What is a Go To Market strategy
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It is very likely that if you have a company that offers software as a service (SaaS), you have heard of Go To Market strategies. All these different strategies focus on the best way to create a product, making sure that the market really needs it and is willing to pay for it, so you don't waste so much time and money developing something no one wants.
Today we will start from the most basic, what these strategies are and their more essential parts. We will not give preference to any of the different strategies out there or go into details about their approach.
What is a Go To Market (G2M) strategy
Go To Market is a powerful commercial strategy designed specifically to create products that are going to be successful once launched. This action plan details the route that the products or services go through from the idea to the moment it goes out to the public. It’s the roadmap a company uses to address a potential market, seeking to guarantee the success of a product or service.
The general objective of all these strategies is always the same, to sell. Still, they do so through different approaches that can be more focused on marketing, community creation, or market research, etc. The chosen approach depends on the product and business model you want to implement.
Knowing all this, what variables should you consider when launching a new product?
Who buys your product?
Knowing your potential client, or Buyer Persona, is essential for your G2M strategy.
Markets are generally highly competitive, so differentiating yourself from your competition is a must if you want your product to succeed. The starting point is knowing what kind of people will buy your product or service and all their characteristics. For example what they do, what they like, dislike, their needs, their desires, everything. You need to know them better than they know themselves.
Foto de Tima Miroshnichenko
What do you sell?
The second key aspect within the strategy focuses on your product or service.
To know your product, you need to be very clear about the value proposition, the product's characteristics, and the pricing model. It is also essential to analyze the competition and know how they address these three points and find a way to distance yourself from them, offering something unique.
It’s also important to note that each GTM model addresses the three aspects of the product or service and how to reach them differently.
How will you get to your target market?
This part focuses on your communication and marketing strategy.
The ideal is to design an innovative step-by-step communication strategy using a memorable customer experience. This can be done in many ways. For example, using traditional channels such as TV, advertisements, and social media. Or you can think of a more interesting approach, such as creating a community of enthusiastic co-creators and prosumers who expand your message by communicating with each other.
Where and how do you sell your products?
Finally, the last part is to know how you will sell the product or service, so it reaches your buyers and target market. This may depend a lot on what you want to sell and the strategy you developed during the market research, for example, you could do direct sales using a web site or direct sale using a third party as a vendor. If your strategy was based on community creation, you will also need to ask yourself what kind of role the community plays in product sales.
When you reach this stage, it is essential to remember to go out with an MVP instead of the finished product. No strategy is perfect. It is better to test the results and have time to rethink your approach, instead of coming out with a finished product and seeing it fail.
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Conclusion: The importance of a Go to Market strategy.
At this point, it's totally impossible to sell a product or service without having developed a G2M strategy for your product or service. No one would dare to be so deluded as to spend money on developing a finished product and doing trial and error in the market to see if someone buys it, if they like it, etc.
The different Go To Market methodologies, rather than theories, ideas have become an absolute necessity in the business world in general and in Software as a service, especially since many companies are unwilling to spend money on ideas that may not be profitable.
With the advance of almost total digitalization, GTM strategies will become more refined, detailed, and seek to be more exact. That way, entrepreneurs will fail faster and cheaper, and only the products that the buyers expect and need will reach the market successfully.