Launching a product, service, or brand without the right go-to-market strategy is dangerous. It’s like deciding you’re going to take a trip to some distant land without any idea of how you’re going to get there, or the resources you’ll need to actually survive the journey.
A Go-To-Market (GTM) in business isn’t just a roadmap for how you’re going to promote and sell your products. It’s your way of making sure you’re setting your company up for success, by identifying the right target audience, unique selling proposition, and sales channels in advance.
The question is: with so many GTM strategies to choose from today, how do you know which method is right for you? Here’s your guide to finding the ideal go-to-market strategy for your business.
What is a GTM Strategy and Why Is it Important?
A GTM strategy, or go-to-market strategy, is basically a comprehensive plan that outlines how you’re going to launch a product or service, or expand your reach into a new market or location. It covers the step-by-step process you’re going to use to introduce your product to the right audience, highlight its benefits, earn sales, and gain traction.
The best GTM strategies make sure you have all of the insights, resources, and direction you need to ensure your product is actually successful. In fact, Gartner found that 85% of respondents in one survey believe it was their go-to-market strategy that had the biggest impact on their revenue.
You won’t just use your GTM in marketing decisions. This plan will guide every decision you make related to the growth and distribution of your product. It will outline how you’ll communicate with customers, differentiate yourself from competitors, and which sales channels you’ll use.
Without a GTM plan, you’re basically just jumping into the market blind, with no guarantee that you’ll be able to actually make a profit.
Key Components of an Effective GTM Strategy
While there are many different types of GTM strategies to choose from, depending on your industry, your resources, and your overall goals, every plan should feature similar components. For instance, when you’re building your go-to-market strategy, you’ll need:
- To Understand the Market: Understanding your target market is critical. Conduct thorough research, not only on your target demographic but also on your competitors. The goal is to find a unique niche for your product—something that no one else fills quite like you.
- A Unique value proposition: What has your product or solution got that nothing else has? Your unique value proposition (UVP) needs to go beyond your product features and hit on what your customers truly need. Focus on the outcomes and solutions you deliver.
- An Ideal Customer Profile: The more you know about your customers, the easier it will be to choose the sales and marketing channels that will appeal most to them. Get to know your ideal customers, analyzing their demographics, behavior, and preferences.
- A Pricing Strategy Price can be a dealbreaker. Customers want value, but they also don’t want to feel overcharged. Setting a price that reflects the true value of your product—without underselling yourself—is crucial.
- Sales strategies: How are customers actually going to be able to purchase your product? Are you going to be selling your offering directly, or through channel partners and marketplaces? How easy is it to access whatever you have to offer?
- Performance metrics and KPIs: Metrics are essential for gauging the success of your GTM strategy. Identify relevant KPIs that align with your goals and regularly track these to adjust your approach as necessary.
6 Types of GTM Strategies to Consider
When it comes to GTM strategies, there’s really no one-size-fits-all approach. Options are constantly evolving, and each business will make a choice based on their specific goals, customer base, product, and various other factors. Here’s a quick insight into six of the most common Go-to-Market strategies, championed by the experts on our online skill sharing platform, the Hardskill Exchange.
1) The Inbound Strategy
Inbound strategies rely on drawing customers in through high-value content and resources. They’re all about attracting your customers to you, with things like webinars, blog content, SEO, reports, whitepapers, case studies, and social media campaigns.
An inbound GTM strategy can be effective for a lot of companies, because it helps you to earn trust, demonstrate thought leadership and build relationships by educating your audience. However, these strategies require a lot of work and long-term investment.
Inbound strategies work best for companies that want to establish authority in their field, position themselves as experts, and become “problem-solvers” for their customers. If you have the resources to produce exceptional content consistently, this might be the strategy for you.
2) The Outbound Strategy
The outbound GTM strategy is probably the most common and “traditional” option among many companies. It’s all about approaching your customers directly. There are various ways to approach outbound go-to-market strategies. Some companies take an approach that involves sending a lot of cold emails and making cold calls to potential prospects.
Other companies use paid advertising to connect with customers through multiple channels, or leverage account-based marketing to target specific audiences with unique resources.
Outbound strategies are ideal for businesses with a clear idea of their target audience. You need a strong understanding of your customers and their pain points, and an excellent ability to build rapport and engagement with prospects for this strategy to work.
3) Product Led Growth
A product-led strategy (PLG) lets the product be the star. PLG strategies allow users to experience a product first-hand, often with free trials, demos, or freemium models. With PLG, the product itself drives growth by demonstrating value upfront. Think of software solutions like Slack, which allow users to test a product themselves, before making a purchase.
Compared to other GTM strategies, PLG methods can be less labor intensive, and expensive, if you have the right resources. They reduce the strain on your sales and marketing teams, because your product essentially does all the work for you.
However, PLG really only works if you can actually allow customers to use and test your product. That’s why it’s so popular in the software space. You also need to make sure that you’re giving your customers enough incentive to turn from “testers” into buyers.
4) The Channel-Led Strategy
Channel-led GTM strategies have grown increasingly popular in recent years, particularly among companies that sell more complex B2B products and services. A channel-led approach involves distributing your product through a network of partners, wholesalers, or retailers. This strategy can help you expand your reach quickly by tapping into established relationships.
The right channel can help you to significantly increase your revenue, and boost the credibility of your brand, through valuable partnerships. It can also reduce the efforts involved in having to actually market and sell your products yourself.
However, you do need to make sure you’re providing your “channel” with the right resources to sell your product or service. That means investing in training solutions, incentives, and resources that empower and invigorate your seller community.
5) The Ecosystem-Led Strategy
An ecosystem-led strategy involves building partnerships to create a comprehensive experience for customers. Think of it as creating a symbiotic network of complementary products or services that add value when used together.
It might sound the same as the “channel-led” GTM strategy, but there’s a core difference. You’re not just asking other people to sell your products here. You’re connecting your solution to other valuable products, to create a more “packaged” experience.
This approach allows your company to offer customers more than you can give them on your own. For instance, a fintech startup could work with an accounting software expert to create a comprehensive financial solution for customers.
6) Community-Led Growth
A community-led GTM strategy is all about leveraging the relationships you have with your customers. With this approach, you ask your customers to become advocates and ambassadors for your brand, encouraging them to refer customers to your business, to enable growth.
Being community-led requires a deep investment in building relationships with customers, earning their loyalty, and rewarding them for their impact on your sales and marketing efforts. However, it’s much easier to see results if your brand’s values align with those of your customers.
Customers for brands like Patagonia, that value sustainability, for instance, need very little prompting to promote the company’s products to their friends and loved ones.
Factors to Consider When Choosing Your GTM Strategy
So, how do you choose the right GTM strategy? There’s no simple answer to that question. The right method for you will depend on factors like:
- Your target audience: Who are you trying to reach, how do they normally learn about products and purchase solutions? What do they value and appreciate?
- Available resources: Do you have the marketing experts and content creation specialists for an inbound strategy? Is your sales team skilled enough to handle an outbound strategy?
- Product type: Certain types of GTM strategies work best for specific products. For instance, the product-led growth strategy is ideal for software companies that can offer access to their solutions to customers easily.
- Your position: If you’re a newer company in the industry, you might have a harder time connecting with partners who are willing to sell your products and services. You may need to consider an inbound, or outbound approach instead.
- Launch timelines: Some GTM strategies take longer to generate real results. For instance, you’ll usually be able to tap into a new market faster with an outbound, channel or ecosystem-led strategy than you would with an inbound marketing strategy.
Notably, sometimes a single strategy isn’t enough. You might need to consider using mixed or hybrid strategies, like community-led, product-led, and channel-led strategies to achieve the best results.
Making an Informed Decision for Your GTM Strategy
Developing the best GTM strategy is crucial to ensuring you can achieve success in your market – but it’s far from easy to make the right choice. Even with extensive research into your available options, you might struggle to determine if a GTM plan is really going to work for your company.
Fortunately, there are tools and resources that can help you make more informed decisions. For instance, at the Hard Skill Exchange, we offer a GTM assessment, developed in collaboration with the world’s best CXOs, to help you evaluate the potential benefits of your GTM strategy.
This tool can help you take a more informed approach to determining which go to market method you need in today’s competitive landscape. Give it a try, and see whether your go to market strategy is poised for success.
