5 Elements in Every Successful Go-To-Market Strategy Template

One of the biggest drivers of success in today’s B2B landscape is a go-to-market strategy that positions you ahead of the competition. From launching new products or services to expanding into new markets, it’s critical to establish a dominant market presence. 

A new launch can quickly become an overwhelming undertaking without the right strategy in place. This often happens when you don’t have a structure or go-to-market strategy template to develop your strategy. 

Having the right go-to-market steps is just as important as the product or service itself. If you’re new to creating a go-to-market strategy or have been around the block a few times, the five steps we outline below from our template are a great resource and refresh that covers all the basics. 

What is a Go-To-Market Strategy?

The best way to think about a go-to-market strategy is as a tactical and actionable plan for how you can deliver your products or services to the correct market with the right positioning. A go-to-market strategy template will offer you an outline for gathering the information needed and creating that action plan.

Sales and Marketing will both be integral pieces to a new launch and alignment between the two departments is a necessity. However, they each have their distinct purpose when it comes to your GTM strategies. 

Sales go-to-market strategies focus predominantly on lead-generation activities, customer acquisition, and sales processes that lead to closed deals.  

Marketing go-to-market strategies have a greater emphasis on brand awareness and generating buzz around the launch. Marketing will nurture leads through their various channels before handing them over to the sales team to close the deal.

Together, they form a cohesive plan to successfully launch your product and maximize your return on investment. 

The information you gather when building your strategy will give you the insight needed to best engage your target audience. As a result, you’ll be more effective in demonstrating the unique value your product has over others in the market. Some people make the mistake of thinking only of the short-term, but with an effective GTM strategy, you can see sustained growth.

A good go-to-market strategy template will help you better understand your target market, boost the effectiveness of your GTM strategy, and avoid common flaws in your go-to-market strategy. Five key elements must be included in your template:

• • Market Research 
  • Target Audience Analysis 
  • Pricing Strategy
  • Acquisition Strategy
  • Marketing and Operations Alignment 

How to Create a Go-To-Market Strategy (Template)

Creating a GTM strategy requires a thorough understanding of the internal and external factors that could impact your launch’s success. This go-to-market strategy template touches on both. From an external standpoint, the strategy should include market research to reveal any opportunities and anticipate challenges. Once you establish and analyze your market, you can focus on the details of your target audience within that market. 

Once that’s completed, you’ll continue to use the external factors to guide you in what the internal factors should look like. This includes your pricing and acquisition strategy as well as aligning the marketing efforts with the operational activities.

1. Conduct Your Market Research 

The foundation of any good go-to-market strategy is market research. It develops your understanding of the market you’re about to enter and should be your first step. 

Insight on market needs, the competitive landscape, and any emerging trends or shifts will help you anticipate challenges and position yourself effectively. As an added benefit of doing market research before launching your new product, you’ll be able to make informed decisions on details like timing your launch.      

Market research questions should guide the research aspect of your go-to-market strategy. Good market research questions will help you dive deep into your external environment and examine the factors that could impact your entry. GenAI tools for sales like ChatGPT are highly effective in making the market research efforts for your GTM strategy more efficient. These market research questions can double as prompts when using AI as a thinking partner for research:

• • What are the current trends in the market? How does my product solve for them?
  • What needs or pain points are not currently being met that we can solve for?
  • Who are the major players in the market and what are their strengths and weaknesses?
  • How is our product/service different from the offerings of our competitors?
  • Are there any other potential barriers to entry?

The first step in the market research process is identifying the market’s needs and pain points. This includes conducting a market analysis to identify if there is anything currently addressing those needs. From there, you can uncover any opportunities and challenges that may come when you enter the market.

Next, you can move to identify any trends in the space. This might include a focus on customer experience, sustainability, or technological innovation. Part of your GTM strategy should be how you’re going to address the trends in your target market. Make sure to consider how you’re going to do it differently than your competitors. Other factors to consider include any possible industry events, seasonal trends, or budget cycles that may impact your entry. This way you can optimize your launch timing for maximum impact.

Related Content: Generative AI for Sales | 45-Minute Course

2. Identify Your Target Audience 

Your target audience may not be who you initially thought. Your target audience is not just those you hope will buy from you. It’s whose needs your product is able to solve for. Remember that the “who” is always first. If you want your efforts to be focused and impactful, you have to know your customers. Know who they are, where they can be found, what their needs are, and how to reach them. 

The target audience step on your go-to-market strategy will be when you build your personas. Remember that you do not need to go after every individual persona right away. The personas will organize the information you need to know before you launch your product so you can best position yourself to reach and resonate with the right audience. This includes insights into demographics, preferences, and buying behaviors. Some of these characteristics will follow you into customizing your buyer journey for fast personalized experiences that will help you close more deals. 

A characteristic that’s often missed when identifying a target audience in a GTM strategy is geographical location. Geographical location includes not only their physical location but also where they do business and how they do business. You can even include where they spend their time online so you can better strategize where you can reach them. 

Firmographic information like industry, company size, ownership style, growth, and revenue are additional characteristics you’ll also need when defining your target audience. Companies with products and services designed for a specific vertical sometimes overlook this as a redundancy. Remember that a go-to-market strategy is there to ensure that you are being thorough in the development of your action plan. Something as important as the type of company or industry you’re targeting should not be left to assumption. 

Taking this all into consideration will make your outreach more targeted and allow you to have a more customized focus on your messaging. A deep understanding of your audience will also help you properly position your product and communicate the value that matters most to your buyer.  

Related Content: GTM Shift: Focusing on Outcomes Over Volume Sales Metrics Can 3X Conversion Rates

3. New Product Pricing Strategy

Your pricing strategy is where you’ll begin to look at the internal factors that go into developing your go-to-market strategy. When you launch your product, you have the option to structure your pricing strategy to not only reflect the value of your product but also take into account the competitive landscape and market conditions. This is an example of why market research is such an important step in creating a go-to-market strategy. It can go on to influence almost every other part of your strategy. 

Maximizing your market penetration and profitability are the goals when developing your pricing strategy. This means they have to be based on a deep understanding of your market, target customers, and the perceived value of your product. With the information you’ve already gathered on your market and your target audience, you can identify the bracket to set your price in. You can then choose the approach you’d like to take to structuring your pricing. Some of the most common pricing structures and strategies include: 

Cost-Plus Pricing: Straightforward. You set a cost for the product and a fixed percentage is added that covers overheads and helps to ensure a profit is made. A simple pricing strategy that is sometimes referred to as markup pricing.

Value-Based Pricing: The price is based on the perceived value of the product or service. Determines worth by the value it brings to the buyer and takes into consideration what they are willing to pay. Requires insights from your market and target audience research.  

Competition-Based Pricing: Using your market research, your price is set based on what your competitors are charging for their similar product or service. Find the average of all of your competitors and set your price higher or lower. 

There is no one-size-fits-all pricing strategy and B2B pricing is usually much more complicated than B2C pricing. The right pricing strategy is the one that works best for you. It is possible to choose one strategy and later make changes based on the results. 

4. Customer Acquisition Strategy 

Now think ahead to reaching and converting your target customers. Your go-to-market strategy will also need to address these customer acquisition aspects. In this context, it means identifying the right people to engage with your buyers and regularly reviewing and optimizing your strategy based on the results. The strategy should outline the tools, tactics, and processes that will best engage your prospects to move them through your buyer journey.

Ensuring your sales team has the right tools and training to turn your prospects into buyers will be crucial. Whether it’s the handoff from your marketing team to the sales team or from the SDRs to the AEs, the process has to be seamless. 

Regularly reviewing the effectiveness of your customer acquisition strategy will be essential for making optimizations in a timely manner. When building out your go-to-market strategy, be sure to put a timeline on when those reviews will happen. Set up review intervals and times to conduct performance analysis, and make sure your strategy is not so rigid that it can’t be adjusted. 

5. Marketing and Operations Alignment

The success of your go-to-market strategy depends on the alignment of your marketing efforts and operational activities. This means equal understanding of the goals, utilizing tools and technologies that can be integrated, and proper performance tracking.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the metrics you will use to determine your success. Before you go to market, your strategy should include the identification of what these are, how you will track them, and when you will make optimizations. Examples of KPIs you should be tracking as part of your go-to-market strategy include: 

Lead Conversion Rate: The percentage of leads that convert into customers. Measures the quality of leads generated and the effectiveness of your sales cycle.

Customer Acquisition Cost: The combined cost of acquiring a new customer. Helps to optimize spending and identify the efficiency of the acquisition efforts  

Sales Cycle Length: The average time it takes a buyer to move through the sales cycle ending in a closed deal. Identifies areas of inefficiency or problems with communication.

Win Rate: Percentage of closed deals. Measures the profitability of your sales efforts.

Remember to set realistic targets. Some KPIs may also need combined data from the sales and marketing teams. Be sure that before you launch your product, both departments are using tools and technology that allow for seamless integration. This helps with data tracking and information collection and contributes to a more seamless process that ensures a better customer experience. 

Related Content: Why Your Sales and Marketing Teams Need to Align Their Goals

Why these 5?

Skipping any of these five critical areas can lead to a poor go-to-market strategy. Market research, target audience analysis, pricing strategy, customer acquisition strategy, and marketing and operations alignment, ideally in that order, are your basic go-to-market strategy template.

1. Market research ensures you enter the market with a clear understanding of opportunities and challenges. 
2. Target audience analysis allows you to focus your efforts on the right customers, maximizing engagement. 
3. A solid pricing strategy positions your product competitively.
4. An effective customer acquisition plan ensures you reach and convert those customers. 
5. Aligning marketing and operations guarantees seamless execution and performance tracking. 

By integrating these components, you’ll set the foundation for a winning launch and long-term growth.