycles whether the primary sales mode is physical or digital.
The SP_CE way of going to market
Once the above is in place, it’s time to act and actually go to market with your product. Which will be much easier with a solid strategy in place and that includes actionable steps for sales and marketing.
Remember, going to market really is a team effort where the metaphorical baton is passed back and forth. Where team members run toward the same finish line and have the right gear to do so swiftly and successfully.
Here, our own SP_CE platform can offer some nice support and help you launch your product and have it make a real impact. Reaching the customers you want it to reach – and giving you a nice ROI in the process. All by making space for getting your product out with no delay and giving marketing and sales the means to work together. Getting the right message to the right people and getting them to convert.
Do you want to learn more about SP_CE and how we can help your product reach the market quickly and successfully? Contact us for a demo and get a live tour!
