How Execution Can Make a Big Difference: A Go-to-Market Strategy and Process Guide
Have you ever wondered why a Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy is required when you launch a product or service?
How about this — how often do you see a problem around you, and then you decide to come up with an idea or solution? If you can relate to this, you might have the makings of an entrepreneur.
Since my college days, I was always passionate about being an entrepreneur and my college experience led me to participate in what is called the Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC).
The EDC is an autonomous body that promotes the cultivation of startups and entrepreneurial ideas. During my time in the EDC, I participated in startup brainstorming sessions. We discussed business ideas, researched options for funding, and most importantly, we supported each other.
During that time, I started a T-shirt printing business, took embedded systems classes for school kids, built an electronic automation device, incorporated a solar engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) company, and built a food export business. These ideas came from our experiences on campus and thinking about ways to solve problems.
After college, some of these businesses faded away, while others continued for a longer time. Regardless of the outcomes, I realized that I loved building businesses; However, during that time, we didn’t know anything about Go-to-Market (GTM) strategies or how to apply them when one wants to launch a product or service. In retrospect I always focused more on execution, and less on planning and strategy.
The execution mindset is essential, but now I’ve learned that having a well planned execution strategy can make a big difference; Because without proper planning, it’s difficult to know whether you’re chasing the wrong audience, or you’re too early or too late to launch in a given market, or targeting a market that’s too saturated with similar solutions.
A solid Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy can help you to foresee possible challenges and take preventive measures to avoid them in future.
What is a Go-to-Market Strategy?
A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a step-by-step plan created to successfully launch a product to market. A good GTM strategy generally identifies a target audience, includes a marketing plan, and outlines a sales strategy. While each product and market will be different, a GTM strategy should identify a market problem and position the product as a solution.
Typically there are four steps to creating a detailed GTM Strategy. I will try to elaborate on each one of them.
- Product Market Fit (PMF)
- Knowing your Target Audience
- Competition & Demand
- Find the Distribution Channel
Product Market Fit (PMF):
A Product Market Fit (PMF) is a way knowing what problems your product will solve. One should be crystal clear about the problem and how his product or service is solving it.
The six steps towards finding PMF are:
- Line up your product goals first.
- Come up with product hypotheses.
- Prioritise the product hypotheses.
- Get feedback from at least five customers, but many as possible.
- Make small bets with minimum viable products (MVP).
- Evaluate market traction.
The Target Customer
As cliché as it might seem, one of the first things to do when preparing your product for the market is to consider your customer.
When you’re trying to figure out who is your target customer, ask yourself the following:
- Who is experiencing the problem that your product will solve?
- How much are they willing to pay for a solution?
- What are the pain points and frustrations you’re trying to alleviate?
Get your team together and brainstorm the various job titles of your product buyer that could be impacted by your solution. Research each role to get a general sense of what they do, their goals, and their pain points.
It’s critical to learn who these people are, what motivates them, and what their problems are, as they will be the ones to put your product on the map.
There can be the following personas in your buying centre:
- Initiator: Starts the buying process or shows initial interest.
- Decision maker: Gives final approval for the purchase.
- Gatekeeper: Blocker in getting a product implemented or approved.
We now have to build a value matrix for these personas.
The Value Matrix
A value matrix is a breakdown of each buying centre persona, their business problems, and how your product is valuable in solving those problems.
The value matrix will also include a relevant marketing message tying the problem and solution together.
Validating The Messaging
Once you created a messaging, it’s time to test your messaging.
Start advertising on marketing platforms using the messages you’ve just created for various audience members. This will be an iterative process of improving and knowing your buyer’s journey.
Distribution and Sales
Through what mediums will you sell the product or service? A website, an app, or a third-party distributor? There are generally four go-to-market sales strategies — each one catering to a different product and business model.
- Self-Service Model: The self-service model is when a customer purchases on their own. We typically see this model with B2C purchases in which a customer can find and buy a product via a website, like Netflix or Amazon.
- Inside Sales Business Model: The inside sales business model is when a prospect needs to be nurtured by a sales rep to convert into a deal. This type of model works best with a product of medium complexity and price.
- Field Sales Business Model: The field sales business model is when you have a full sales organization that closes large enterprise deals.
- Channel Model: An outside agency or partner sells your product for you.
Know Your Competition and Their Value Proposition
Who already offers what you’re launching? Is there a demand for the product, or is the market oversaturated?
If you are planning to launch a D2C brand website, then you should know all other websites that offer products from a similar category. You should know which market they cater to, what is their current revenue.
If you are in India you can get that from the MCA website, you should check what customers say about your competitor’s product. This can be done by checking the reviews of their product in various marketplaces. For example, your competitor is selling on Amazon, then you must read all the reviews he received on the products.
Knowing your competitor is the best thing you should do to make a successful launch. This is important because it will teach you what good things they had done, what mistakes you have to avoid and unique you should do to compete with them.
After comparing your product to your competitor, you should be able to clearly define your distinctive value prop. When we were building a B2B cross-border marketplace, we spent considerable time using our competitor’s platform (faire.com), become their actual customer of them, placed the order, noticed their customer support. It helped us know what bare minimum we will know on our platform.
As product creators and business developers we have to keep evolving our understanding of consumers and markets to ensure that we create value. The GTM approach will support you in getting to the core of customers’ needs while validating your business ideas.
Have you ever tried to apply a GTM approach before? What did you learn or discover from the experience? Feel free to share your thoughts and feedback in the comments, and good luck with your product launch!
Special thanks to Tremis Skeete, Executive Editor at Product Coalition for the valuable input which contributed to the editing of this article.
