How to build a go-to-market strategy

Now that you have a solid understanding of a strategy and its importance, it’s time to build your own GTM strategy. Read on as we explore some tried-and-true tips for building a winning GTM strategy that sets you up for a successful launch.

#1 Start with a go-to-market strategy template

Creating a strategy can seem overwhelming, especially if you’ve never done it. A template can alleviate some pressure and be a great starting point.

Once you have a basic framework, you can adapt it to fit your organization’s needs and your launch.

#2 Form your team

Creating a go-to-market plan isn’t something a single person does alone. Instead, it’s a collaborative effort.

Be sure to establish a team that includes representatives from key teams throughout the organization, including sales, marketing, sales enablement, and product (among others). Each team will bring unique ideas and perspectives. Furthermore, aligning key teams helps ensure everyone is working toward the same goals and understands their role in achieving them.

For example, marketing can’t create effective campaigns for a new product launch without clearly understanding the target market and how the product solves their challenges.

#3 Diagnose the problem

The best products and services solve customers’ challenges. For example, meeting scheduling software enables sales reps to avoid the time-consuming back-and-forth of scheduling meetings with prospects. Video conferencing software enables teams to effectively engage with each other—even when members are geographically dispersed.

It’s important to determine what challenges your prospects are facing. This will require research, including reading industry publications and discussing with current and prospective customers.

#4 Determine your target audience

Acquiring customers is key to a launch’s success. Determining your target market is an essential step in developing your go-to-market plan.

A common way to do this is to create buyer personas. Buyer personas are fictitious representations of who you are trying to target with your new product or service.

Often, multiple types of people use a single product or service. For example, sales enablement software is used by teams including:

• Sales
• Marketing
• Sales enablement
• Revenue operations

Each of these groups has unique goals, challenges, and needs. As such, it’s important to create buyer personas representing your target market’s different segments.

Another popular way to define your target audience is by creating an ideal customer profile – or ICP for short. Essentially, an ICP paints the picture of what a perfect-fit customer looks like for your new product or service offering. An ICP can include components like:

• Industry
• Company size
• Geography
• Budget
• Job title
• Pain points

#5 Gauge demand and scope out the competition

Once you’ve determined your target audience and their pain points, it’s time to do some research. Start by doing your homework to determine the demand for a product like yours. High demand will help ensure a full sales pipeline.

Then, find out who’s already trying to solve your target market’s problems.

Make a list of your direct and indirect competitors. If there’s too much competition, your product offering will likely get lost in the mix – especially if nothing sets you apart from other options.

Once you’ve made your list of competitors, look closely at each to determine their strengths and weaknesses. Then, see how your product stacks up against each one. A sales battlecard is a common way to compare your product or service offering against one or multiple competitors.

#6 Develop relevant messaging

Once you have a solid idea of your target audience, you can develop messaging that will resonate with them. Messaging is one of the key components of a go-to-market strategy

Generic messaging that focuses on features and benefits isn’t effective, though. Instead, it’s important to consider the needs of each of your buyer personas. Then, you can develop tailored messaging that:

• Addresses the needs and pain points for each buyer persona
• Articulates how your product or service can help each persona overcome their challenges and reach their goals

When prospects feel you truly understand their pain points, they’re more likely to engage with your brand.

#7 Determine your pricing strategy

Properly pricing your new product offering is a balancing act. If you price your product too high, your sellers will struggle to close deals. But if you price it too low, you’ll struggle to meet your revenue goals.

Creating the proper pricing strategy requires extensive research. You need to determine customer demand—that is, how many customers are searching for a solution like yours and how much they are willing to pay for it. Of course, you must also consider your competitors’ pricing strategies.

#8 Map the buyer journey

As the name suggests, the buyer journey is the path people take to become customers. It includes everything from a prospect identifying a problem to considering their options to signing on the dotted line.

Mapping your buyer journey is key to ensuring your customers have sales content and experiences that resonate with them – wherever they are in the sales funnel.

#9 Incorporate your marketing plan

Your marketing plan will spell out how you’ll reach the right prospects with the right content and messaging at the right time. There are many types of marketing channels to consider, including:

• Content marketing
• SEO
• Email marketing
• Social media
• Paid search ads

The channels you choose depend on who you’re trying to reach and where they are in the purchase journey.

#10 Include your sales plan

The success (or failure) of your product launch depends on how much you sell. You must determine how you’ll sell as part of your SaaS go-to-market strategy.

There are several different sales strategies, including: