GO-to-Market Strategies: Who's In Charge. Part I

What is Go-to-Market Strategy?

Go-to-market (GTM) is the strategy and tactics you choose to capture attention, interest, and ultimately the purchase of your product or service. GTM encompasses your entire customer journey from initial impression through acquiring the product. Getting there involves researching customer needs and wants, then incorporating learnings into your strategy. A sound strategy is going to deploy, test, refine, and adjust.

GTM Strategy is NOT your Business Strategy. GTM Strategy supports the larger Business Strategy Goals. Make sure you have clarity from your CEO and/or Board as to where the company is headed before you lock down strategic GTM goals. Start with an in-depth look at the business's competitive landscape and understanding the current customer needs. Based on today’s needs, think and brainstorm about what those needs might look like in the future.  Then you can develop a plan for how to best position yourself in the marketplace. Align your GTM with the larger goals of the company. 

Part of that alignment is determining who leads the charge on GTM. Based on your product or service, there will be one of three likely teams to spearhead this effort.

This is an introduction to a series where we will take a deep dive into each of the following strategies. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss an article.

Three approaches to GTM strategy 

3. Marketing-Led: This GTM strategy focuses on building awareness, generating leads, and driving demand for a product or service using a combination of marketing tactics such as content marketing, SEO, social media, online advertising, and public relations. Your Marketing team takes point in attracting potential clients to your company through content and paid advertising. Think of this as fishing (you are presenting bait (content) and waiting on an interested person to come across your content.  Marketing-led efforts are primarily top-of-funnel lead generation.
4. Sales-Led: This GTM strategy focuses on driving sales by leveraging the existing customer base, developing partnerships, and building relationships with sales channels. It typically involves activities such as lead generation, account-based marketing, customer segmentation, and sales campaigns. Your sales team will engage heavily in outbound, cold reach to potential clients that fit your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). They may or may not be in the market, but based on their level of interest, they are put into sales or marketing campaigns to move the potential deal forward.
5. Product-Led: This GTM strategy focuses on creating innovative products that customers love and will want to keep using. It relies heavily on customer feedback and research to ensure that the product or service is tailored. PLG (Product Led Growth) is all the rage now in SAAS (software as a service) products where you can try a free version, or a limited-time full version on your own, with no human interaction unless you ask for it. Sales interactions are more focused on using the product and having a great product experience rather than doing deep discovery about any problems or gaps you have as a client. 

We’ll be breaking down these different strategies over the next few weeks in this blog. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything. If you want specific help, drop us a line or book a quick meeting on the calendar.

How can we help you with GTM Strategy? Set up a call to get your questions answered.