Developing a go-to-market strategy is essential to define how to best position your product or service to the right audience as well as to plan how to target the audience effectively.
After all, there’s not much point in having a product or service if there’s little to no visibility to your ideal customer, no matter how outstanding you believe it may be. Your product cannot sell itself nor build its own brand and define itself in the market – this is where a well-developed go-to-market strategy is essential.
Our host, CEO of Operatix Aurelien Mottier, sat down with Pete Crosby (Executive Coach and Founder at Pete Crosby Revenue) to hear his expert insight into how businesses can get the very best results out of their go-to-market strategy.
Dive into the episode below to understand the fundamentals of a go-to-market strategy, as well as common mistakes to avoid and frameworks that’ll help you understand where your current strategy may need development.
What is a go-to-market strategy?
A go-to-market strategy shapes your messaging and branding to appeal to target consumers, as well as to help your business stand out against competitors.
This strategy typically outlines the ideal customer profile, a multi-channel activity plan, messaging and key objectives, all of which are designed to position your business in the marketplace.
The fundamentals of a go-to-market strategy
Creating an ideal customer profile (ICP) is essential in shaping your marketing and sales strategy. It can be all too tempting to target too many types of potential customers and pitch yourself as solving an array of issues in an attempt to broaden your horizons and sell more.
In reality, focusing on being perfect for one solution is far more effective than spreading yourself thinly across several – the phrase ‘jack of all trades but master of none’ springs to mind here. Shaping your products for the right market rather than just generally is at the core of creating an effective go-to-market strategy.
“The trick is to find the very small group of customers who are going to love the way you solve the problems so much that not only do they buy from you, but they stay for a long time.”
Pete Crosby
Another one of the most important parts of creating a go-to-market strategy is not only about articulating what problems your product or service solves for your customers, but clarifying why your solution is better than others on the market.
After all, no product is completely unique in this day and age, so articulating exactly why your organization is different from the rest of the market is essential in making those all-important sales. Identify what your unique selling point is, how it benefits your ICP and why choosing your product over others is a no-brainer, ensuring that all of this is clarified throughout your marketing campaigns.
“Fundamentally, if sales and marketing teams are struggling, there is a fairly high chance that it sits somewhere deep within the product-market fit, or in the way the go-to-market team and strategy has been structured in the first place.”
Pete Crosby
Take some time to answer these questions when defining a go-to-market strategy:
- Who do you want to target, and how do they behave? What does their typical customer journey look like?
- What are the key pain points that you can solve for your clients?
- What is the risk of the customers not acting on this pain, i.e. will it have a detrimental effect on their business? This helps create a sense of urgency and need for your service.
- How does your business help solve them?
- Why is this solution so much better than others on the market? Perhaps you can solve it quicker than others or the method used is much more effective. Selling the value of your business is essential here.
Being able to boil these questions down in your marketing while communicating the value of your business can be a tricky task, which is why it’s important to be able to sum up your unique selling points and value proposition before jumping into action.
Never overlook having a go-to-market strategy
One of the biggest mistakes business leaders frequently do is simply forgetting about the power of marketing. They focus solely on building their sales teams, but neglect marketing and therefore lose out on the increased amount of demand it can bring about.
Pete Crosby
“Because sales leaders don’t come from a marketing background, they almost forget that one of the best places to start is understanding how to get the product out into the market.”
Creating a go-to-market strategy can ensure you’re product is reaching the right people at the right time of the customer journey. It’s all well and good having an excellent product, but getting the name out there requires a well-established marketing plan.
Sales and marketing go hand-in-hand, both always working best in conjunction with the other – after all, the more demand you have, the easier is it for salespeople to close deals.
To hear this interview and many more like it, subscribe to B2B Revenue Acceleration on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our website, or anywhere you get podcasts.
