Your Go-to-Market Strategy Blueprint for a Successful Launch

What is a go-to-market strategy?

How is a GTM strategy different to a marketing strategy/plan then?

In short, it’s a much wider notion. A GTM includes a marketing strategy (among other things) — and a marketing plan is narrower still, as part of the marketing strategy. 

• GTM strategy is a roadmap for when you launch a new product/expand into a new market. It includes market research, identifying a unique selling point, creating a pricing strategy, marketing and sales plans — before selecting distribution channels and launching.
• Marketing strategy answers strictly high-level product-related questions. What is the company selling? Why? Who is the target audience? How is this solution positioned on the market (core messaging)? Which goals does the company aim to reach?
• Marketing plan answers to how the marketing strategy is going to be implemented. Who is responsible for which areas, what the deadlines are, which channels are going to be used — and how much money should be spent on each channel.

What are the benefits of a GTM strategy?

Trying to freestyle into a product launch is a bad idea — you are bound to miss some important steps. That’s why it’s a better idea to create an effective GTM strategy first: it offers clarity, actionability and a sense of direction.

Deep understanding of the market and your target audience

The first thing you do as part of a GTM strategy is research competition and demand. Is there a need for a product/solution like ours? If there is, do other companies satisfy it — and how? What is our target audience looking for in a solution to their issue?

All these questions give you much-needed context. Whether the market is saturated or not, which pitfalls exist, where your competitors come up short, what your potential customers need and how much they are willing to pay for it. Why is that important? Simple: it reduces the risk of failure when your product launches. You’re future-proofing it.

Better budget allocation

When you have a GTM strategy in place, you factor in financial considerations. How much your sales and marketing departments need, how much your distribution channels are going to cost. You are not spraying-and-praying — you identify which channels and tactics your business needs early on. Specific distribution channels, specific marketing methods, specific sales tactics (e.g. using an in-house team or outsourcing).

Either way, a GTM strategy gives you clarity: what your product needs to succeed after launch and which tactics are going to be the most impactful.

Reduced time-to-market

With a GTM strategy you answer core questions early on: what’s the product’s unique selling point, who will buy it, how you are going to distribute it. As we mentioned earlier, you can even test-launch it among a limited number of people to collect feedback, iterate and launch full-scale.

All of these steps speed up the eventual release. You get clarity in yet another important area, which allows you to cut through the noise, discard audience segments/marketing tactics/pricing tiers you don’t need — and focus on what’s going to have the most impact.

Improved brand recognition

If you are an unknown quantity in a market — or even if your brand is well-known but not in the area of the product you are launching (e.g., a clothing brand expanding into the fragrance industry), your first step is building trust via product positioning.

A thought-through GTM strategy answers positioning and promotional questions for you. How are going to attract early adopters? Why should someone who’s never heard of your brand trust you? Would you buy a piano from Yamaha? (They actually started out with pianos decades before creating their first motorcycle).

How to build a GTM strategy for your business

1. Identify your unique selling proposition

The logical first step — what issue do you address and who can you help? 

One such example is Slack. The messenger is now the corporate standard — but it wasn’t always the case. Before Slack exploded in 2014, email and work meetings were the norm. Both are still used extensively, but Slack’s existence streamlined things.

It allowed employees to discuss things without holding a meeting — and to catch up to what’s happening without piecing the picture together from scattered emails. Slack’s value proposition is thus simple: simplify work processes, shed the unnecessary.

2. Study your competition

If a problem exists, someone likely already solves it in some way — and that way might not be the best (anymore). What is it that you can do differently? How can you solve your potential customers’ pain points better? This is called market evaluation.

Even if the market you are entering is saturated, you can still carve out a niche — as long as your solution is different. We here like the example of Dollar Shave Club: their bold approach (CEO-approved products with the man himself taking active part in promotional campaigns) went against the grain: cut out the middle man (retail stores) and sell directly to consumers at much lower prices. Boom.

3. Create your ideal customer profile (ICP) and buyer personas

By ticking off “what issue my product solves?” and “how is that issue solved right now?” you get to “who needs my solution?” To have a clear understanding of who you are selling to, coming up with the ideal customer profile is the way to go.

It’s essentially the portrait of your model customers. Ask yourself these questions:

• Which industry (if you are B2B) or demographic (B2C) you are targeting?
• Where do they live/operate?
• What’s their budget? How much can they spend on a solution to their problem?
• Which factors shape their decision-making? A referral from a friend? Website testimonials? An ad campaign on Instagram?
• What are their paint points — how exactly are you helping alleviate those?
• What is their method of consuming info? Social media/magazine ads/something else?

As a result, you’ll come up with a wide definition of your ideal customer. You can — and should — break this down further — because not all your customers are the same even if they have roughly the same problem. They may have different budgets — or different preferred ways of consuming content. Once you break down your target audience as a whole into narrower, more specific customer segments — you’ll have your buyer personas.

4. Design your pricing strategy

This is influenced by three main factors:

• How much are your customers ready to pay? Keep in mind purchasing power differs between different groups.
• How much are your competitors charging for their solution in the same niche?
• How much do you need to charge to at least break even?

That last point is sometimes less important: businesses can operate at a loss for a while — if there’s a growth plan in place. You’ll also need to strike a balance between the public perception of your product and your pricing — a lot of people equate price with quality at first sight.

5. Pick your distribution channels

How are you going to sell your product/service? It can be anything from direct-to-consumer — in which case you’ll need warehouses for physical products and a shipping company for delivery. If your product is digital, your promotional and sales strategy take central place.

You can also partner up with food chains/pharmacies, etc. — whatever makes sense in your industry. For example, if you are producing a new cereal, you can sell through retailers like Walmart and Costco. Just keep in mind they’ll pick up some promotional work — it’ll be out of your hands.

6. Craft your core messaging

It’s not quite a marketing strategy yet — but we are getting there. Core messaging is along the lines of your unique selling point. It should speak to your target audience needs and pain points.

Going back to that Dollar Shave Club example — their motto is “Shave time. Shave money”. That’s a clever pun on the word “save” to make it industry specific. It also highlights what they do differently: deliver quickly and at a better price. Sure, you’ll have to dig slightly deeper for their competitive advantages — but even these four words are enough to outline the general idea.

That being said, this example is not specific to different buyer personas. Aim to differentiate between audience segments and their pain points when crafting your promotional campaigns — for maximum effect.

7. Map out customer journeys

It’s how your target audience goes from the awareness stage (“I have a problem”) to decision-making (“Your product solves my problem in the best possible way”). There are two possible approaches to a customer journey: the funnel and the flywheel.

• The funnel is the more traditional approach to turning leads into repeat customers. A lead goes from being aware of having a problem (top funnel), to interest in your product, to thinking your product is the best fit (middle funnel), to making a purchase decision (bottom funnel).
• The flywheel focuses on interesting your potential customer, engaging them, selling your product/service, delighting them with painless onboarding and overall usefulness — and turning customers into brand ambassadors.

Either way, develop a thorough understanding of how your leads go through different stages and what you can do to make buyers’ journey shorter and sweeter.

8. Hash out your marketing and sales strategies

A marketing strategy will deal with how your product/service is positioned on the market — in a way that makes it stand out from competition, raise brand awareness and address customer acquisition. Marketing is about promoting your product to your target audience using different channels.

A sales strategy is different. It answers the question “How will my potential customers take the final step into becoming fully-fledged customers?” A lot of e-commerce products with a low-to-medium price point can be sold directly to consumers via the efforts of your marketing team (it’s called the self-service model).

However more complex solutions — with a potentially higher price point — will require you to have your own sales team, or even a field sales team. The latter works best for complex products with a longer sales cycle and a big payoff (enterprise-level solutions, for example). Finally, you can partner up with another player in the industry — like in that cereal example above.

9. Launch your product

Once all the pieces are in place, you are ready for launch. 

If you want to test the waters first, you can create a mini-launch: only a limited number of people will have access to your product (your best bet are your existing loyal customers). This way you can gather feedback from them, iterate, and launch for everyone else.

However, product development doesn’t stop at launch. Once your solution is out, monitor how it performs, collect feedback and work on every point above: your pricing, your messaging, your positioning, your distribution channels. They might need adjusting based on what you see.

GTM strategy examples from brands

It would be remiss of us not to mention a go-to-market strategy that works in real life. So we rounded up a couple of examples from well-known companies: how they launched new products — or even existing products in new markets.

Microsoft and Surface tablets

Tablets were positioned as lightweight computers you could carry around — lighter than laptops but with laptop functionality. Except that… they didn’t quite replicate what laptops offered: access to Microsoft Office so you can work from them.

Microsoft addressed that by releasing Surface tablets in 2012, alongside Windows 8. The positioning was simple: have access to Office on the go, without carrying around your laptop — or being tied to your PC. That was a game-changer for the corporate world, which relied on Windows and Microsoft Office as the default tools every day.

Starbucks’ launch in China

Starbucks is a global brand, known for the quality of its coffee — and service. Why couldn’t it simply reproduce its business model in China — to the tune of the same resounding success?

The short answer is — Chinese prefer tea as their drink of choice. Starbucks marketers knew that, so they studied Chinese drinking habits, geographical differences and purchase power before launching. In the end, they launched in busy cities, where wealthier locals preferred coffee to tea and where tourists could bolster their appeal. They also added tea drinks to their menu to cater to everyone.

And now Starbucks serves millions of Chinese customers every day. There are over 7,500 stores in China, of which 50+ opened in the last year alone.

Huawei entering the Indian market

Huawei faced two problems when they decided to expand into the Indian market in the 2000s: the market was oversaturated and Chinese products were considered inferior to local.

So Huawei started by opening up service centers and R&D facilities. This accomplished two goals: provided the population with jobs and put them at ease about quality — as the components were locally-sourced and quality was overseen by local employees.

As for the smartphones themselves, Huawei positioned them not simply as tools to connect with others — but as a means of learning English. They partnered with English language channels to that end, creating trust among their Indian target audience in the process.

Fitbit takes the US market by storm

Google Fitbit’s main product is fitness trackers. Fitbit trackers were the first to track oxygen levels in your blood — once there was a need for that during the pandemic. Despite some cool features, Fitbit faced the problem of entering the US wearable trackers market. They faced stiff competition from Apple’s smartwatches, and industry leaders Xiaomi and Huawei.

Fitbit’s unique selling proposition rested on actionability (i.e., next steps for users once they have their fitness info) and community orientation: users can share their achievements with friends, compete against them and earn badges.

This, coupled with lower prices, allowed Fitbit to account for 20% of the global market in 2016 (they were firmly top) — although their share has declined since then and now Apple holds the first place with 20%.

FAQ about go-to-market strategy

What is a GTM strategy?

A GTM strategy is an overarching plan you craft when launching a new product or entering a new market. It’s a good idea to come up with such a plan even if your company isn’t new, but the market you are entering is — for you.

What’s the difference between a GTM strategy, a marketing strategy and a marketing plan?

A GTM strategy is wider than either the marketing strategy or the marketing plan. A GTM strategy covers every step of the way, from market research to launch, while a marketing strategy only answers the question of product positioning and raising brand awareness. A marketing plan deals with hows — which content will be created, for which channels, and by whom.

What are the main benefits of having a GTM strategy?

A GTM strategy helps you gain a better understanding of the market you are entering and your target audience. It also helps save money, reduce time-to-market, and improve brand recognition on launch.

Where do I even start when building a GTM strategy?

The key steps of a GTM strategy include finding and addressing a pain point with your product, researching your target audience and competition, designing your pricing strategy, picking out distribution channels, thinking about your customer journeys and crafting core messaging and marketing/sales strategies.