- A weak or poorly defined Go-to-Market strategy is often the root cause of slow product revenue growth or missed product revenue targets.
- Many agile-driven product teams rush to release, skipping key GTM steps leaving Sales and Marketing misaligned and not ready to fully monetize precious product investments.
- Guessing at buyer persona and journey or competitive SWOT analyses – two key deliverables of an effective GTM strategy – cause poor marketing and sales outcomes.
- Without the sales and product-aligned business case for launch called for in a successful GTM strategy, companies see low buyer adoption, wasted sales and marketing investments, and a failure to claim product and launch campaign success.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Having an updated and compelling Go-to-Market strategy is a critical capability – as important as financial strategy, sales operations, and even corporate business development, given its huge impact on the many drivers of sustainable growth.
- Establishing alignment through the GTM process builds long-term operational strength.
- With a sound GTM strategy, marketers give themselves a 50% greater chance of product launch success.
Impact and Result
- Align stakeholders on a common vision and execution plan prior to the Build and Launch phases.
- Build a foundation of buyer and competitive understanding to drive a successful product hypothesis, then validate with buyers.
- Deliver a team-aligned launch plan that enables launch readiness and outlines commercial success.
Workshop: Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Align on GTM Vision & Plan, Craft Initial Strategy
The Purpose
Align on GTM vision and plan; craft initial strategy.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Confidence that market opportunity is sufficient.
- Deeper buyer understanding to drive product design and messaging and launch campaign asset design.
- Steering committee approval for next phase.
Activities
Outputs
Outline a vision for GTM, roles required, identify Steering Committee lead, workstream leads, and teams.
- Documented Steering Committee and Working team.
Capture GTM strategy hypothesis by working through initial draft of the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation and business case.
- Aligned on GTM vision and process.
Capture team knowledge on buyer persona and journey and competitive SWOT.
- Documented buyer persona and journey. Competitive SWOT analysis.
Identify info./data gaps, sources, and plan for capturing/gathering including buyer interviews.
- Document team knowledge on initial GTM strategy, buyer personas, and business case.
Module 2: Identify Initial Business Case, Sales Forecast, and Launch Plan
The Purpose
Identify Initial Business Case, Sales Forecast, and Launch Plan.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Confidence in size of market opportunity.
- Alignment of Sales and Product on product forecast.
- Assessment of marketing tech stack.
- Initial business case.
Activities
Outputs
Size Product Market Opportunity and initial revenue forecast.
- Product Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM), Serviceable Available Market (SAM) and Total Available Market (TAM).
Craft initial product hypothesis from buyer interviews including feature priorities, pricing, packaging, competitive differentiation, channel/route to market.
- Definition of product-market fit, uniqueness, and competitive differentiation.
Craft initial launch campaign, product release and sales and CX readiness plans.
- Preliminary campaign, targets, and readiness plans.
Identify launch budgets across each investment area.
- Incremental budgets for each key stakeholder area.
Discuss initial product launch business case and key activities.
- Preliminary product launch business case.
Module 3: Develop Launch Plans (I of II)
The Purpose
Develop final Launch plans and budgets in product and marketing.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Align Product release/launch plans with the marketing campaign for launch.
- Understand incremental budgets from product and marketing for launch.
Activities
Outputs
Apply product interviews to scope, MVP, roadmap, competitive differentiation, pricing, feature prioritization, routes to market, and sales forecast.
- Minimally Viable Product defined with feature prioritization. Product competitive differentiation documented Routes to market identified Sales forecast aligned with product team expectations.
Develop a more detailed launch campaign plan complete with asset-types, messaging, digital plan to support buyer journey, media buy plan and campaign metrics.
- Marketing campaign launch plan Content marketing asset-creation/acquisition plan Campaign targets and metrics.
Module 4: Develop Launch Plans (II of II)
The Purpose
Develop final Launch Plans and budgets for remaining areas.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Align Product release/launch plans with the marketing campaign for launch.
- Understand incremental budgets from Product and Marketing for launch.
Activities
Outputs
Develop detailed launch/readiness plans with final budgets for: Sales enablement , Sales training, Tech stack, Customer onboarding & success, Product marketing, AR, PR, Corp Comms/Internal Comms, Customer Events, Employee Events, etc.
- Detailed launch plans, budgets for Product Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and AR/PR/Corp. Comms.
Module 5: Present Final Business Case
The Purpose
To gain approval to move to Build and Launch phases.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Align business case with Steering Committee expectations
- Approvals to Build and Launch targeted offering
Activities
Outputs
Review final launch/readiness plans with final budgets for all key areas.
- Combined budgets across all areas. Final launch/readiness plans.
Move all key findings into Steering Committee presentation slides.
- Final Steering Committee-facing slides.
Present to Steering Committee; receive feedback.
Incorporate Steering Committee feedback; update finial business case.
- Final approvals for Build and Launch.
Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy
Maximize GTM success through deeper market and buyer understanding and competitive differentiation and launch team readiness that delivers target revenues.
Table of Contents
Section | Title |
1 | Executive Brief
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2 | Build baseline market, buyer, and competitive insights
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3 | Design initial product and business case
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4 | Align stakeholder plans to prep for build
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Executive Brief
Analyst Perspective
Go-to-Market Strategy.
A successful go-to-market (GTM) strategy aligns marketing, product, sales and customer success, sees decision making based on deep buyer understanding, and tests many basic assumptions often overlooked in today’s agile-driven product development/management environment.
The disciplines you build using our methodology will not only support your team’s effort building and launching more successful products, but also can be modified for use in other strategic initiatives such as branding, M&A integration, expanding into new markets, and other initiatives that require a cross-functional and multidisciplined process.
Jeff Golterman
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Executive Summary
An ineffective go-to-market strategy is often a root cause of:
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Hurdles to go-to-market success include:
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Apply SoftwareReviews approach for greater GTM success.
Our blueprint is designed to help you:
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SoftwareReviews Insight
Creating a compelling go-to-market strategy, and keeping it current, is a critical software company function – as important as financial strategy, sales operations, and even corporate business development – given its huge impact on the many drivers of sustainable growth.
Go-to-Market Strategy Critical Success Factors
Your GTM Strategy is where a multi-disciplined team builds a strong foundation for overall product plan, build, launch, and manage success
A GTM Strategy is not all art and not all science but requires both. Software leaders will establish a set of core capabilities upon which they will plan, build, launch and manage product success. Executives, when resourcing their GTM strategies, will begin with:
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SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
Marketers who get GTM Strategy “right” give themselves a 50% greater chance of Build and Launch success.
Go-to-Market Success is Challenging
Getting GTM right is like winning an Olympic first-place crew finish. It takes teamwork, practice, and well-functioning tools and equipment.
- The goal of any Go-to-Marketing Strategy is not only to do it right once, but to do it over and over consistently.
- A lack of GTM consistency often results in decelerating growth, and a weak GTM Strategy is likely the root cause when companies observe any of the following challenges:
- Product opportunity is unclear and well-defined business cases are lacking
- Buyer adoption slows of new features and launch revenue targets are missed
- Sales and marketing are not ready when development releases new features
- Sales win/loss ratios drop as customers tell us products are not competitively differentiated
- Loss of executive support for new product investments
- A company experiencing any one of these symptoms will find a remedy in plugging gaps in the way they Go-to-Market.
“Figuring out a Go-to-Market approach is no trivial exercise – it separates the companies that will be successful and sustainable from those that won’t.” (Harvard Business Review)
Slowing growth may be due to missing GTM Strategy essentials
Marketers – Large and Small – will further test their GTM Strategy strength by asking “Are we missing any of the following?”
- Product, Marketing, and Sales Alignment
- Buyer personas and journeys
- Product market opportunity size
- Competitively differentiated product hypothesis
- Buyer validated commercial concept
- Sales revenue plan and program cost budget
- Compelling business case for build and launch
SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
Marketers will go through the GTM Strategy process together across all disciplines at least once in order to establish a consistent process, make key foundational decisions (e.g. tech stack, channel strategy, pricing structure, etc.), and assess strengths and weaknesses to be addressed. Future releases to existing products don’t need to be re-thought but instead check-listed against prior foundational decisions.
Is Your GTM Strategy Led and Staffed Properly?
Benefits of a more effective go-to-market strategy
Our research shows a more effective GTM Strategy delivers key benefits, including:
SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
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“Go-to-Market Strategies aren’t just for new products or services, they can also be used for:
And while each GTM strategy is unique, there are a series of steps that every product marketer should follow.” (Product Marketing Alliance) |
Is your GTM Strategy optimized?
Marketers, in order to optimize a go-to-market strategy, will:
- Self assess for symptoms of a sub-optimized approach.
- Align marketing, sales, product, and customer success with a common vision and execution plan.
- Diagnose for missing steps.
- Ensure creation of key deliverables.
- And then be able to reap the rewards.
Who benefits from an optimized go-to-market strategy?
This research is designed for:
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This research will help you:
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This research will also assist:
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This research will help them:
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SoftwareReviews’ Approach
1 |
Build baseline market, buyer, and competitive insights
Sizing your opportunity, building deep buyer understanding, competitive differentiation, and routes to market are fundamental first steps. |
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2 |
Design initial product and business case
Validate positioning and messaging against brand, develop packaging and pricing, and develop digital approach, launch campaign approach and supporting budgets across all areas. |
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3 |
Align stakeholder plans to prep for build
Rationalize product release and concept to sales/financial plan and further develop customer success, PR/AR, MarTech, and analytics/metrics plans. |
Our methodology provides a step-by-step approach to build a more effective go-to-market strategy
1.Build baseline market, buyer, and competitive insights | 2. Design initial product and business case | 3. Align stakeholder plans to prep for build | |
Phase Steps |
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Phase Outcomes |
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Insight summary
Your go-to-market strategy ability is a strategic asset
Having an updated and compelling go-to-market strategy is a critical capability – as important as financial strategy, sales operations, and even corporate business development – given its huge impact on the many drivers of sustainable growth.
Build the GTM Steering Committee into a strategic decision-making body
Many marketers experiencing the value of the GTM Steering Committee extend its use into a “Product and Pricing Council” (PPC) in order to move product-related decision making from ad-hoc to structured, and to reinforce GTM Strategy guardrails and best practices across the company.
A strong MarTech apps and analytics stack differentiates GTM leaders from laggards
Marketers that collaborate closely with Marketing Ops., Sales Ops., and IT early in the process of a go-to-market strategy will be best able to assess whether current website/digital, marketing applications, CRM/sales automation apps, and tools can support the complete Go-to-Market process effectively.
Establishing alignment through the GTM process builds long term operational strength
Marketers will go through the GTM Strategy process together across all disciplines at least once in order to establish a consistent process, make key foundational decisions (e.g. tech stack, channel strategy, pricing structure, etc.), and assess strengths and weaknesses to be addressed.
Build speed and agility
Future releases to existing products don’t need be re-thought but instead check-listed against prior foundational decisions.
GTM Strategy builds launch success
Marketers who get GTM Strategy “right” give themselves a 50% greater chance of build and launch success.
Blueprint deliverables
Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
Key deliverable:
Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation TemplateCapture key findings for your GTM Strategy within the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template.
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Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist WorkbookIncludes a RACI model and launch checklist that helps scope your working team’s roles and responsibilities. |
Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast WorkbookCapture launch incremental costs that, when weighed against the forecasted revenue, illustrate gross margins as a crucial part of the business case. |
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Product Market Opportunity SizingWhile not a deliverable of this blueprint per se, the Product Market Opportunity blueprint is required. |
This blueprint calls for downloading the following additional blueprint: | |||
Buyer Persona and Journey blueprintWhile not a deliverable of this blueprint per se, the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint is required |
Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs
DIY Toolkit |
Guided Implementation |
Workshop |
Consulting |
"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." | "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." | "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." | "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project." |
Included within advisory membership | Optional add-ons |
Guided Implementation
A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst.
Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.
What does our GI on Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy look like?
Build baseline market, buyer, and competitive insights |
Design initial product and business case |
Align stakeholder plans to prep for build |
Call #1: Share GTM vision and outline team activities for the GTM Strategy process. Plan next call – 1 week.
Call #2: Outline product market opportunity approach and steps to complete. Plan next call – 1 week. Call #3: Hold a series of inquiries to do a modernization check on tech stack. Plan next call – 2 weeks. Call #4: Discuss buyer interview process, persona, and journey steps. Plan next call – 2 weeks. Call #5: Outline competitive differentiation analysis, routes to market, and review of to-date business case. Plan next call – 1 week. |
Call #6: Discuss brand strength/weakness, pricing, and packaging approach. Plan next call – 3 weeks.
Call #7: Outline needs to craft assets with right messaging across campaign launch plan and budget. Outline needs to create plans and budgets across rest of marketing, sales, CX, and product. Plan next call – 1 week. Call #8: Review template and approach for initial business case and sales and product alignment. Plan next call – 1 week. Call #9: Review initial business case and launch plans across marketing, sales, CX, and product. Plan next call – 1 week. |
Call #10: Discuss plans/needs/budgets for tech stack modernization. Plan next call – 3 days.
Call #11: Discuss plans/needs/budgets for CX readiness for launch. Plan next call – 3 days. Call #12: Discuss plans/needs/budgets for digital readiness for launch. Plan next call – 3 days. Call #13: Discuss plans/needs/budgets for marketing and sales readiness for launch. Plan next call – 3 days. Call #14: Review final business case and coach on Steering Committee Presentation. Plan next call – 1 week. |
A Go-to-Market Workshop Overview |
Contact your engagement manager for more information. |
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | |
Align on GTM Vision & Plan, Craft Initial Strategy |
Identify Initial Business Case, Sales Forecast and Launch Plan |
Develop Launch Plans (i of ii) |
Develop Launch Plans (ii of ii) |
Present Final Business Case to Steering Committee |
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Activities |
1.1 Outline a vision for GTM and roles required, identify Steering Committee lead, workstream leads, and teams. 1.2 Capture GTM strategy hypothesis by working through initial draft of GTM Strategy Presentation and business case. 1.3 Capture team knowledge on buyer persona and journey and competitive SWOT. 1.4 Identify information/data gaps and sources and plan for capturing/gathering including buyer interviews. Plan next day 2-3 weeks after buyer persona/journey interviews. |
2.1 Size product market opportunity and initial revenue forecast. 2.2 Craft initial product hypothesis from buyer interviews including feature priorities, pricing, packaging, competitive differentiation, and channel/route to market. 2.3 Craft initial launch campaign, product release, sales, and CX readiness plans. 2.4 Identify launch budgets across each investment area. 2.5 Discuss initial product launch business case and key activities. Plan next day 2-3 weeks after product hypothesis-validation interviews with customers and prospects. |
3.1 Apply product interviews to scope, MVP, and roadmap competitive differentiation, pricing, feature prioritization, routes to market and sales forecast. 3.2 Develop more detailed launch campaign plan complete with asset-types, messaging, digital plan to support buyer journey, media buy plan and campaign metrics. |
4.1 Develop detailed launch/readiness plans with final budgets for:
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5.1 Review final launch/readiness plans with final budgets for all key areas. 5.2 Move all key findings up into Steering Committee presentation slides. 5.3 Present to Steering Committee, receive feedback. 5.4 incorporate Steering Committee feedback; update finial business case. |
Deliverables |
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Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy
Phase 1
Build baseline market, buyer, and competitive insights
Phase 1
1.1 Select Steering Cmte/team, build aligned vision for GTM 1.2 Buyer personas, journey, initial messaging 1.3 Build initial product hypothesis 1.4 Size market opportunity 1.5 Outline digital/tech requirements 1.6 Competitive SWOT 1.7 Select routes to market 1.8 Craft GTM Strategy deck |
Phase 2
2.1 Brand consistency check 2.2 Formulate packaging and pricing 2.3 Craft buyer-valid product concept 2.4 Build campaign plan and targets 2.5 Develop cost budgets across all areas 2.6 Draft product business case 2.7 Update GTM Strategy deck |
Phase 3
3.1 Assess tech/tools support for all GTM phases 3.2 Outline sales enablement and Customer Success plan 3.3 Build awareness plan 3.4 Finalize business case 3.5 Final GTM Plan deck |
This phase will walk you through the following activities:
- Steering Committee and Team formulation
- A vision for go-to-market strategy
- Initial product hypothesis
- Market Opportunity sizing
- Tech stack/digital requirements
- Buyer persona and journey
- Competitive gaps, parity, differentiators
- Routes to market
- GTM Strategy deck
This phase involves the following stakeholders:
- Steering Committee
- Working group leaders