Whether you’re still validating your SaaS product idea or launching a new feature to an existing product line, thinking about your Go-To-Market Strategy is always relevant. In fact, iterating your strategy and improving each feature Go-To-Market plan as you grow and receive customer feedback is even more important.
Here’s the rub; no two companies are the exact same, so you can’t copy and paste a GMT strategy into your business and expect the same results. Instead, you can follow this hands-on guide for go-to-market strategy and product launch plans.
In this article, we’ll share tips and advice all about SaaS go-to-market strategies, with questions to ask, things to consider, and data to research so you can start your commercial enterprise on the right footing. Let’s dive in!
What Is a Go-To-Market (GTM) Strategy For SaaS?
A go-to-market strategy is your blueprint for successfully launching a new product in the SaaS market. It’s your key to gaining an edge in your target market by offering an irresistible value proposition, based on a well developed sales and pricing strategy and marketing plan.
Something important to know about go-to-market (GTM) strategy is that it is not a one-size-fits-all plan for every SaaS, micro-SaaS, eCommerce, or brick-and-mortar business. Every business offers different services; thus, every GMT strategy will differ.
Whether you have a B2B SaaS go-to-market strategy or a B2C SaaS GMT plan, developing a detailed strategy can make the difference between failure and success. By understanding your ideal customer profile (ICP), competitors, messaging, and more, your business will be prepared for whatever comes its way and set for success.
Types of SaaS Go-To-Market Strategies
There are two main approaches for deploying a go-to-market strategy for SaaS companies: product-led and sales-led.
Product-Led Go-To-Market Strategy
A product-led go-to-market strategy focuses on the easy entry of using your product and experiencing the benefits provided by the product. The marketing strategy for product-led growth is more inbound and you let the product speak for itself.
Product-led go-to-market SaaS strategies typically offer free trials or demos so users can test the software and determine if they want to buy the product. Slack, Spotify, Trello’s unlimited-time free plans are some SaaS go-to market strategy examples to look into.
With inbound marketing, your go-to-market strategy needs to focus on articulating the benefits and features of your business in a way that gives users the critical information they need to determine if the SaaS product is right for them. This self-service type of marketing strategy allows potential buyers to learn about the products themselves.
Sales-Led Go-To-Market Strategy
A sales-led go-to-market SaaS strategy lets your Sales and Customer Success teams shine. Developing market interest and building personal engagement are the key contributions to the bottom line.
For example, a SaaS company offering medical software might find their ICP more receptive when they get a phone call explaining the product’s benefits and features since this field may have fewer resources or time to research useful products. Meanwhile, software for IT experts might succeed more if the customer can explore their options on their own and learn that the software is right for them.
You may be wondering, is it so black and white? Can you only adopt product-led or sales-led? Good questions, it is possible to use a combination of both, and find your own way to collaborate and drive growth.
Developing a SaaS Go-To-Marketing Strategy in 6 Steps
Now, you want to develop a strong and rounded go-to-market strategy so it can set you aside from your competitors and help your customers to understand your core value faster.
Here are the steps you can take to develop an exceptional SaaS go-to-marketing strategy.
- Determine Your Target Audience
Determining your target audience is one of the most important steps for a SaaS business strategy. Ask yourself questions like the following:
- Who is my market? (age, gender, location, demographic)
- What are urgent and important customer needs?
- Am I creating a new niche or entering an existing market?
Look at macro trends and have a clear answer to the question: who is my product serving? What kind of problem does my product solve? And why are these people willing to pay?
By understanding who your customers are and why they would buy your SaaS solution, you can align your go-to-market strategy to better cater to users’ needs.
To validate and sharpen your target audience, beta testing your product and collecting customer feedback can takes the guesswork out of the equation and gives you actionable information. You can use website feedback tools like Usersnap to install feedback buttons and run targeted surveys directly in your product. By gathering specific feature requests and identifying bugs, you will reach feature-complete faster.
When beta-testing your software, collecting surveys to gauge customers’ satisfaction with current products on the market will provide you with market intelligence to position your product more effectively. Here’s a micro survey example by Usersnap.
- Research The Competition
Other than the above kind of sneaky yet powerful way to gain info about your competitors, here are some other considerations Before you implement your go-to-market SaaS strategy:
- How does my software or product better suit a user’s needs?
- Do I want to be a low-cost option or a luxury choice?
- Am I competing with SMB markets, mid-markets, or enterprises?
Gather data about which market segments your competitors are in. For example, suppose the market is saturated with luxury or premium options. In that case, you might want to adjust your strategy to fill the market need for budget options.
By researching your competition, you can better answer the question: What gaps or underserved segments are in my market? Once you have the answer, you can align your strategy with the marketplace niche that needs your SaaS solutions.
- Price and Value Determination
After researching competitors, you’ll have more insight into your pricing and how to deliver your value proposition.
If you’ve found that your niche in the SaaS industry is saturated by small-and-medium-sized businesses (SMBs), then perhaps offering a premium option with white glove service and additional frills is the best route for your company to fill the market gap. Of course, your prices will be higher than competitors, but your additional services could be what the market has been craving.
In contrast, if you want to compete with other SMB SaaS companies, you’ll need to have some data about competitor pricing to ensure you’re not shocking your traffic with unfair prices within your niche.
- Create A Distribution Plan
Now that you understand your customers and competitors better, it’s time to create a distribution plan. This part outlines the methods you’ll use to mobilize your brand.
While creating a SaaS go-to-market strategy and distribution plan, ask yourself:
- How can I best share my value proposition with my target audience?
- Will I focus more on inbound or outbound sales, or both equally?
- What channels will I use to distribute and advertise my products?
- What advertising strategies will most effectively reach my target market?
Distribution with SaaS companies is easier than with other eCommerce businesses since SaaS product management and distribution are done over the internet rather than in person. That said, all companies face similar hurdles and challenges with distributing their message articulately to the most likely customers.
- Make Your Messaging Clear
A go-to-market strategy will fail if you don’t communicate your message clearly. After all the research and data gathered during the steps above, you should be able to understand what market you’re serving, the need for your product, and what segment within the market you intend to target.
While outsourcing content creation is a useful way to take tasks off your to-do list, content creators don’t have insight into the nuances of your branding strategy. So, have a clear message with a unique tone of voice. Internally, this will make an enormous difference in how the message gets translated into your microcopy and larger content needs. In the past, both B2C and B2B marketing videos could take hours to record and produce, making outsourcing a necessary evil. Thankfully, present-day technologies have simplified the creative process dramatically. With the use of specialized software suites it’s now relatively easy to produce all of your content (video or otherwise) entirely in-house, ensuring your brand’s personality isn’t watered down by third-party contributors.
When the message and value proposition is clear to your marketing team, they’ll be better equipped to create content that aligns with your go-to-market strategy. This way, the external message on advertisements and brand messaging will speak in a tone of voice your audience favors and use words common in their vocabulary to build trust at every stage of the sales funnel.
- Develop Metrics And Goals
Success and SaaS growth in 2023 are measured by key performance indicators (KPIs) like website traffic, operations output, financial milestones, subscription numbers or your social media following, brand recognition, or other important metrics to your business.
Evaluate the following:
- What are my overall goals?
- What smaller goals do I need to accomplish to reach my larger goals?
- How can accomplishing one metric or goal help to progress other achievements?
- How will my company measure growth and success?
Growth doesn’t happen overnight; if it does, it typically diminishes just as quickly. The best go-to-market strategies consider the time it takes to generate the traffic and growth you strive to achieve. Metrics and goals are great ways to motivate your team and ensure everyone stays focused and on task.
After you’ve developed your metrics and goals, share the plans and progress with your team and celebrate when you reach milestones.
Creating a Product Launch Plan that Compliments Your Overall Go-To-Market Strategy
The fun of strategizing your Go-To-Market is that it evolves as your product offering expands. Every time you add a new feature, improve an integration, or go big to change your prices for the subscription packages, your Go-To-Market strategy shifts, for the better (most of the time.)
Here, we’ll present seven essential product go-to-market strategy steps for creating an exceptional go-to-market strategy.
What Are The Essentials of a Good Go-To-Market Strategy?
While no two GMT strategies are the same, there are some common elements that successful go-to-market strategy examples share.
1. Market Environment And Rivalry
When researching the competition, you’ll gain insight into the market environment and rivalry. There are three main markets a business falls into:
- Small-and-Medium-Sized Businesses (SMB)
- Mid-level companies
- Large enterprises
By looking at which companies cater to each section of the industry, you can find your worthy competitors and discover market gaps where consumer needs have yet to be fulfilled. Outside defining the particular size and industry that your product is in, you should also be asking yourself whether you are entering an existing market or a new one, and crucially, identify the urgent problem that you are trying to solve.
2. Asking Why & Finesse Your Target Market
Your target market is your ideal customer, but if you cast too wide a net, you’ll get lots of traffic but have low engagement and fewer sales conversions. So if you finesse your target market and decide on the niche you fit into for your ICP, you’ll be able to better market yourself to a sub-group of buyers that can benefit from your brand or product. To better understand your target market, the key question you should ask yourself is why does this market exist? Why do people have a problem that needs to be solved? And what are these people trying to achieve by solving this problem? By answering these questions, you’ll be better equipped to offer an ideal solution.
3. Defining Your Value Proposition
Knowing where you are and who you want to target as customers is a great start. But, your customers also have to understand what you have to offer and how your services are different or better than your competitors. That’s why you have to develop and define your messaging and value proposition. In essence, you should be prepared to explain the benefits that your product provides and how it meets their needs. This messaging should entail the reasons why you have the best solution and the value that your product will offer a customer.
4. Consider The Entire Enterprise
While customers are important for a successful SaaS go-to-market strategy, consider the entire enterprise while planning your strategy.
For example, if you find that a sales-led GTM strategy is what your consumer desires, but your company only has an operations team, then you’ll have to either re-think your company structure to implement your plan or adjust the strategy to align with the resources you have.
5. Create A Customer Success Funnel
The customer journey before a purchase have three main stages:
- Top of the Funnel (TOFU)
- Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)
- Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)
The top refers to the beginning stages and initial customer contact. The middle of the funnel refers to the research and growing intrigue of a consumer. By the bottom of the funnel, the potential buyer is converted into a satisfied customer.
At the top of the funnel, you have to decide how you will make customers aware of your product. This decision takes into account the value proposition, positioning, and messaging that you’ve already established. Based on that you have to find what is the best approach to reach your target market – whether it’s inbound or outbound marketing, advertising, or a mixture of all channels.
6. An Overview To Avoid Mistakes
Always double-check your data, facts, and stats to ensure you avoid mistakes. For example, stress test your ICP to see if you’re missing a vital component of your user’s needs.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking your Total Addressable Market (TAM) is the same as your ICP.
7. Evaluate Your Product-Market Fit
You may already be tracking many marketing metrics and the product usage (if not you should!), but having one north-star metric to define the success of your overall Go-To-Market strategy can help you and your team see things clearer. And the Product-Market Fit template is a measurement that combines both quantitative and qualitative customer insights. One of the main reasons a SaaS company fails is that the product doesn’t fulfill a market need or doesn’t better fulfill a need than another product.
The PMF survey starts with a simple scoring question, which is great for reviewing over time trends. Depending on your product advances and business model, you should design 1-2 additional questions that will get your useful information about customer satisfaction. Here are some examples:
- What is the primary benefit that you have received from “product”?
- What would you likely use as an alternative if “product” were no longer available?
- What type of person do you think would benefit most from “product”?
- How can we improve “product” to better meet your needs?
These questions can help you reveal if your product management process is closer to fulfilling the market needs and where the gaps are.
You can set up a PMF survey in seconds with Usersnap’s pre-filled template.
SaaS go-to market strategy examples
While every company is different, learning from real word examples is a great source of inspiration. Let’s take a look at a few companies’ go-to-market strategies to see how they worked out in practice.
Apple iCloud Drive
Anyone who’s ever used a Mac, iPad, or iPhone has experienced the extent to which Apple’s products are integrated with each other on a software level. You take a picture on your phone, and without thinking about it, it’s synced to all of your other devices. Yet, all of this data requires online storage, and the more pictures, videos and documents you have, the more you need.
By making users so accustomed to the ease of having their data everywhere, Apple’s free 5GB of storage can become quickly filled up. Faced with the possibility of losing that convenience, users were ready to pay for additional storage iCloud Storage.
Loom
Learning to show what’s on your screen & easily share that with your colleagues became a necessity for many working from home throughout the pandemic. And once you’ve seen someone do it successfully, you’re likely to ask how they did it.
The ease of use and viral need for Loom’s screen recording and sharing platform propelled its popularity across teams and companies worldwide.
From Theory to Practice
Congratulations! You’re now equipped with the ultimate tool for crafting a winning SaaS go-to-market strategy.
By leveraging your insights on customer needs, market gaps, and pricing dynamics, you’ll be poised to join the ranks of the most successful businesses.
But wait, there’s more! The key to truly thriving as a SaaS business lies in your ability to connect with your target market on an emotional level and inspire them to take action. With this guide in hand, you’re ready to unleash the full potential of your business and take the world by storm.
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