How do some companies just seem to nail their product launches EVERY.SINGLE.TIME?
They’re in the spotlight, you see them all over social media with tons of engagement… And you might wonder how in the world do they get it right?
What’s their secret sauce?
Whether you’re a small business owner, a start-up founder, or a marketing professional, understanding successful go-to-market strategies can help you drive success for your business.
This article will share go-to-market strategy examples, a guide on exactly what it is and how to create one, as well as templates.
Successful Go to market Examples
Netflix
Netflix disrupted the traditional entertainment industry with its subscription model, offering a vast library of content at a fraction of the cost of cable.
This move struck a chord with consumers tired of high cable bills and schedules, paving the way for a new era of streaming services.
By consistently adding original content, Netflix has maintained its position as a market leader.
Amazon
Amazon’s focus on customer experience really changed the world of online shopping. Their strategy includes everything from easy navigation and one-click purchases to reliable delivery and great customer service.
By putting the customer first, Amazon has set an industry standard that other retailers strive to match.
Tesla
Tesla took a different route by adopting a direct-to-consumer sales model in the automotive industry. They bypassed traditional dealerships and created a unique and efficient buying experience.
Tesla’s approach not only saves money but also allows for better control over the customer journey, translating into higher customer satisfaction.
The Dollar Shave Club
The Dollar Shave Club became a household name overnight thanks to its viral video campaign. Their funny, straightforward promotion resonated with a broad audience and this helped with their brand success; Thus redefining how men’s grooming products are marketed.
You can watch the video below:
Slack
Slack’s freemium model was a game-changer in the business communications space. By offering free services with optional paid upgrades, Slack quickly attracted millions of users.
This strategy not only built a broad user base but also facilitated easy transitions from free to premium features.
Airbnb
Airbnb has a community-driven approach and this expanded their global footprint.
By fostering a sense of community among hosts and guests, they created a unique travel experience that traditional hotels couldn’t compete with.
This model helped Airbnb to grow rapidly and establish a loyal customer base.
Your Go to Market Strategy Guide
What is a go to market strategy?
Simply put, a go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a detailed plan that outlines how a company will launch an existing product or service to a new market.
For example, this might include:
- Identifying your ideal target audience
- Considering what your product/service value proposition is
- Deciding which channels you should use to reach your customers on
- And setting a clear sales and marketing approach.
While coming up with your GTM blueprint, you should be able to answer questions like:
- Who are we selling to?
- What problem does our product or service solve?
- What’s the size of our market? (the market demand)
- What channels will we use to reach our ideal customers?
- What’s your value proposition?
- How will you win new customers over?
- What story will you share?
- How will you measure the success of your campaign?
Having a solid GTM plan will ensure that you consider all factors and avoid costly mistakes, such as launching your product to the wrong audience or entering a market already saturated with similar offerings.
Who needs a GTM strategy?
Having an in-depth go-to-market strategy can be helpful for any company that is planning to launch a new product or service. This includes start-ups that are introducing their product/service, established businesses that are expanding their product lines, tech firms releasing new software, and even non-profits launching new initiatives.
You might also benefit from a GTM strategy if you:
Have an existing product and would like to launch it in a new market
Or
You are testing a new product’s growth in a market.
B2B companies can particularly benefit from a go-to-market strategy because it can provide companies with the information they need to stand out against their competitors, develop marketing and sales strategies that get results, and use the right tactics to crush their quota.
Launches often fail when businesses assume there’s a demand for a product and invest in its development without first gathering this crucial information.
You don’t want this.
Having a clear plan = success
What are the Benefits of a Go to market strategy?
If you choose to launch a product or service without a solid plan, you run the risk of failure and losing money. Which you don’t want.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 45% of businesses will fail in the first 5 years, and according to Inc., 95% of new products will fail in their first year.
This can be avoided if you have a clear plan.
Therefore, implementing market strategies can really enhance both customer acquisition, retention, and ROI.
With a well-structured plan, businesses can gain insights into consumer behavior, allowing for more targeted and personalized marketing efforts.
These tailored strategies will help companies to address specific customer needs, which in turn can lead to more sales and customer satisfaction.
Some other benefits are:
Knowing exactly who your target audience is:
A GTM strategy can help you figure out who your ideal target audience is. This process involves understanding who your potential customers are, what they need, and how your product or service can solve their pain points. We will go into more detail later on in the article on how to identify your perfect target customers.
Competitive Positioning:
What sets you apart from your competitors? Why is your product or service better than all the other companies out there? What can you say or do that will give your company a competitive advantage? A GTM strategy can help you figure that out.
Effective Marketing and Sales Channels:
Having a go-to-market strategy can also help you figure out the best channels to use. For example, are most of your ideal clients using Instagram? If that’s the case, you can develop a strategy to reach out to them using that specific social media platform.
Resource Efficiency:
If you have a clear plan, this will help ensure that your company’s time, money, and efforts are focused on the most impactful activities, which in turn will lead to greater success.
Less risk
By implementing and executing a GTM strategy you will actually lessen the risk of launching your product or services to the work market or audience.
Customer Insights:
A GTM strategy will provide valuable data and insights about your customer needs and preferences.
Greater revenue
According to stats 85% of organizations say that their go-to-market strategy has been very (30%) or somewhat (55%) effective at driving revenue and/or achieving business objectives.
Later on in the article we will share some case studies of companies that have gained greater revenue by implementing a GTM plan.
How to develop a go to market strategy?
This is the basic plan that most companies follow:
There are a few steps that most companies should follow if they want to create the perfect strategy.
1. Make use of a Go to market strategy template
Templates will make planning more efficient and streamlined. If you have an exact template for each step it will help you organize your strategy, which will lead to marketing and sales teams alignment, as well as punctuality for the launch.
Obviously, you would adapt each template to tailor the needs of your campaign, but templates can ensure that your basic market strategy framework is in place. This will also ensure that each person on your team knows what they need to do.
2. Think of pricing
Your pricing is also crucial for success. You don’t want to overprice or under price your product or service. If this happens it could lead to poor sales and not enough profit.
For example, if you’re selling a $300 per month product and I’m selling a $5000/ month product, our marketing efforts are going to be pretty different.
If your product is more pricey, you will probably spend more money on advertising, whereas if it’s not as expensive, you might only hire 1 SDR, for example.
If you know your price points, it will also help you decide which forms of marketing you can and can’t afford.
Understanding your target market and product value will also help you determine the right price.
When setting a price, consider:
- Manufacturing costs
- Desired profit margin
- Competitor pricing
- Customer willingness to pay
- Subscription vs. transactional models
Your pricing should align with your business goals, customer expectations, and market competitiveness.
In short, setting the right price ensures you stay profitable and competitive while meeting customer expectations.
3. Identify your ideal buying customers and personas
Many go to market strategies fail because:
A.) You’re targeting the wrong audience
B.) You’re reaching out to the wrong decision-makers
C.) You are going after companies who might not have the budget to buy from you
If you don’t nail this part of your plan, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
At Salesbread we do the following to identify who your ideal customer would be.
Example 1: Building a look-a-like prospecting list based on data
If you would like to expand your sales we suggest starting by analyzing who your current buying customers are…
Have a look at which companies have purchased your product or service within the last 6 months.
Then ask yourself, “What do all these paying customers have in common?”
If you can find patterns between buyers, it will be easier to build look-a-like lists.
For example:
- Are your buyers located in the same area?
- What industry are your buyers in? (SaaS, health and wellness?)
- Who are the decision-makers? (The CEO? The CFO?)
- Do they make use of inbound marketing? (Eg: Content marketing and social media advertising)
- What’s the size of the company? Less than 100 employees or more?
- Have they recently been funded?
- Do they have an internal sales team or marketing team?
We analyze this data through 34 different filters.
This process can take up to 7 days to perfect. If you would like a more in-depth article on how to do this, please read: How To Build A Winning Sales Prospecting List In 7 Days
Example 2: Building a list of prospects for a new market
When it comes to building a prospect list for a new market, we suggest NOT putting all your eggs in one basket. Be aware that at the beginning of a go-to-market strategy, your primary goal is speeding up learning. You are trying to figure out which customer is best, and which list would be the most profitable.
Start with 3 or 4 very different markets that are informed by your initial customer interview stages.
Why?
Because most likely 3 out of the 4 markets are going to be a flop. If you have one win, you can double down on that, while giving you some more time to keep on testing. You’re looking for at least 3 profitable lists in the go to market strategy.
4. Think about your value proposition, your customer’s pain points, and messaging
What’s your unique value proposition? How does your product or service solve your ideal customer’s pain points?
For example:
If you’re selling “leave management software”, you will know that prospects are frustrated with using spreadsheets to book in leave time for their employees.
You could then mention in your messaging how your software can solve a bleeding neck problem for employees and the HR department.
Perhaps employees can book their own leave days in the tool, and it will automatically show HR and other employees which days they have off, and calibrate how many leave days they have left.
If your unique value prop is that your tool is the only tool that has a very specific feature, you could mention that in your outreach messaging or advertising.
When it comes to outreach messaging or cold calling, be sure to think about the prospect.
At Salesbread we use the 90-10 rule. This means talking about the prospect 90% of the time and only 10% about your product or service for background. You need to change your mindset – Don’t think about “what’s in it for me?” but rather think about “how can I really make this person’s day easier?”; Then use this approach in your outreach.
And remember to adapt your messaging to the person you’re selling to.
Pro Tip: Use personalization in your messages
At Salesbread we ALWAYS use personalization.
(You could use this for outreach messaging on LinkedIn, email, other social media platforms, and even cold calling.)
Why is personalization so important? Because it helps your message stand out from every other boring copy-paste sales message.
If you can find something very specific about your prospect and mention that in your messaging, the chances of them replying will be a lot higher.
We actually research each prospect on our list, and find something to either compliment them on, mention a commonality, or ask a question.
Here’s an example:
“Jack, loved your podcast episode about using Chat GTP in sales. I’m looking to connect with people who use AI. Would love to hear your thoughts on {XYZ}.”
4. Test your messaging and channels
You can begin testing your messaging by either reaching out to prospects via cold email or LinkedIn. Another option is to advertise on marketing platforms using the messaging you have just created.
You can then create some A B tests across 3 different verticals.
For example, you can figure out which messaging works with which target audience, and which channel gets the best results.
We suggest first using the channel where your ideal audience spends their time. So if you know that most of your prospects are on LinkedIn, try LinkedIn first.
If you aren’t sure about using outreach, you could also use paid ads. Once you find a clear winner, a channel that has the most conversions, keep using that channel.
(Note, you could do a small test first, before expanding and implementing your marketing on a larger scale.)
5. Set Goals and Objectives
Next, you want to set SMART goals. This stands for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- And time-bound goals
Figure out which key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you would also like to track to track the success of your GTM strategy. This could be market share, booked calls or demos, customer acquisition cost, and revenue growth.
6. Create a Sales Strategy
What will your sales strategy be? Will you hire sales reps? Or outsource your lead generation? Will you consider partnership campaigns, or build an in-house sales team?
For example, if you know that most of your ideal customers are responding to LinkedIn outreach, you might want to hire one or two reps, who will double down on this effort, because you know this is where your conversions are coming from.
7. Distribution Plan
To effectively reach your customers, you will need to also figure out the best channels to distribute your product. Would it be:
- Retail stores
- Online platforms
- Or through distributors
Additionally, make sure you have a well-organized supply and logistics plan in place to meet your customer’s demands. This includes everything from sourcing materials to delivering the final product, ensuring that your operations run smoothly and your customers receive their orders on time.
Here’s Salesbread’s expert insights on how to build a GTM strategy if you want to launch a start-up
Here’s how to go from zero customers to having a product that people will pay you money for.
Step 1: Find your idea
(Listen to this podcast: How to Launch Your Start-up with Cold Email – Part 1)
If you don’t have any customers or an idea just yet, but you know you would like to start your start-up, you might want to try cold email to test the waters.
The most important thing is to figure out which market you want to tackle. You would also need to see if the market you have chosen is profitable.
Besides this, you would need to check if the market you would like to go after is a receptible to cold email or any other channel you would like to use.
If you aren’t getting much response after testing the waters in this specific market, you might decide to close the book on it.
Step 2: Interview people in your market
You could also interview people in your market to see what it is that they would need.
Ask them:
- What are they busy doing right now?
- What pain points are they experiencing?
- What would help them?
How can you solve the issues they are experiencing?
During this step don’t try to sell anything, just try to figure out what it is that your market really needs.
Try to find out everything from your ideal market on what they are doing to find solutions to their pain points. As you keep on listening to other interviews, you will eventually find a common thread on which kind of issues they are facing. This in turn will help you develop an excellent solution to your market’s pain points.
Step 3: Create a narrative
At this stage, you might be wondering, “Why would anyone want to talk to me?” You might be new in the market and feel like you lack experience.
You need to create a story, and we suggest using “liking” at this stage. If you have read Weapons of Influence by Robert Cialdini, you will know that if a person likes you, they will be more willing to agree to your request.
Here’s a simple example:
Imagine that you would like to create a company where you would like to help struggling D.J.s get more fans or solve their logistics problems.
You could reach out to someone in the music industry, and mention that you’re fresh out of school and studied music.
You might even say how you love their music and find them inspiring; and ask just for a quick 10 minutes of their time, to discuss what other issues they might have faced on their road to becoming a D.J.
Try to resonate with your audience and find commonalities. Then once you have spoken to a few other musicians and they have shared their pain points, you can build on that.
You could then say that you have spoken to 30 other D.Js and they all have an issue with logistics, and ask if they struggle with this too.
Remember at this stage you’re not trying to sell. It’s basically just in-depth research and building relationships.
Step 4: Set a goal for your reply rate
We advise using cold email or LinkedIn outreach when you start conducting interviews, but instead of having the goal of sending 20 emails per day to your market, rather set a goal of having a specific number of positive replies.
Also, be mindful that you don’t want to burn through your entire list in one day. Focus on learning at this stage, instead of just blasting through your list of 1000 contacts.
(Listen to this podcast: How to Launch Your Startup with Cold Email – Part 2, for the next part of the strategy.)
Step 5: Reach out to prospects and keep following up
You want to show your market that you are dedicated. Some prospects might reply and say:
“Yes, that’s a huge problem our business is facing,” and others might ghost you.
Just because some might ghost you, it doesn’t mean that they won’t be interested in your services at a later stage. People get used to hearing from you and seeing your progress with your start-up.
Remember in your messaging, you want to keep it interesting. It’s not just about your business. You want to ensure that the reader knows that you can help them reach their goals.
You can ask for a second meeting and share your solution to their pain point. Most of the time, because you have built a relationship with your prospect, they will be happy to hear your idea.
Step 6: Discuss pricing
Once the prospect is excited about your solution, you can then discuss pricing. With your first batch of customers, you could always offer a 40 – 50 % discounted rate.
At this stage, you can simply ask the prospect, once they are excited about your solution if it makes sense to discuss pricing.
Step 7: Deliver your product or service and keep winning over more customers
At this stage, you are going to deliver your solution to companies. From here on, you will have data to share with future prospects on how you have helped other companies. You can share case studies, name-drop companies you have worked with, and the results you got.
Step 8: Keep learning and adapt
Keep looking for patterns and if you notice new pain points, find solutions. If you keep learning and growing, your company will continue to evolve.
Your free Go to market template
(You can simply copy and paste this gtm strategy template into a spreadsheet.)
Go-to-Market Plan Template
Product/Service Information
Product Name: [Insert product name]
Product Description: [Insert brief description of the product]
Target Market: [Insert target market or audience]
Unique Selling Proposition (USP): [Insert what sets the product apart from competitors]
Market Analysis
Market Size: [Insert estimated market size]
Market Growth Rate: [Insert estimated market growth rate]
Competitor Analysis: [Insert analysis of key competitors]
Market Trends: [Insert key trends in the market]
Target Customer Segments
Segment 1: [Insert segment name]
Description: [Insert brief description of the segment]
Size: [Insert estimated size of the segment]
Pain Points: [Insert key pain points of the segment]
Buying Behavior: [Insert key buying behavior of the segment]
Segment 2: [Insert segment name]
Description: [Insert brief description of the segment]
Size: [Insert estimated size of the segment]
Pain Points: [Insert key pain points of the segment]
Buying Behavior: [Insert key buying behavior of the segment]
Marketing Strategy
Content Strategy: [Insert content strategy, including types of content and distribution channels]
Digital Marketing: [Insert digital marketing strategy, including social media, email, and paid advertising]
Influencer Marketing: [Insert influencer marketing strategy, including key influencers and partnerships]
Event Marketing: [Insert event marketing strategy, including key events and sponsorships]
Public Relations: [Insert public relations strategy, including key messaging and media outreach]
Sales Strategy
Sales Channels: [Insert sales channels, including direct sales, partnerships, and online sales]
Sales Process: [Insert sales process, including key stages and decision-makers]
Sales Enablement: [Insert sales enablement strategy, including training and support]
Pricing and Revenue Model
Pricing Strategy: [Insert pricing strategy, including pricing tiers and discounts]
Revenue Model: [Insert revenue model, including subscription, transactional, or freemium models]
Launch Plan
Launch Date: [Insert launch date]
Pre-Launch Activities: [Insert pre-launch activities, including content creation and marketing campaigns]
Launch Activities: [Insert launch activities, including product demos and press releases]
Post-Launch Activities: [Insert post-launch activities, including customer support and feedback collection]
Budget and Resource Allocation
Marketing Budget: [Insert marketing budget]
Sales Budget: [Insert sales budget]
Resource Allocation: [Insert resource allocation, including personnel and vendors]
Timeline
Quarter 1: [Insert key activities and milestones for Q1]
Quarter 2: [Insert key activities and milestones for Q2]
Quarter 3: [Insert key activities and milestones for Q3]
Quarter 4: [Insert key activities and milestones for Q4]
Metrics and Monitoring
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): [Insert key KPIs, including website traffic, conversion rates, and customer acquisition costs]
Monitoring and Reporting: [Insert plan for monitoring and reporting on KPIs]
In conclusion
A successful GTM strategy is crucial for launching and promoting a new product or service.
By understanding what a GTM stratgey, you can create a tailored approach that aligns with your business goals and target audience.
Remember to continuously monitor and optimize your strategy to ensure its effectiveness and adapt to changing market conditions.
And if you’re looking for expert list building and more qualified sales leads for your company, why not hop on a free 15 minute stratgey session with Salesbread below.
