What is a Go-to-Market Strategy?

Here’s a closer look at Go-to-Market (GTM) strategies and how to make one.

What is a Go-to-Market Strategy?

A Go-to-Market Strategy is a comprehensive step-by-step plan that outlines how a company introduces its product or service to the market and drives demand. It should answer these questions:

• What are you selling? What unique problem does it solve?
• Who is your ideal customer? What are their pain points?
• Where will you sell? What does demand and competition look like in those markets?
• How will you connect with your target audience? How will you drum up demand?

The end goal of a well-crafted GTM strategy is to break down a market problem and position your offer as the solution. Preferably, the GTM strategy even establishes your type of problem (e.g. “hair on fire”), your unique value proposition, and how you solve problems better than your competitors.

Who needs a go-to-market strategy?

Any time you introduce a product or service to the market, you’ll need a GTM plan. This includes:

• Launching a new product in an existing market – e.g. a video game developer releasing a sequel of its most popular game
• Launching an existing product to a new market – e.g. Starbucks opening up stores in a previously untapped country
• Testing a new product’s market demand – e.g. a start-up launching its first app

Regardless of your situation, chances are high you’ll need a GTM strategy.

This is because GTM strategies help businesses focus on reaching the right audience and using resources efficiently. They also align sales, marketing, and product teams so they’re all on the same page.

By setting a clear GTM plan, businesses can reduce the risk of product failure and lay a foundation for success. After all, a poor product-market fit will tank your product launch and cost you all the time and money you put into it.

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What are the components of a Go-to-Market strategy?

Every strategy has many moving parts, and GTM strategies are no exception as they highlight aspects such as pricing models and distribution channels.

Here are the key components of a GTM plan:

While these are the majority of components you’ll include in a GTM strategy, they’re far from the only ones. However, start-ups and other SMBs might use a minimalistic GTM approach.

At the bare minimum, a GTM strategy must at least cover these four parts:

• Product-market fit
• Target audience
• Competition and demand
• Distribution

Enterprises and large corporations such as Coca-Cola or Pepsi might build out a full GTM plan that covers everything above, as well as their own factors, before launching a new product or entering a new market. 

Types of Go-to-Market strategies

There are many different kinds of GTM strategies, but some of the most common include:

• Product-led GTM – Customer acquisition, conversion, and retention is driven by the product itself. Value is delivered through free trials, freemium models, and self-serve options.
• Sales-led GTM – Sales deals are closed thanks to direct engagement between sales teams and customers. Lead scoring and qualification, outbound prospecting, and discovery calls are some of the tactics sales teams use.
• Partner-led GTM – Business grows through collaborations with external partners like resellers and affiliates. These partners expand reach, build trust, and generate sales by leveraging their networks and expertise.

Common mistakes to avoid in GTM strategies

A solid GTM plan can safeguard your business from many of the mistakes and oversights that can tank product launches.

Here are some common mistakes that can occur when creating a GTM strategy:

• Skipping market research – A good GTM plan requires researching your audience, their needs, and your competition. Without it, your GTM strategy won’t be on target.
• Targeting too broad many people – Selling to everyone instead of your ideal customer will drain your resources and dilute your messaging.
• Poor messaging – People won’t buy if they see confusing and generic messages that don’t explain your product’s value.
• Ignoring feedback – Overlooking customer input or early signs your strategy isn’t working. GTM strategies aren’t set in stone, so you’ll need to revise your GTM as you get real data.
• Underestimating costs – If you don’t plan smartly for all marketing and sales expenses, you may run out of money before you start seeing results.

Examples of successful GTM strategies

Here are a few examples of good GTM strategies.

Slack

Slack used a product-led growth strategy where they offered an easy-to-use product that encouraged organic adoption. They offered a freemium model where users got to experience the product and see the value before converting to a paid plan as teams expanded.

HubSpot

HubSpot built their GTM strategy around content marketing and inbound marketing. They created value-rich content like blogs, webinars, and free tools to attract leads and nurture them into paying customers.

As a result, HubSpot is nearly synonymous with inbound marketing and sales.

Dropbox

Dropbox thrived by using a referral program to fuel their GTM. They offered extra storage space for both the referrer and referee to incentivize users to invite others to the platform.

This paid off in the form of extremely rapid user growth and brand awareness.

How to develop your own GTM strategy

Here’s how to develop a GTM strategy for your company in simple steps.

Know your customer

One of your first steps when building a GTM strategy is to iron out your ideal customer profile (ICP) and buyer persona. Your ICP should be a customer who will benefit from your product while giving you enough value to make your business profitable.

Common benefits companies look for in products are:

• Growing revenue
• Reducing costs
• Improving efficiency
• Improving staff productivity and well-being

Your ICP should outline factors such as who your customers are, what they do, and what challenges they face. In comparison, buyer personas include information about the people who are making the decision to purchase your product.

If you decide to use a sales tool like AiSDR, you’ll need to use your ICP and buyer persona to craft a sales persona that can run AI outreach. 

Research the market

While getting to know your audience, you’ll also want to study the market, look at your competitors, and find out what makes your product or service unique.

Some of the competitor data you’ll want to look for includes:

• Product features broken down by what they do and don’t do
• Customer reviews on sites like G2 and Capterra
• Cost and overall pricing model
• Primary sales channels

You can use G2 and Capterra reviews to see what customers like and dislike about your competitors. This will pay off later when you outline your unique value proposition.

In addition to competitor research, you should analyze industry trends, economic factors, and regulations.

Define your goals

Every GTM strategy needs an end goal that aligns with your business objective.  

Your goals should also be:

• Specific – State what you want to achieve, such as “Gain 100 new customers” or “Increase sales to $1M ARR”
• Measurable – Ensure your goals can be tracked with numbers like revenue, customer count, or website visits
• Achievable – Select goals that can be accomplished without draining your budget or resources
• Relevant – Pick goals that support your broader business goal, whether it’s brand awareness or market expansion
• Time-bound – Set a deadline for achieving your goal

Defining clear, measurable goals helps you stay focused and makes it easier to track progress.

Choose your sales tactics

There are many GTM plays you can use to engage and sell to your target audience.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Does your product/service need hands-on demos or can they be sold through self-service (without incurring too many costs)?
• Does your audience prefer engagement through personal interactions or online channels?
• Do you need a direct sales team or can you get by with partnerships, inbound, and AI sales?
• What is your team’s size and skills? Do you have enough people for direct sales or creating content for inbound?

Your answers will help you design your GTM playbook.

Create messaging

Good messaging comes down to this:

Communicate the ways your product or service solves your target audience’s pain points.

But to do this effectively, you need to speak their language. This involves getting on calls and talking with your target audience about their goals and challenges. You can then craft your messaging around the language they use.

Then, when you’re actually creating assets like guides and emails, all you have to do is polish the messaging, eliminate weasel words, and make sure the final result follows the rules of good sales copy.

Pick channels

The question of which channels to use for sales gets answered during your audience research. Generally, you’ll want to pick the channels where your customers spend their time.

So that you don’t spread yourself too thin across many channels, you should focus on 1 or 2 channels and get them really good. If you’re B2B, this means LinkedIn combined with some other channel. And if you’re B2C, this might be Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.

Complex B2B products might perform better using webinars and email outreach while you might social media or online ads for consumer products.

But before you settle on a channel, make sure you have the resources and talent to do it well. For instance, if you want to create short-form videos for TikTok but don’t have anyone that wants to do videos, then you should ditch the idea until you have someone for video.

Track progress

There are many different tools and best practices for tracking the performance of your GTM strategy:

• Set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – Depending on the stage your business is at, this might be sales growth, website traffic, lead generation, acquisition costs, and others.
• Track outreach metrics – Watch how your emails, LinkedIn messages, and calls are doing in terms of click-through rates, response rates, and positive responses.
• Use analytics tools – Software like Google Analytics, Salesforce, and HubSpot make it easier to monitor metrics in real time and make faster adjustments.
• Monitor your sales pipeline – Measure how fast leads move through your pipeline, and try to identify any spots where leads get stuck or leak from your pipeline.