What is a Go-To-Market Strategy (GTM Strategy) and how can I build one in 2024?
A go-to-market strategy (often abbreviated to GTM strategy) is something a company deploys to bring a new product or service to market as efficiently and effectively as possible. It’s about assessing the current market, the audiences within that market and, from that, defining a sales and marketing strategy to create a defined, detailed roadmap to launch and beyond.
Crafting a go-to-market strategy can be both time-consuming and overwhelming and so, using the expertise we have at 5&Vine helping brands at every step of the go-to-market process, we wanted to outline 7 things you should consider before putting yours together.
1. Interrogate the market and get to know your target audience
Before anything, you should interrogate the market. It’s an obvious point to raise but imperative for success later down the line. Determine what the state of the market is today, use that to predict the stability of the market tomorrow, and figure out how your brand fits within that.
Then, get to know your audience. Find out who the person who’s going to invest in your brand is. What do they enjoy doing, how do they communicate and where are they spending most of their time, both online and offline?
2. Develop a clear roadmap and define your success metrics
Once you’ve interrogated your market, you’ll want to develop a clear roadmap and define your success metrics. This roadmap should include the key dates for your product’s development phase and a proposed launch date. Alongside that, determine your success metrics. What do you want to achieve through the launch of your product, service or offering, and what do you want to get out of your marketing push? By answering these questions you’ll be able to better pivot your brand and create a memorable customer experience later down the line.
3. Prepare your startup pricing strategy
The answer to this should start to formulate naturally from your interrogation of the market, but it’s worth highlighting as a separate section. In short, your pricing should be more considered than calculating the cost to you as a business, plus an additional mark-up. Often, a consumer isn’t paying for a product or service but rather the feeling that product or service is going to bring them. With that in mind, consider your best option. Should you price your product competitively, offering what you have at a price point similar to others in the market? Or, should you employ penetration pricing, going lower so you can attract a bigger audience to your brand?
4. Understand your buyer’s journey to purchase
For a go-to-market strategy to succeed, you need to understand what’s required at every step of your buyer’s journey, from the top of the funnel, through the middle to the very bottom. At what point are people discovering your product, considering whether they should buy it and then ultimately making the decision to open their wallet? This might span testimonials or newsletter campaigns, live demos, paid-for ads on social media or a free trial.
5. Ready your startup marketing materials
Understandably, the marketing strategy you introduce to your go-to-market strategy should hold huge emphasis. It should also link directly to your market and target audience research. We explored what you should be looking to introduce to your marketing in this post, as well as the benefits of working with a marketing agency to help, which we recommend reading. In short, your marketing plan should span branding, content, SEO, social media and email marketing, as well as advertising and public relations.
6. Make the customer experience memorable
It’s well known that both Millennials and Gen Z value experience. They want to engage in brands and communities through experience, and will be more memorable of interactions that promote that. The experience you offer will naturally depend on the product or service you’re offering, but it pays to make it memorable. Brands like Ettitude, who understand the friction with selling bedding without letting customers try it first, put together a free swatch book so consumers can study both the colour and feel of the sheets they’re about to buy. Tommy Hilfiger is another, looking to AR technology to create digital runway events consumers can attend via their phones to purchase pieces instantaneously.
7. Keep the pedal to the metal
While getting your product or service launched is certainly a time to celebrate, it’s only half the work. Once it’s out there in the world, it’s important to monitor every facet of its launch. How is the social media campaign performing, and what are you going to do to promote the product now it’s live? Are people purchasing the product via the customer journey you envisioned and, if not, how can you alter your message and pivot your attention so it better aligns? Look to data and analytics to shape your future direction.
At 5&Vine, we’re experts at helping Challengers win. By helping brands identify the vulnerability of the incumbent in their industry, we’ve crafted go-to-market strategies that have propelled Challenger brands across all sectors to new heights.
Get in touch with us to see how we can bring the same success to you.
