Below see the major components of a go-to market strategy and 10 examples of how companies did go-to-market (GTM) for their new business, product, feature, expansion into a new country and more. This includes 5 slideshares to use as both examples and templates.
Most Exciting New Tech: Teleport to your client to support, onboard and sell
Story Telling: 3 Examples of Why Companies Create Strategic Sales Narratives
Contents
What is a GTM strategy?
Why have a GTM strategy?
What are the major components of a GTM strategy?
5 Companies show you their GTM strategies as examples
- Vuclip - GTM strategy for consumer video in emerging markets
- Upscope - Full GTM for new interactive screen sharing software
- Huawei - For establishing their brand in India
- TaxJar - SaaS for sales tax software
- Eight - For their new IFTTT integration
- Fitbit
- Cisco
- Symyx
- a16z
- Product led GTM
What is a go-to-market strategy?
Here's the Wikipedia definition:
"Go-to-market or go-to-market strategy is the plan of an organization, utilizing their inside and outside resources (e.g. sales force and distributors), to deliver their unique value proposition to customers and achieve competitive advantage."
Here's Gartner's definition:
"A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a plan that details how an organization can engage with customers to convince them to buy their product or service and to gain a competitive advantage. A GTM strategy includes tactics related to pricing, sales and channels, the buying journey, new product or service launches, product rebranding or product introduction to a new market."
Here's my summary of half a dozen slightly different definitions:
A go-to-market strategy (GTM) is the plan for targeting a customer pain point with the right sales and marketing process, so you can grow your business at the optimum pace. You can create a GTM strategy for a new business but also for a new feature, brand or location.
Why have a go-to-market strategy?
For large companies with existing products their GTM strategies might revolve around correct communication and branding for new markets.
For those of us building a new business, an incorrect GTM strategy can mean years of slower growth because of incorrect pricing, marketing channels and sales processes.
While I had heard of the concept before it was listening to Kustomer's founder in this podcast that brought it firmly to my attention.
When a founder who has been building companies over decades says that he'd start with a GTM strategy before anything else, it's time to get reading.
In many ways the 'why' of a GTM is obvious.
If you're already confident you can build a product you can focus on picking a big market and nailing the pain point, the brand, messaging, content, ads, emails and sales model needed to reach that market.
You can do this if you're experienced.
Most first time business founders are not.
Most of us build products and figure out the marketing afterwards or do some half baked version of both and the more I learn the crazier that seems.
What are the major components of a go-to-market strategy?
Some answer "what is your go-to-market?" by talking about their marketing but go-to-market is a strategy that extends across the organisation.
To get a feel for the major parts of a GTM strategy, I've summarised the GTM plan of a serial entrepreneur, Stefan Groschupf, taken from this great blog post.
I've slightly shifted around the order as point 1 should in theory be after point 2 but it makes first timer logical sense this way.
Craft a value matrix and messaging around the pain point
This is a good way to understand what the pain point is and how to set up messaging to address the pain point.
Identify the buying personas involved in the journey
At Upscope co-browsing we realised, by analysing sign ups, that the person who first signs up or enquires about the product is often a manager and not an end user as we imagined. Yeah, this was a surprise.
Also, we found that the gatekeeper we needed to clear is often someone in charge of data security, so we created additional detailed docs explaining how we secure data.
There are a number of people involved in the stages of making a purchase including:
- The initiator who first comes across your product.
- The user.
- The influencer.
- The decision maker.
- The buyer who approves the budget.
- Final approver.
- Gatekeeper - such as the IT dept in charge of data security of vendors
Understanding these people and what each needs during the process helps create the right content and processes you'll need to make the sale.
Understand your buyer’s journey
In short, figure out your top of funnel, middle of funnel and bottom of funnel so you know what docs are needed at each stage.
Upscope's top of funnel is the blog and integration listings which leads to the home page containing videos and testimonials to get attention.
Upscope's middle of funnel is live chat and demos to answer key questions.
Upscope bottom of funnel is the trial, educational emails, one to one product walk-throughs and pricing quotes to get to a sale.
Choose a marketing strategy
This is where you figure out your inbound and outbound strategies.
For Upscope, it's primarily content.
We started with email and then realised we did not have the messaging and target market nailed so went to content until we knew more. You can see Upscope's content marketing funnel statistics here.
Choose a sales strategy
You might use only one or a mix of self service where they enter credit card and buy, inside sales, heavy duty field sales or a channel model.
At Upscope we started as a self-service product and then added inside sales because larger companies needed to build layers of trust in us and the product, especially if they were in the health and finance sector.
If you'd like to see the full post on the above points about building a GTM strategy, see Stefan's post.
How do l pick the right benefits, headline and messaging for my GTM? Use the positioning process and the strategic sales narrative
We've all spent months and sometimes even years arguing about which headline to use and what key benefits to show on our products for our target market.
I wish someone had told me this years ago.
First figure out your positioning. Then figure out your strategic sales narrative based on that positioning.
Positioning
Positioning has now become a science and helps you realise which benefits are most important for your target market.
There's an exact process for positioning built by April Dunford and it's getting a lot of praise by the most experienced serial entrepreneurs out there.
Read about April Dunford's market positioning process and see 10 examples
Strategic sales narrative
Once you've got the positioning right then work on your sales narrative.
Positioning is an input into the strategic sales narrative which, in short, is a compelling story that helps customers understand why they need your product.
Why do you need that sales narrative?
What if you're targeting a customer pain point but the customer is just not feeling much pain? Most customers are relatively pain free. It needs to be explained to them with context and that's what the sales narrative does.
The argument about positioning and narrative
There is an ongoing argument about which one comes first, positioning or narrative.
My view, working in a company that has gone from startup phase to growth and enterprise sales, is for new startups to do positioning first and play with the narrative to flex your mind further around messaging.
Why?
You don't know your market in the early days of a startup. You don't know who the bad guy in your narrative will be. You might be able to skip to narrative if you're established and know your market.
Either way, read both the above link on positioning and the below link on narrative and I believe you'll know where you stand.
Read more about the strategic sales narrative here.
Below are the GTM strategies for 5 different companies.
1. Vuclip's go-to-market was based on "must-have" needs in emerging markets
I was quite impressed with the Vuclip founder. Incredibly smart engineer type who seems to have figured out how to build multiple businesses and evolve his own strategy.
Key points
- The pain point is video buffering.
- Vuclip chose to build a brand for consumers rather than build for enterprise.
- They chose the "must-have" mobile streaming market in developing countries.
- Those companies whose GTM was based on selling to enterprise all failed.
What was the pain point they addressed?
“In emerging markets, both networks and phones have limitations, making buffering a big problem."
There were hundreds of sites like Youtube but networks were behind
"There are different networks — 2G, 3G and 4G — and there are phones of many types. Data plans are limited even in developed countries. In emerging markets, both networks and phones have limitations, making buffering a big problem. With nearly 100 hours of video uploaded on YouTube every minute and with hundreds of sites like YouTube mushrooming all over the world, the combination of fragmentation and volume made mobile video a daunting problem."
They focused on “must-have” market and not "nice to have" market
"I decided to deploy the technology where it was a “must-have” rather than where it was a “nice-to-have.”
In the U.S., there are many ways to access video. In India, Indonesia, Africa or Latin America the only way the masses can access video is via mobile. So we focused our energies and resources on emerging markets."
They went for building a consumer brand because others catch up too quickly in enterprise
We decided to do the hard slog and build a brand. Others always catch up with technology and a price war lowers profitability.
They went web based rather than app based as familiarity is an advantage
"We bet on a browser-based approach instead of an application-based approach. This go-to-market strategy was based on simplicity. Explaining to consumers in emerging markets about applications is simply too tedious. In retrospect, this sounds like a good idea. However, all the 18 or 19 companies that were funded in the space took the enterprise and application route. None of them exist today."
Read the full article here: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/vuclips-nickhil-jakatdar-bringing-must-mobile-video-emerging-markets/
2. At Upscope the early go-to-market strategy was built on riding the growing live chat wave
SaaS GTM strategies change as we learn more
Who do you think are the biggest users of Upscope given the following features?
"Upscope is instant, no-download screen sharing for seeing the user's screen in one click when they phone in or live chat with you. You can then use your mouse on their screen to click for that user."
Had a think?
Read on.
We first thought that Upscope was for taking a quick look at the user's screen to see the problem and fix it.
While that's still true, the heaviest users include customer success, account management, onboarding specialists as well as support staff who can spend up to 30 minutes with each customer.
There's less of a market for a quick peek type technical support service and it's used by many other teams outside of customer support.
With hindsight this may seem obvious but early days in SaaS are confusing.
Doing regular customer job title and usage analysis changed our road map and future GTM plans.
What's the pain point Upscope solves?
When a customer has a problem navigating your website you can't always ask them to spend 5 minutes setting up screen sharing in order to help them.
When you can't see their screen you end up communicating by typing lists of instructions, or blindly guiding them on the phone.
Overall, this adds both time and an element of frustration.
The solution is instant and interactive screen sharing, meaning they can see the user's screen in one click AND they can use their mouse on the user's screen to click for them.
So far, it's reducing the length of each call by 30% but more importantly, both agents and customers love the ease of avoiding going off to install a 3rd party screen share tool.
What personas are involved in the buying process?
The first sign up is often the CS, sales or support manager in larger companies.
The first sign up in startups is often the founder or director.
The IT department will be the gateway for clearing it for security.
A developer will customise it, test it locally and then push to production.
The CS, account management and support team will trial the software.
If it's finance or health they will a security department clear our product.
What was our marketing plan?
Our target market evolved over time but the way we reach them is still roughly the same.
Via content and integrations.
We saw live chat companies like Intercom, LiveChat, Zendesk, Drift and others growing and we want to ride a growing wave.
We created integrations with these tools, got listed on their app stores and created content so that if a user searches for e.g. Intercom pricing we're there on page 1 of google. As those companies grow, the traffic to our content grows with them.
We attracted SaaS founders by writing about our SaaS journey including onboarding emails, SaaS pricing and posts like the one you're reading now.
We're now developing further marketing channels for CS, account management and enterprise support. This will include further integrations, ads, emails and content.
What's the sales model and the buyer personas journey
The different people mentioned above need different types of content and material to convince them to continue to the next stage.
Attention
At the top of the funnel we're getting the "attention" of the manager when they come to our landing page
A team manager or c-suite exec reads our blog post or sees our integration listing and comes to the website.
At this point we get their attention using short videos, testimonials, a security page covering key customer data concerns, individual landing pages for each integration.
In short, we try and tick all the main boxes for them to move to the next step.
Consideration
In the middle "consideration" phase we're talking to managers, end users, developers, those in charge of data security and vetting.
They book a demo and /or ask questions on live chat.
The demo is often to the initial champion who signed up and a couple of others they invited.
They might book follow up demos involving other decision makers and ask a series of questions on live chat or via email to look for comparisons to our competitors.
It's useful to have documents on our enterprise features or on-premise solutions to pass on to their tech team. It's important to respond quickly.
Decision
At the bottom "decision" phase we're making sure the trial goes well, all docs are completed and we quote the right price
They take up the trial. We complete security forms, price quotes, we give them an additional walk-through of the product for specific features and settings during the trial.
Upscope has grown even though our initial GTM strategy was vague. When we started we only had a rough idea of the market, we were not specific about who needs it most and now that we can be specific, we can move faster.
The most recent GTM evolution allowing bottom up growth for Upscope can be seen in our new 'should have built this years ago' product: HelloScreen.com
Learn more about Upscope co-browsing here and see our SaaS related hard lessons learned here.
3. Go-to-market at the billion dollar country level
If you associate quality products with the likes of Apple and Samsung, what would a new Chinese company called Huawei do to win a market?
Here was the problem Huawei had in India
"The Indian telecom supplier market was heavily saturated and to make an impact, Huawei needed to separate itself from the rest and create a distinct identity as well as a reputation for reliability. Historically, Indians have viewed Chinese companies as hard to form relationships with and Chinese made products as subpar and inferior. In addition, China and India have relatively uneasy diplomatic relations."
Huawei first got a foothold by building local R&D centres
"Huawei began establishing its foothold in India by setting up R&D and service center facilities in India and hiring predominantly locals to show commitment to creating value for Indians rather than just extracting benefits. India is now Huawei’s second largest research center outside China."
They positioned it as an aspirational product
"Huawei is now working on positioning its smartphones as aspirational products by working with local English Language channels to hold contests and beat the stereotype of a low quality Chinese product."
Establishing trust and building relationships
"The lesson to learn is that establishing trust, building and sustaining relationships and showing continuing commitment to the new market can lead to a successful foothold and increased opportunities."
https://www.cleverism.com/enter-new-market/
4. A cornerstone of TaxJar's go-to-market was better content to help confused clients
If you aim to be the number one educator of potential customers in a subject like SEO, then you'll be up against people like Neil Patel and Brian Dean who rank at the top.
However, if you're looking to be No.1 in an industry like tax, you've got a lot of low hanging fruit to take advantage of and that can be the cornerstone of a strategy.
They became a technology company first, a tax company second
"We looked at ourselves as a technology company, not so much as a tax company. That was a new approach to our space. We've let the customer be in the driver's seat for the way the product has been built."
Their marketing strategy was based on building trust by educating the customers on tax like few others had done
"Another opportunity for us was our ability to educate the world on sales tax. Before we existed, most of the content that was available was either hard to find or hard to understand.
Therefore, we decided to build the best content we could to help people wrap their heads around sales tax, which feels like an insane problem that's changing all the time.
As a result, we were able to build trust and customers began to try the product because they trusted and understood what we're saying. This also helped us succeed through word of mouth, which has been a tremendous lever for growth."
Read more about TaxJar's planning
5. EightSleep developed a go-to-market for a specific new feature
This is useful if you're launching a new integration with a partner.
This is different from the other go-to-market studies we've mentioned in this post but I figured it's great for single feature launches.
Eight did an integration of their sleep hardware / software with IFTTT (an app for integrating and automating different applications using 'if-then' logic).
Pre-launch
"We did so with an announcement email to our entire user base and highlighted some of the connections we’d already created, to help them realize the possibilities. We also created a dedicated landing page on our website to highlight, explain, and link back to IFTTT and our connections."
Post-launch
"We promoted videos on Facebook and Instagram that showcased different use cases, such as automatically starting your coffee machine when you wake up. These videos were really helpful in explaining the value of the integration, and to this day we use them in our customer prospecting efforts."
Co-marketing
"We also worked closely with the IFTTT team on marketing efforts. We were included in their GIFTTT Guide for 2016, which drove an incremental 15,000 visitors to our service page and connections. More recently, we were included in the February IFTTT newsletter. It brought us a spike in traffic and doubled our sales for a period of 4 days.”
Key advice
"Focus on use cases — you need to be descriptive and explain exactly how your users will benefit from this integration. Some may be aware of IFTTT, but many may not be, so it’s an opportunity to educate."
Read more on Eight and IFTTT feature launch here.
6. Fitbit GTM for their premium product
This includes the value proposition, strategic overview, brand and audience strategy, GTM costs, expected campaign ROI, CAC by channel.
See GTM Strategy: Fitbit Premium Enhance Project
Yes, you can teleport over to your client
Change sales, onboarding and customer support forever by teleporting over
7. Cisco's GTM communication plan for a learning game
Cisco had GTM communication plan for a learning game to put users in the shoes of a telecoms company leader.
The slideshare includes the strategy, tactics, assets, phases and social media strategy.
See the full Cisco myPlanNet go-to-market communication plan slideshare here.
8. Symyx GTM strategy includes the ROI and benchmarks
This slideshare shows how Symyx ran a GTM strategy that grew revenue and bookings and along with the before and after numbers.
It includes notes on their print advertising, media relations and establishing themselves as a thought leader, brand equity metrics and sales enablement.
See the slideshare on Symyx's numbers and strategy
9. Go-to-market best practices for startups by a16z
I added this slideshare as it's by a16z and contains a lot of images that might be useful structures for that wonderful presentation you're planning ;)
See Go-to-Market Best Practices for Startups
This is an interesting addition simply because the cost of acquiring customers is greatly reduced if the product does the work rather than a sales rep.
This slideshare quotes that 65% of b2b buyers prefer not to deal with a sales rep.
I went through this slide with interest but one thing came to mind. There's a reason companies like Intercom also assumed they could do without sales people and then came round to hiring them. The product should do as much of the work as possible but good sales people are not in a zero sum game with product, they're a boost and, on enterprise deals, companies expect to talk to sales people.
See the slideshare on a product led GTM strategy
What to read next?
Eye opener: Creating a Sales Narrative that Compels People to Buy
Essential read: Positioning is a Company Building Superpower
FAQs
What are examples of go-to-market strategy? ›
A demand generation go-to-market strategy includes all sales-centric tactics and marketing activities such as cold calling, sponsored webinars, buying lists, email blasts, and television commercials. It focuses on creating audience demand by generating brand awareness and an immediate buzz around the product launch.
What are the 3 main parts of GTM? ›The components of a go-to-market strategy are simple: market intelligence, market segmentation and product messaging.
What is part of a GTM strategy? ›A GTM strategy includes tactics related to pricing, sales and channels, the buying journey, new product or service launches, product rebranding or product introduction to a new market.
What is meant by go-to-market strategy? ›Go-to-market or go-to-market strategy is the plan of an organization, utilizing their outside resources (e.g. sales force and distributors), to deliver their unique value proposition to customers and achieve competitive advantage.
Who owns GTM strategy? ›In the absence of a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), the GTM strategy is owned by the CEO in collaboration with marketing and sales. It's helping to outline areas of overlap, collaboration, and shared ownership for implementation.
Why go-to-market strategy is important? ›Mostly GTM is useful during product launches as it helps to understand the requirements of the customers and provides an opportunity to develop needs and create a new market for innovative products or services. The advantage is this strategy can be adopted to suit both B2B and B2C alike.
What is a GTM team? ›Go-to-market teams are responsible for bringing products to market. The team will discuss the best marketing channels, sales strategies, and pricing models to ensure the product's ongoing success. Generally speaking, within every GTM team, you'll have several senior positions and a number of teams reporting to them.
Is marketing the same as go-to-market? ›A go-to-market strategy is a short-term plan driven by a specific product, while a marketing strategy is a long-term, ongoing plan for the whole organization. If your brand is in its early stages, go-to-market and marketing could be one and the same, as your aim is to bring your first product to market.
What are the elements of go-to-market? ›There are 6 major elements to consider when developing a go-to-market strategy. Weakness or failure in any one area negatively impacts the outcome. They are OKRs, Attract, Sell, Deliver, Adopt, and Help.
What is GTM in b2b? ›The go-to-market strategy is a plan that a company applies to sell to a market, to win new business, reliably and repeatedly. It is essential for startups and businesses seeking to grow.
How do you measure the success of a GTM strategy? ›
- Pipeline coverage. ...
- Lead conversion rates. ...
- Days Sales Outstanding Ratio (DSO) – collecting revenue is a key indicator of a company's health. ...
- Sales team tenure. ...
- Marketing and Sales budgets as a percentage of company revenue.
Google tag manager (GTM) is a free tag management platform that enables marketers to deploy and track marketing data by easily adding code snippets to their website or app. It allows marketers to track conversions, website analytics, retargeting, and more without the intervention of webmasters.
Who leads a go-to-market strategy? ›Who is in Charge of a Company's Go-to-Market Strategy? Because the tactics used to support a product's launch are primarily marketing functions — lead generation, brand awareness, promotions, customer outreach, public relations — the go-to-market strategy typically falls under the marketing department.
What is GTM enablement? ›In business, enablement refers to everything employees need to perform their roles successfully, from training to tools to data.
How can market strategy be improved? ›- Thoroughly Understand The Market. ...
- Have A Thoughtful And Measurable Plan. ...
- Get Honest Feedback And Act On It. ...
- Start By Building Brand Equity. ...
- Identify Your Brand Standards. ...
- Aim For The Path Of Least Resistance. ...
- Identify Target Buyer Personas. ...
- Align On Markets And Buyer Profiles.
A go-to-market channel refers to the marketing technique a business uses to get its product off the ground. It could be anything from content marketing to paid advertising and can vary for B2C and B2B businesses. Choose the right go-to-market channels to get the word out, and you'll be rewarded with consumer attention.
What is GTM manager role? ›A go-to-market (GTM) manager is a dedicated leader responsible for managing the go-to-market strategy and process of a service or product launch. They work with cross-functional teams to ensure smooth launch operations.
What teams fall under GTM? ›Google Go-to-Market Team
The GTM meaning in networking translates to just regular Marketing, Sales, or Customer Success teams. If you know of job openings within these teams, these can be considered go-to-market roles.
A marketing strategy focuses on how a company can reach an identified market over time and deliver against its overall value proposition. A go-to-market strategy focuses on how to bring new products or services to market. The former is long-term and company-driven, the latter is short-term and product-driven.
What is the difference between GTM and marketing? ›The main difference between a GTM strategy and a marketing strategy is that a GTM strategy focuses on one product. In contrast, a marketing strategy focuses on the actions, distribution channels, and target audience of the value proposition.
What is a growth strategy? ›
A growth strategy is an organization's plan for overcoming current and future challenges to realize its goals for expansion. Examples of growth strategy goals include increasing market share and revenue, acquiring assets, and improving the organization's products or services.
What are the four basic marketing strategies? ›What are the 4Ps of marketing? (Marketing mix explained) The four Ps are product, price, place, and promotion. They are an example of a “marketing mix,” or the combined tools and methodologies used by marketers to achieve their marketing objectives. The 4 Ps were first formally conceptualized in 1960 by E.
Why do you need a go to market strategy? ›The purpose of a GTM strategy is to provide a blueprint for delivering a product or service to the end customer, taking into account such factors as pricing and distribution. A GTM strategy is somewhat similar to a business plan, although the latter is broader in scope and considers additional factors like funding.
How would you measure the success of a go to market strategy? ›- Pipeline coverage. ...
- Lead conversion rates. ...
- Days Sales Outstanding Ratio (DSO) – collecting revenue is a key indicator of a company's health. ...
- Sales team tenure. ...
- Marketing and Sales budgets as a percentage of company revenue.
BACKGROUND. In general terms a route-to-market (RTM) is the way a company brings the right products to the right point of sales at the right time.
What are the top 5 marketing strategies? ›- SEO. ...
- Influencer marketing. ...
- PR and affiliate marketing. ...
- Email marketing. ...
- Social media marketing.
At the broadest level, marketing strategy can be defined as an organization's integrated pattern of decisions that specify its crucial choices concerning products, markets, marketing activities and marketing resources in the creation, communication and/or delivery of products that offer value to customers in exchanges ...
What are the 5 marketing concepts? ›The five main marketing concepts are production, product, selling, marketing, and societal. Companies utilize these five concepts in regards to the product, price, distribution, and promotion of their business.
What is the difference between GTM and marketing? ›The main difference between a GTM strategy and a marketing strategy is that a GTM strategy focuses on one product. In contrast, a marketing strategy focuses on the actions, distribution channels, and target audience of the value proposition.
What is go-to-market analytics? ›It leverages data to help our clients understand market and product lines on a deeper level, and efficiently form strategies around growing a specific segment, expanding geographically, or developing a new product.
How long does it take to bring a product to market? ›
You really need the stars to align in order to take a concept to market in only one year. For most founders and products, two years is more realistic. Taking one year for development plus one year to scale to manufacturing is an achievable goal for most hardware startups.
What does a go-to-market Manager do? ›Go-to-market manager definition
They work with cross-functional teams to ensure smooth launch operations. A go-to-market manager sets the strategic vision, hires the right team, and motivates them to work on operational initiatives and achieve launch goals.
Distribution channels include wholesalers, retailers, distributors, and the Internet. In a direct distribution channel, the manufacturer sells directly to the consumer. Indirect channels involve multiple intermediaries before the product ends up in the hands of the consumer.
What are your key routes to market? ›- Selling online. ...
- Opening a retail shop. ...
- Trade shows or exhibitions. ...
- Pop-up shops. ...
- Selling to retailers. ...
- Selling to wholesalers or distributors. ...
- Selling via mail-order catalogues. ...
- Using sales agents.
- Intensive Distribution: As many outlets as possible. The goal of intensive distribution is to penetrate as much of the market as possible.
- Selective Distribution: Select outlets in specific locations. ...
- Exclusive Distribution: Limited outlets.