business plan vs gtm

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A t any given time, you should be prepared to execute both a business plan and a GTM strategy. Although they may sound the same in principle, however, they are essentially distinct. To ensure that you can execute both flawlessly, it’s vital that you know exactly how each one comes into your marketing play.

For new businesses, the lines are blurred between a business plan and a GTM strategy since the main goal when you’re just starting is to successfully bring the product to market. As the business grows, there will be a separate team that will focus on the GTM strategy for new products or relaunches of existing ones. Regardless of your organization’s size, understanding the components of each is one of the prerequisites of a successful business.

Now let’s answer the question that’s nagging many marketers’ minds. What’s the difference between a business plan and a GTM strategy?

The Purpose

First, it’s important to talk about the purpose of each; for every undertaking, defining the goal is a necessary step to success.

A business plan is the product roadmap that’s followed for as long as the business is running. It’s an organization’s “true north” when it comes to the product, what it stands for, and what it offers to customers. It identifies and defines the unique value proposition and who would benefit the most from it.

On the other hand, a go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a more time-bound approach that’s employed for new product launches or when reintroducing or relaunching an existing product. The main goal is to ensure that the product reaches the intended audience—or “goes to market”—successfully. Ensuring that the strategy is data-driven will help the business determine and address customer demand and position the product accordingly.

It’s easy to assume that the marketing team is responsible for both the business plan and the GTM strategy. However, while this could work for new businesses, more established ones would benefit from having a separate team focus on the GTM strategy.

The business plan is something that everyone in the organization is responsible for, since it’s basically your product bible. The marketing team is the main driver of the strategy, providing support cross-functionally to customer-facing and product-facing teams.

An example of a product-facing team is the product marketing team. The primary goal of this team is to deliver the right product to the right customer at the right time. To do this, the product marketing team works with other teams as necessary to ensure the success of their GTM strategy. An in-depth understanding of both the product and the customer is vital, so product marketers exhaust all available data and resources to acquire this information before the go-to-market of any product.

Your business plan is ongoing and constant but not static and absolute. Certain factors, including budgets, new tools, and external factors, can affect your business plan and compel you to adapt. You may need to reconsider unsuccessful or unproductive approaches, experiment with new ones, or adjust and re-align expectations.

A GTM strategy is used for something new: a new product, a relaunch, or venturing into an untapped market. Here, the timeline is more stringent and the sense of urgency, more pronounced. It entails a more aggressive timeline and specifically enumerates what needs to be done within a specific period, including milestones that need to be reached to measure success.

Both a business plan and a GTM strategy are dependent on effective communication. In the case of a business plan, different people and teams should have a clear understanding of how the defined strategy fits into the overall goals of the organization. Your business plan should include the brand promise and how the organization intends to deliver on that promise. To do that, it’s important to get to know your market, your competitors, and your product.

Your GTM strategy is your way to communicate with your audience. It’s an opportunity to translate your product vision into a message that your audience will understand and appreciate. It follows a strict timeline so efficient coordination between teams is vital to create a unified message for your target audience.

The success of your business or product is dependent on your strategy, and it’s your responsibility to understand the aspects of your business plan and GTM strategy by heart. Markets may change, and your strategies with it, but at the core of everything is the customer. It is this part of the marketing mix that you need to understand the most.

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Business Plan vs. Go-To-Market Strategy (And Why You Need Both)

Agency Blog

Strategy over everything.

This is Vela’s approach to all that we do, and it’s why our work is effective. But smart marketing doesn’t stop at a single plan or strategy. For brands looking to create and sell a specific product or service, they have to dig deeper. This is why understanding the difference between a business plan and a go-to-market strategy is an important, if not critical, facet of executing a successful brand.

In the simplest of terms, a business plan is the natural framework for developing and building a product or service that can be monetized and valuable to consumers, while a go-to-market strategy is the next step in that plan – defining how a company will market a product or service to a specified target audience. To create your brand you need a business plan, to make it successful you need a go-to-market strategy.

So what are the key differences between a business plan and a go-to-market strategy? We’ve mapped it out in the table below.

Business Plan

Objective: a product roadmap that defines the goals of a business, and how it will achieve them., purpose: to create a framework for a business’s monetization and overall success., timeline: long-term–should be followed for as long as the business is running., go-to-market strategy, objective: a subset of a marketing strategy – focuses on one product or service., purpose: to ensure that the product reaches its intended audience successfully., timeline: short-term–is completed once the product has launched., no product or service – no matter how genius – stumbles into success without a strategy..

Having a strong business model is the first step, but defining and executing the pathway to reaching your audience is what will make your brand a success.

Does your business have the right strategy in place to encourage reach, growth, and expansion? Vela can make that happen. Reach out today to learn what we can do for you.

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About 20 mins

Learning Objectives

Plan for success, prepare to create a business plan, what’s in a business plan, build a go-to-market plan, create a value proposition, refine your offering, develop a channel strategy, make a financial model and budget, develop a marketing plan, brand awareness, marketing calendar, team alignment.

• Challenge +100 points

Create a Business Model and Go-To-Market Plan

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Describe key aspects of a business plan.
• Describe the components of a go-to-market plan.
• Build a go-to-market plan.

You’ve identified your audience, and you know that they want to buy what you’re selling. It’s time to use that information to build your business plan and go-to-market strategy.

Just to be clear, we aren’t suggesting that you write a monolithic document that no one wants to read. You’re building a roadmap that you and your employees use to focus your efforts and align on priorities.

Your business plan represents your long-term goals and your general strategy for meeting those goals.

Your go-to-market strategy describes how you’re going to take your product through its lifecycle.

It’s all about the customer. That’s a mantra we at Salesforce have in our mind as we work. When you build your plan, have reminders in the room about the audience you’re about to serve.

To give everyone a single point of reference as questions arise, post customer personas on a wall. Keeping the customer center stage allows you to “just say no” when you’re figuring out what is and isn’t in your business plan and your offering.

Don’t build your plan alone. We recommend including key stakeholders, co-founders, your executive team, and advisors. If your team is small enough, get the whole company together. Multiple perspectives and stakeholder buy-in make your plan more robust and actionable.

Set aside time, at least a day or two, preferably away from the office. And bring lots of brainstorming tools, like sticky notes, flip charts, and index cards.

Your business plan begins with your vision statement. Everything that follows is about how you make that vision happen. Typically, you keep your business plan high level. Your team aligns to the plan by providing details on how they’ll contribute to meeting it.

Standard elements of a plan are:

• Goals—What must you accomplish to reach your vision?
• Methods—What are the steps for reaching those goals?
• Measurements—How do you determine when you’ve met your goals?
• Obstacles—What can get in your way as you try to reach those goals?

Your plan can take many forms. At Salesforce, we create a document called a V2MOM. It describes what the company wants to accomplish in the year and how we are going to achieve it.

Every employee from the top down creates their V2MOM based on the V2MOM of their manager. Check out this blog written by Marc Benioff that explains the Salesforce approach.

Another great tool is Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas , a graphical, one-page business plan, which is further described in his book Business Model Generation. It’s a great brainstorming tool, and when the canvas is complete, you have an artifact that you can hang in your office.

Now let’s focus on your first AppExchange offering. Your go-to-market plan helps you with everything from ensuring that you’re building the right product for the right customer to supporting that product after it’s launched.

Your go-to-market plan describes:

• The market segment you’re targeting
• Key attributes of your customers
• Your value proposition
• Your offering
• The channels through which you’re selling and supporting your customers
• Your financial model and budgeting
• Your marketing and awareness plan with a complete sales kit

Good news, in the last unit, we determined your market segment and customer attributes. Now it’s time to tackle the remaining five sections.

How would you like to be identified in the market? How does your offering stand out from your competitors? Your value proposition articulates the answers to those questions.

Create a simple and direct statement that describes what you’re offering to the market. Don’t get caught up in business lingo—the simpler, the better.

One way to create a value proposition is to respond to your customers’ needs and pain points.

Consider incorporating portions of Salesforce’s value proposition, available to you in the Branding Guidelines for Salesforce Partners , with your own. For example, you can incorporate elements of our cloud vision. If you have different customer segments, make your value proposition appeal to all of them.

Just as you test your offering, test your value proposition. Get feedback from potential customers and people who don’t know anything about your offering.

Do they get it? If not, it’s back to the drawing board.

If you want to learn more, there are great resources on the Internet. One of our favorites is Alexander Osterwalder’s value proposition canvas and accompanying book.

You probably already have an idea of what you’re going to build. Your development team has been at work learning about what you can build on the Salesforce platform: OEM Embedded apps, ISVforce apps, and Lightning Components. They’ve also been investigating the Salesforce editions available to you.

The work you’ve done up to this point helps you flesh out the details and set priorities. With the leaders of your development team, make final decisions. Make sure that the choices align with the attributes and needs of your target customers.

Where will customers go to purchase your offering? And how will you provide support to them after they’ve purchased it? The answers to these questions define your channel strategy.

The AppExchange is a great place to market and sell your app because it has a large audience. If you also use your own website, you can provide support options like training, a question and answer forum, and a case filing system.

If you’re just starting out, how are you going to stay afloat until your company generates income to support itself?

Here are some questions to consider when creating your budget.

• How are you prioritizing the different needs of your growing business, like development, sales, and support?
• How do you make your funds scale to get your offering to market?
• How much are you forecasting in sales and in renewals?
• When will you be profitable?

If you aren’t familiar with this type of budgeting, consider hiring someone with these skills.

The last item in your go-to-market strategy is your marketing plan. Let’s look at the key parts.

Brand awareness is not colors or a fancy logo. It’s the distillation of your offering’s value proposition and company vision into memorable words or phrases.

How does your event management app stand out from your competitors’ apps? Look at its value proposition. Themes like cloud-based, trusted, efficient, and on-site customer interaction are possibilities.

You marketing calendar identifies the events and social activities you want to pursue to get your offering in front of customers.

Here are some options to consider.

• Host a webinar
• Participate in a Salesforce World Tour event, Dreamforce, or other conference
• Be a sponsor for an event, such as Dreamforce
• Advertise in a trade magazine
• Host your own events in cities with a large number of potential customers
• Volunteer for a leadership initiative, such as a newsletter

When you go to events and your sales team goes to work, have a sales kit that everyone uses to engage your customers. The kit ensures best practices and a consistent message.

The Selling to Salesforce playbook, available when you log in to the Partner Community, has templates for creating many sales kit assets.

Great plans! But can you pull them off? A common mistake is not taking the time to build alignment with your team. We recommend that you discuss your plans with the team and get their feedback. We won’t be surprised if this exercise provides you invaluable feedback on how to reach your goals.

Experience has shown us that if you take time to build strong business and go-to-market plans and create alignment with your team, you have a better chance of success.

If you want to learn more, Salesforce provides various resources. For example, check out our Marketing Power Hours, where industry leaders come to share their best practices. Or poke around the Marketing section of the community , which contains resources for doing everything from making your AppExchange listing stand out to sponsorship opportunities .

You’ve now done most of the hard work. Pat yourself on the back. Time for the quiz.

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How to Develop a Go-to-Market Strategy for Your Tech Venture

• 13 Jul 2023

You’ve come up with an innovative business idea , determined product-market fit , and are eager to get your product into the world. Yet, a successful launch requires a carefully crafted go-to-market strategy.

Before delving into how to create a go-to-market strategy for your venture, here’s a primer to contextualize its importance within your business model.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is a Go-to-Market Strategy, and How Does It Fit into a Business Model?

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a detailed plan of how your startup will reach its target customers effectively and efficiently—where effectiveness depends on how rapidly you reach and convert customers and efficiency on how profitable your efforts are. Typically, a GTM strategy includes a mix of direct and indirect channels to educate, support, and distribute your product to customers.

GTM strategy is just one component of the eight-pronged business model described in the online course Launching Tech Ventures , taught by Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Jeffrey Bussgang. HBS Professor Thomas Eisenmann coined the Diamond-Square framework to visualize the eight components, which first describes internal, operational facets:

• Customer value proposition (CVP): How will your venture deliver value?
• Go-to-market (GTM) strategy: How will your venture reach customers?
• Profit formula (PF): How will you make money?
• Technology and operations management (T&O): How will you create and maintain the product?

The remaining four facets are external in nature and represent your business’s stakeholders and resources:

• Founders: Are they a strong fit for the opportunity and business model?
• Team: Do they complement one another? Can you fill any gaps?
• Investors: Who have you assembled to finance your business? Are you all aligned?
• Partners: Who have you selected to aid in your execution? How will they help?

“As an entrepreneur, the onus is on you to construct each element of your startup business model through a process of search and discovery,” Bussgang says in Launching Tech Ventures. “In parallel, you must evaluate those elements to ensure that you’re building a sustainable, valuable company. To do so, each business model element must be aligned.”

Before crafting your GTM strategy, determine your customer value proposition . If you haven’t yet established that your product fulfills a customer need or job to be done , conduct experiments and market research before diving into its GTM strategy.

While CVP, GTM strategy, and PF don’t need to be discrete steps, each sets the stage to build your business model’s next facet. The experiments you run to determine CVP will inform your GTM strategy, which can then lay the foundation for selecting a PF.

While all intertwine, this article focuses on developing your tech venture’s go-to-market strategy. Here are four vital steps.

Related: 5 Skills Needed to Launch a Successful Tech Business

4 Steps to Develop a Go-to-Market Strategy

1. consider key facets.

In every strong GTM strategy, there are three key facets to consider:

• Distribution channels
• Product messaging and marketing tactics
• Estimated customer acquisition cost (CAC)

These will help determine how you reach your predefined target audience and convert them into customers with financial efficiency.

Distribution Channels

Critical to your GTM strategy is how you plan to deliver your product to the end user. For instance, if you created an app that helps people track their mental health and receive resources, you can either make it downloadable by the end user or distribute it via a third party, such as an employer, insurance company, or health care professional.

Bussgang recommends a mix of both direct and indirect channels. While pursuing multiple channels immediately upon launch may not be the best choice, decide which will be most cost-effective and align with your company’s values. Consider others as part of your plan for scaling in the future.

Product Messaging and Marketing Tactics

What language and strategies will you employ to meet your customers where they are and educate them about your product?

Product messaging encompasses every piece of information your target audience receives about your product, from introduction to user experience. If more than one person is on your team, ensure everyone is aligned on how to write and speak about the product.

Marketing tactics can include paid ads, physical signage, blog content, and partnerships with social media influencers. While all have benefits, select a few to include in your GTM strategy and the metrics you want to track.

Estimated Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the combined sales and marketing costs for your product, divided by the number of customers acquired over a given period.

It’s crucial to estimate CAC when crafting your GTM strategy to make decisions that yield the lowest number possible.

For instance, you may decide to test a specific channel and set of marketing and sales tactics for one year following your product’s launch. To estimate CAC, calculate the cost of all sales and marketing efforts for that year—including employees’ salaries—and divide it by the number of customers you realistically hope to gain.

You can use the CAC formula to decide how many customers you need to make your marketing and sales spend worth it, tweaking different parts to find an estimate you’re satisfied with.

2. Run Experiments

In Launching Tech Ventures , Bussgang refers to startups as “experimentation machines,” and for good reason. Early on, your goal as an entrepreneur should be to learn as much as possible in each stage of developing your business model so you can iterate on and launch the best version of your product.

Just as you should have run experiments when determining your customer value proposition, you also must do so for your GTM strategy. Your experiments should follow the scientific method and be designed to prove or disprove your hypotheses about planned distribution channels, product messaging and marketing tactics, and customer acquisition cost.

Experimentation comprises four steps:

• Hypothesis generation: Consider the business questions you have about your GTM strategy’s three key facets, and turn them into prediction statements, or hypotheses. A hypothesis about your mental health app’s distribution channel could be: “The most cost-effective way to reach customers is to partner with human resources departments that will distribute the app as an employee benefit.”
• Develop tests: Once you have your hypotheses, develop tests to prove or disprove them. With your mental health app, the test could include providing a beta version to human resources teams and asking how they’d promote it to employees. You can also enlist volunteers to get the end user perspective, asking how they’d respond if their employer promoted the app.
• Prioritize tests: While you likely have several questions at this stage, you must prioritize which tests to run first. Think about which could yield the greatest monetary value and help you better understand your customer and how they’d prefer to engage with your product.
• Run tests: Finally, conduct tests. This stage involves collecting and analyzing data to prove or disprove your hypotheses.

Repeat the hypothesis testing process for each prediction about your GTM strategy. As you learn, your hypotheses will become more specific, leading to detailed insights that can inform your plan.

3. Determine When to Scale Sales and Marketing Teams

A vital part of your GTM strategy is determining when to scale your sales and marketing teams. In Launching Tech Ventures , Bussgang describes the sales learning curve framework, coined by longtime tech executive Mark Leslie and adapted by HBS for startups.

The sales learning curve has three phases:

• Initiation: Typically, tech startups begin with the founder selling the product, called “founder selling.” This phase isn’t scalable and comes with high costs. The focus is learning as much as possible about selling your product.
• Transition: In this phase, a repeatable sales process takes shape, and you hire your first sales representative. They should be agile and able to translate learnings from the initiation phase into a scalable playbook.
• Execution: In the final phase, you bring a larger sales team on board, including an executive responsible for managing and enhancing efforts. This phase focuses on optimizing for the lowest CAC possible while maintaining high-quality customer relationships.

When creating your GTM strategy, it’s vital to consider the timing of progressing from one stage to the next. In Launching Tech Ventures, Bussgang stresses the importance of learning all you can during the initiation phase.

“A founder’s goal during the first phase is to learn how to sell and obtain feedback on how prospective and real customers are experiencing the product,” Bussgang says. “At this point in the process, it doesn’t matter how efficient your sales efforts are. Instead, it matters how much you’re learning.”

4. Aggregate Learnings into Actionable Strategy

Finally, create your go-to-market strategy by aggregating insights gleaned from experimentation and selecting metrics to track their success. Keep in mind: Your final GTM strategy is an experiment in itself. As you execute it post-launch, you’ll gain insights into what does and doesn’t work to inform your strategy moving forward.

“During these early days, it’s important to maximize learning rather than maximize metrics,” Bussgang says in the course. “Yes, there are important metrics to focus on to test product-market fit, but don’t rush to scale it until you nail it.”

Sharpen Your Entrepreneurial Skills

Launching a tech venture comes with risk, but it doesn’t need to be scary. Entrepreneurial skills are just like any others—you can develop and strengthen them through education and practice.

Luckily, your startup doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Take advantage of other tech founders’ wisdom and insights from navigating the same process.

Online courses like Launching Tech Ventures not only provide stories told by real-world tech entrepreneurs but also the tools and frameworks to enable you to craft a go-to-market strategy that sets your business up for success.

Are you interested in building the skills to launch a viable, valuable tech startup? Explore Launching Tech Ventures —one of our online entrepreneurship and innovation courses —and download our free guide on how to get started on your entrepreneurial journey.

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How to create a go-to-market strategy

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a step-by-step plan for launching a new product or expanding into a new market. It helps you launch your product to the right audience, with the right messaging, at the right time. Learn how to craft a go-to-market strategy in nine steps and set your next product launch up for success.

Oatly went straight to their target audience at the exact moment customers were smelling the espresso and ready to buy. And you can bet this innovative go-to-market strategy was the key to their success. 

What is a go-to-market strategy? 

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a step-by-step plan for launching a new product or expanding an existing product into a new market. It sets your initiative up for success by answering the following questions: 

What product are you selling, and what unique problem does it solve?

Who is your ideal customer, and what pain points do they experience? 

Where will you sell your product? What markets do you want to pursue, and what does the demand and competition look like in those markets?

How will you reach your target customers and create demand? 

Launching a product is a big investment. And no matter how cutting-edge it is, a successful product launch is dictated by the strength of your marketing campaign and sales strategy. Creating a GTM strategy helps you ensure you’re taking everything into account and avoid costly mistakes—like launching your product to the wrong audience or in a market that’s already saturated with similar offerings.

When do you need a go-to-market (GTM) strategy? 

Whenever you bring a product or service to market, you need a go-to-market strategy. This includes: 

Launching a new product in an existing market —for example, an established clothing brand launching a line of beauty products. 

Bringing an existing product to a new market —for example, a local grocery chain expanding into a different state. 

Testing a new product in a new market —for example, a tech startup launching their first app. 

Even established companies need a go-to-market strategy when pioneering a new product or expanding into a new market. That’s because competition and market forces can quickly change. Even if you’ve had success with a similar product launch in the past, that same strategy might not work as well now. 

Go-to-market strategy vs. a marketing plan

A go-to-market strategy is specifically for launching a product or expanding to a new market. On the other hand, a marketing plan details how you’ll execute your overall marketing strategy. Instead of being launch specific, a marketing plan is a long-term approach to help you achieve your marketing objectives—like an annual roadmap or an overarching digital marketing strategy . Your GTM strategy draws from your long-term marketing plan, but it’s tailored to a specific launch. 

Marketing plan example: Sephora’s marketing plan leverages its loyalty program , which offers discounts and gifts to customers who spend a certain amount. This plan isn’t specific to a product launch; rather, it’s a long-term approach to building customer loyalty over time. 

Go-to-market plan example: Microsoft executed a go-to-market strategy when launching its third-generation Surface tablet . Their strategy was specific to the tablet’s launch and addressed a particular market problem—that existing tablets didn’t have the functionality of a full-fledged computer.

Organize your go-to-market strategy with a project management platform

Every GTM strategy involves lots of moving pieces, whether you’re launching a new product or exploring new markets. The right project management tool can help you visualize your entire plan in one place, including the status, owners, and dependencies of each task. And as team members collaborate and execute your go-to-market strategy, you can see those updates in real-time.

How to build a go-to-market strategy in 9 steps

So you’ve created an exciting new product or want to expand into a new market. You know you need a go-to-market strategy to make sure your initiative succeeds—but what exactly does that look like? 

Step 1: Identify the problem

Every great product launch solves a specific problem. For example, Blackberry phones let business people answer emails on the go, Uber circumvents the cumbersome process of hailing or calling for a taxi, and Dawn detergent cuts through grease and makes washing dishes easier. Each of those products have a unique value proposition —a way they add value for customers by addressing their pain points. And most importantly, when those products launched, there was significant demand for solutions.

This concept is known as product-market fit —the degree to which a product satisfies a strong market demand. Understanding product-market fit is essential to gaining a competitive advantage and making sure you’re launching the right product to the right customers. 

Step 2: Define the target audience

In order to have a successful GTM launch, you need to clearly understand your target audience. Start your market research by asking yourself the following questions: 

Who is experiencing the problem that your product solves? 

What are the specific frustrations your product can alleviate? 

How much is your audience willing to pay for a solution? 

The two most common ways to define your target market are with an ideal customer profile (ICP) and buyer personas. These methods work together to narrow down your customer base and specify the types of people within your audience.  

Ideal customer profile (ICP)

This approach defines your perfect customer—in other words, someone who experiences the frustrations your product solves. They’re aware of the problem, already looking for a solution, and are able to buy your product. To create an ideal customer profile, consider the following characteristics:  

Industry or demographic: If you’re selling to businesses, identify the specific industry you’re targeting—like financial, legal, or SaaS verticals. If you’re selling to individuals, define specific demographics your ideal customer falls within. For example, a child-care service may target families with kids between the ages of 1 and 5. 

Geography : Where do your ideal customers live? For example, a tour company that offers English-only experiences may target customers in the US and Europe. 

Size: This one is specific to B2B companies. Identify the size of the business you’re targeting—for example, you may market a new co-working space to funded startups with less than 20 employees. 

Budget: To shape your pricing strategy, consider how much your customers have to spend on your product. This will also influence the market’s perception of your product. For example, if your company sells luxury watches, you probably don’t want to go below a certain price point. Alternatively, a legal consulting firm may find it worthwhile to only target businesses who can spend at least $5,000 per month. 

Decision-making factors : What factors influence whether a customer decides to purchase your product? For example, do they rely on referrals from trusted friends or colleagues? Is there a primary decision-maker, like the CEO or sales manager of a company?

Pain points: What specific frustrations does your ideal customer have? For example, a company selling a financial-planning app may target customers who lose time trying to track their budget with spreadsheets. 

Customer needs: Beyond pain points, understanding the needs of your customers is essential for an effective GTM strategy. For example, the technology company Apple emphasizes customer experience by analyzing customer needs and designing products accordingly.

Preferred media: How does your ideal customer absorb information? For example, do they use social media, read print magazines, or browse the web with ease? 

Buyer personas

Not all members of your target audience are the same—each person is a unique individual with their own problems, values, and goals. Creating buyer personas helps you differentiate between the different types of people within your target audience, so you can visualize who your customers are on a human level. 

You should create multiple customer personas to fully understand your target audience. Here’s an example of one buyer persona for a tour company launching a new in-destination app:

Persona: Memory-maker

Individuals between the ages of 25-35

Travels alone or with a partner

Willing to pay a higher price for premium experiences

Values booking flexibility

Wants to book high-demand experiences in advance, but also choose some activities after they’ve arrived at a destination

Can use technology and apps with ease

Buyer personas may seem similar to an ideal customer profile, but they perform a different function. Personas help you visualize customer needs by breaking your ICP down into more specific segments—each representing a type of person with their own distinct problems, values, and goals. 

Step 3: Research competition and demand

Now that you’ve identified your product’s value proposition and target audience, it’s time to do some market research. Before you invest in bringing your product to market, you want to make sure that there’s enough demand and not too much competition. To guide your marketing efforts, ask yourself the following questions: 

Who already offers a similar version of your product? 

What audiences and geographic regions do your competitors target? 

How does your product differ from the competition? What do you offer that others don’t? 

Is there demand for the product, or is the market oversaturated? 

To design a comprehensive marketing campaign, you’ll need to conduct a competitive analysis . This method uses research to identify your direct and indirect competitors and uncover their strengths and weaknesses in relation to your own.  

Step 4: Decide key messaging

The next step is to determine the key messages you’ll convey to potential customers. The best approach is to tailor individual messaging for each of your buyer personas, so you can address their unique values and frustrations. 

To map your messaging to each buyer persona, create a value matrix . A value matrix breaks down each persona, their pain points, the value your product brings, and a key message that conveys how your product can solve their unique problem. 

Let’s continue with the tour company example above. As a refresher, the company wants to launch a new in-destination app. One of their personas is a “memory-maker”—a customer who is willing to pay for premium experiences. Here’s what a value matrix might look like for this persona: 

Pain points

It’s hard to verify the quality of experiences when booking online.

If they book an expensive tour in advance, they can’t get their money back if plans change. 

Product value

An app with customer pictures and reviews gives a feel for the quality of tours. 

A flexible booking policy allows them to cancel if plans change. 

Key message

Book quality experiences with peace of mind. 

To complete your value matrix, continue this process for each buyer persona. 

Step 5: Map the buyer’s journey

Now that you’ve identified your buyer personas and messaging, you can map the buyer’s journey—the path customers take from realizing their problem, considering your product as a solution, and deciding to purchase. Mapping your buyer’s journey is a key component of content marketing, because it helps you surface the right type of content to potential customers at the right time. 

Most often, the customer journey is visualized as a funnel broken into three sections: 

Top of funnel: Customers know the problem they want to solve and research solutions. They may not be aware that your product exists yet. During this phase, you want to grab the customer's attention so they consider your product. 

Middle of funnel: Customers weigh your product against other available options. Your goal during this phase is to convince potential buyers that your product is the best option. 

Bottom of funnel: Customers decide whether to purchase your product. Your goal for this phase is to convince them to commit.

Step 6: Pick marketing channels

Marketing channels are the different types of content you use to create demand for your product and move potential customers down the marketing funnel. For example, social media, paid search ads, blogs, SEO content, and emails are different marketing channels. The marketing channels you choose depend on two things: your target audience, and where your potential customers are along their buyer’s journey. 

Align marketing channels with your ideal audience. You want to make sure the distribution channels you choose align with the way your target audience consumes content. For example, if your ideal customer uses YouTube but not Instagram or LinkedIn, you may want to focus on YouTube ads rather than paid social posts. 

Determine whether your ideal customer prefers outbound tactics like direct mail or inbound strategies such as social media. When deciding between inbound and outbound channels, consider whether you want to generate broad brand awareness or engage potential customers who have shown interest in what you have to offer. This approach ensures a more tailored and effective GTM strategy that aligns with the behavior and preferences of your target audience.

Use different distribution channels for different phases of the customer  journey. Depending on where customers are in the marketing funnel, different types of marketing content can help move them to the next phase. For example, search engine optimization (SEO) content can raise brand awareness among top-of-funnel customers. For those in the middle, case studies and webinars offer high-quality insights and build customer relationships. And at the bottom of the funnel, strategies like free trial options can help convince potential customers to commit.

Step 7: Create a sales plan

The goal of your GTM strategy is a successful product launch, so it’s essential to decide how you’ll sell to your target audience and turn prospective customers into buyers. That’s where your sales strategy comes in. 

We’ve outlined the four most common sales strategies below. As needed, you can combine these strategies to fit your specific product and business model. 

Self-service model : Customers purchase your product on their own. This is a common sales process for e-commerce, in which customers can find and buy products online. While this option doesn’t require a dedicated sales team, you need to invest in marketing to drive traffic to your website. 

Inside sales model: Your sales team nurtures prospective customers to convince them to purchase your product. This is a good option for products with a medium price point that are a bit more complex, like design software for teams. 

Field sales model : Salespeople focus on closing big enterprise deals. This option requires more sales investment and a longer sales cycle, but there’s a big payoff. For example, you might use a field sales model to sell HR management software to large companies. 

Channel model : An external partner sells your product for you. While this option gives you less say in how you market your product, it’s the cheapest option and can work well if you partner with a company that sells similar products. For example, if you’re selling a new type of cereal, you could partner with a grocery chain. 

Step 8: Set concrete goals

Every great go-to-market strategy starts with clear objectives and benchmarks. Goals give you specific targets to aim for and a clear timeline, and benchmarks allow you to measure progress. Without clearly defined goals, it’s hard to tell if your GTM strategy is working. 

Here are a few different goal-setting frameworks you can use to set measurable objectives. Depending on your business needs, you can combine these strategies or use them on their own. 

SMART goals : This acronym helps you set goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. For example, you could set the following SMART goal when launching a new app: “In six months, generate 1M total app downloads and 50K new user accounts.”

Key performance indicators (KPIs) : KPIs are quantitative metrics that help you track progress toward business objectives. For example, you could track total purchases and ad click-throughs when executing a go-to-market strategy for your new product. Keep in mind that you can use the SMART goal framework when crafting KPIs—for example, “Within three months, generate 100K total conversions and 1M ad click-throughs.”

Objectives and key results (OKRs) : This strategy pairs the objectives you want to achieve with the key results you’ll use to measure progress. It follows this format: “I will [objective] as measured by [key result].” For example, “The marketing team will increase awareness of a new product, as measured by the following key results: Drive 1M web visitors to the product page, increase social media engagement by 50%, and generate 50K new customers through email signups.” 

Step 9: Create clear processes

Creating a great go-to-market strategy is one thing, and executing it is another. That’s why creating clear processes is essential when bringing a product to market—because regardless of how well-crafted your strategy is, it only succeeds when you communicate and execute your strategy with your team. For example, you should consider the following when crafting your GTM strategy: 

How you’ll share your strategy and collaborate with team members. Don’t let your strategy gather dust in a drawer—instead, house the plans and projects that comprise your strategy in one easily accessible place. A robust work management tool can help you accomplish this. Asana lets you coordinate plans, projects, and processes in one central location. That way, team members can work and collaborate in the same space where your GTM strategy lives.

How you’ll course-correct and track goals . In order for goals to be effective, they need to be connected to your day-to-day work. That means instead of setting and forgetting goals for your GTM strategy, make a plan to regularly check in and track your progress—for example, at the end of each week or month. Share these updates with project stakeholders in a centralized project management tool. That way, everyone is on the same page.

How to optimize the customer experience process. A smooth customer experience is critical to the success of your go-to-market strategy, which includes everything from onboarding to retention and customer service. Making your customers feel supported boosts loyalty and advocacy. Consider implementing structured onboarding programs, processes that nurture retention, and establishing helpful customer service. Tools that collect feedback and enable swift service adjustments can significantly improve these processes, making each customer's journey with your product a positive and memorable one.

How to effectively manage customer acquisition costs (CAC) . Monitoring customer acquisition costs is key for long-term growth. Optimize your marketing and sales funnel to reduce CAC and maximize marketing ROI. Incorporate data-driven strategies to fine-tune targeting, leverage cost-effective channels, and improve conversion rates. Regularly reviewing these costs in relation to customer lifetime value (CLV) can provide insights into the long-term viability and profitability of your customer acquisition strategies. 

How you can standardize processes with go-to-market strategy templates . Every go-to-market strategy contains lots of components and moving pieces. But while it’s important to evaluate your strategy for each new product launch, that doesn’t mean you have to reinvent the wheel. To avoid duplicate work, create process documentation and go-to-market strategy templates to standardize your go-to-market process. For example, you could create templates outlining the steps to determine your target audience, clarify your messaging, and so on—plus an overarching template to guide how you craft your entire GTM strategy. When choosing a project management tool for your team, pick one that lets you create and share templates for processes your team uses on a regular basis.

Go-to-market strategy benefits

In addition to supporting a successful product launch, there are a number of ways in which your company may profit from developing a solid GTM strategy.

Faster market entry

A well-crafted go-to-market strategy streamlines your approach to entering new markets or launching products. By identifying the most effective distribution channels, target audience, and messaging from the get-go, businesses can significantly reduce the time it takes to go from concept to customers. Being first can often mean the difference between leading the market and playing catch-up.

GTM strategy example: Consider the launch of a groundbreaking health app that leverages AI to personalize workout plans. With a detailed go-to-market plan, the company identified fitness enthusiasts on social media as their primary audience and created affiliate partnerships with influencers for promotions. The strategy led to a rapid increase in user adoption within the first few months, showcasing how targeted efforts can result in faster market penetration.

Enhanced customer understanding

A go-to-market strategy requires in-depth market research into customer needs, preferences, and behaviors. This process not only ensures that the product or service meets market demand but also deepens the company's understanding of its customer base. This customer insight is invaluable for tailoring marketing efforts, developing future products, and improving customer satisfaction over time.

GTM strategy example: Imagine a company launching a new eco-friendly home cleaning product. Through their go-to-market strategy research, they discovered their target customers frequented eco-conscious blogs and forums. By engaging with these communities and addressing their specific concerns, the company was able to build a loyal customer base that felt heard and understood, which led to strong word-of-mouth endorsements.

Streamlined resource allocation

Crafting a go-to-market strategy forces businesses to think critically about how they allocate their resources, including time, money, and manpower. By focusing efforts on the most promising markets, channels, and customer segments, companies can achieve higher returns on investment and avoid wasteful spending.

GTM strategy example: A small software startup developed a project management tool tailored for remote teams. By concentrating their resources on online advertising targeting remote work platforms and collaboration forums, they were able to maximize their limited marketing budget, achieving a higher conversion rate than spreading their efforts across more generic channels.

Competitive advantage

A thorough go-to-market strategy equips businesses with the knowledge to differentiate themselves from the competition. By clearly articulating the unique value proposition and tailoring the marketing mix to highlight these differences, companies can carve out a distinct space in the market. This not only attracts more customers but also builds a strong brand identity.

GTM strategy example: Take the case of a new beverage company entering a crowded market. Their GTM plan concentrated on their drink's distinctive flavor combination and health advantages, which differentiators did not provide. By targeting health-conscious consumers through niche health and wellness events and partnerships, the company was able to establish a dedicated following, distinguishing itself from the competition and securing a loyal customer base.

Ready, set, strategize

Bringing a product to market is a big investment. But you can set your next launch up for success with a solid framework to determine your audience and messaging, concrete goals, and clear processes to carry out your strategy. With these nine steps, crafting a great go-to-market strategy isn’t so daunting after all.

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The Proven Process for Developing a Go-to-Market Strategy [+Templates]

Updated: August 24, 2022

Published: February 10, 2022

To have a successful product launch, you need to craft a thoughtful, actionable, effective go-to-market (GTM) strategy framework.

Without proper planning, it’s impossible to know if you’re chasing the wrong audience, are too early or too late to a given market, or targeting a market that's too saturated with similar solutions.

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To make the process easier to navigate, I’m going to walk you through everything you need to know to build a killer go-to-market strategy in this article. This guide can be used for startups, B2B businesses, and virtually any new venture you plan on launching.

• What is a Go-to-Market Strategy?

Go-to-Market Strategy Benefits

Go-to-market strategy framework, how to build a go-to-market strategy, go-to-market strategy tips.

• Go-to-Market Plan Template

Go-to-Market Strategy Examples

What is a go-to-market (gtm) strategy.

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a step-by-step plan designed to bring a new product to market and drive demand. It helps identify a target audience, outline marketing and sales strategies, and align key stakeholders. While each product and market will be different, a well-crafted GTM strategy should identify a market problem and position the product as a solution.

Your go-to-market strategy should be a handy roadmap that measures the viability of a solution's success and predicts its performance based on market research, prior examples, and competitive data. Ultimately, you want to create a plan that sets the product apart from the competition and generates leads and customer retention.

It's also worth noting that go-to-market strategies aren't exclusive to physical products. You can create a GTM plan for a new service, a new branch of your company, or even an entirely new business.

Free Product Go-to-Market Kit

Free templates to ensure that your whole team is aligned for your next product launch.

• Product Launch Template
• Product Roadmap Template
• Sales Plan Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Free Go-to-Market Kit

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As you develop a new product or service, it’s vital to start drawing a go-to-market strategy that’s customized to fit your budget and your buyer persona . Although it takes a great amount of effort, time, money and resources, a well-planned go-to-market strategy can significantly benefit your project.

Create Alignment

Alignment is essential when preparing to launch a new product or service. Whether you’re a product designer or a social media coordinator, everyone needs to be on the same page.

Go-to-market strategies help maintain alignment throughout the whole product lifecycle because they include roadmaps and planning documents that keep the team informed on who will be handling which tasks. They can also help you establish deadlines so your team stays on schedule.

Without alignment, things can get unorganized pretty quickly. This can lead to miscommunication, missed deadlines, and errors that can cause your project to flop.

Establish Product-Market Fit

Creating a go-to-market plan can prevent many of the mistakes and oversights that can tank new product launches. Poor product-market fit can dampen a launch — even if the product is well-designed and innovative.

Take Apple, for example. In the 1980s, decades before Steve Jobs launched the game-changing iPhone, he led one of Apple’s biggest flops: the Apple Lisa computer.

Although Lisa had some of the best graphic technology of its time, only 10,000 units were sold. Critics attribute the failure to Lisa’s misleading ads and high price, despite its low processing power.

While Apple and Steve Jobs recovered, smaller companies could have a lot more to lose when bringing a product to market with a poor plan.

Work Out Kinks

While a go-to-market strategy isn't guaranteed to prevent failure, it can help you manage expectations and work out any kinks before you invest in bringing a product to market.

The process of creating a go-to-market strategy allows you to discover gaps in the market, which can help you hone down your product’s niche and better alleviate your buyer persona’s pain points.

To aid you in this process, we have free go-to-market strategy templates that can help you build a strategy that positions your product in front of your target audience.

Go-To-Market Plan Methodologies

I've seen two major methods for developing a go-to-market strategy: the funnel and the flywheel . While the traditional, one-off funnel method focuses on attracting leads and nurturing them into sales, the flywheel approach uses inbound marketing and other strategies to build long-lasting customer relationships.

While the funnel is centered around the awareness, consideration, and decision stages of the customer’s journey, the circular flywheel focuses on attracting, engaging, and delighting prospects, leads, and customers.

When a lead becomes a customer, the flywheel continues as the company is tasked with attracting them, engaging them, and delighting them all over again with solid customer experiences, new content, and potentially new offerings.

Before I share my go-to-market strategy framework, I thought I’d go over four key points of a GTM plan.

All of these points are integrated into the step-by-step guide I share below, so you don’t need to answer these questions now. Still, they’re useful for keeping in mind — especially if you’re creating a never-before-seen product.

Here are the critical parts of a go-to-market strategy:

• Product-Market Fit: What problem(s) does your product solve?
• Target Audience: Who is experiencing the problem that your product solves? How much are they willing to pay for a solution? What are the pain points and frustrations that you can alleviate?
• Competition and Demand: Who already offers what you’re launching? Is there a demand for the product, or is the market oversaturated?
• Distribution: Through what mediums will you sell the product or service? A website, an app, or a third-party distributor?

Alternatively, you could also try to use go-to-market platforms like Dealfront to help establish and initiate your strategy framework. 

Platforms like Dealfront allow you to pull from four layers of data, enabling you to target your ideal customer, track visitor behavior, reach out to leads, and promote your company with the help of B2B display advertising. 

Now, let’s get started. Below is my step-by-step guide to building your own GTM strategy using the tactics I’ve implemented to build multiple companies throughout the years.

I’ve also outlined how you can iterate and optimize as your company evolves, and you’ll find helpful examples of how we’ve broken these steps down at my most recent company, SalesHero .

• Use go-to-market strategy templates
• Identify the buying center and personas.
• Craft a value matrix to help identify messaging.
• Test your messaging.
• Optimize your ads based on the results of your tests before implementing them on a wide scale.
• Understand your buyer’s journey.
• Choose one (or more) of the four most common sales strategies.
• Build brand awareness and demand generation with inbound and/or outbound methods.
• Create content to get inbound leads.

1. Use go-to-market strategy templates

Launching a new product or service can get overwhelming very quickly, especially when there are many moving parts and stakeholders. That’s why the first thing you should do when taking a new product to market is to find go-to-market strategy templates that keep you and your team stay aligned and on schedule.

HubSpot offers a free go-to-market kit that features an assortment of templates that help you organize each aspect of your strategy and keep key stakeholders informed on who is responsible for which task.

Download the kit today to get started on your go-to-market strategy.

Each template has its own unique purpose, but they are best utilized in tandem:

• Product Launch Planning Template: Create tasks that need to be completed for the product launch, provide progress updates, and plan social media and PR messaging
• Product Update Email Templates: Internally communicate product updates and changes to your team
• Product Roadmap Template: Create a schedule of all the tasks that will be addressed and who will be handling them
• Product Lifecycle Mapping Template: Keep track of your product’s lifecycle stages
• Product Classification Template: Classify your product and align all teams on product vision, marketing plan, and sales strategy
• SWOT Analysis Template: Determine your product’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and weaknesses, as well as conduct market research on competition
• Sales Plan Template: Outline and communicate sales strategy to stakeholders

2. Identify the buying center and personas.

When preparing your product for market, you must always consider your customer.

According to Gartner, the typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to 10 decision-makers. These people make up what is called the "buying center."

Each of those buyers typically fills one of the following roles (though it’s important to note some job titles might occupy more than one role):

• Initiator: Starts the buying process or shows initial interest
• User: Uses your product regularly
• Influencer: Convinces others the product is needed
• Decision maker: Gives final approval for the purchase
• Buyer: Owns the budget
• Approver: Final approver who pushes the initiative on a larger scale (typically someone in the C-suite)
• Gatekeeper: Blocker in getting a product implemented or approved

These roles vary based on the product, industry, and vertical you’re selling to. Get your team together and brainstorm the various job titles that could be impacted by your solution.

Research each role to get a general sense of what they do, their goals, and their pain points. It’s critical to learn who these people are, what motivates them, and what their problems are, as they will be the ones to put your product on the map.

Using SalesHero as an example, the buying center breaks down like this:

But the sales funnel is no longer the best way to look at your buyer’s journey. Instead, I propose using the flywheel methodology , which takes a more holistic approach that puts your customer at the center and turns your leads from prospects to customers to active promoters.

In the flywheel model, customers go through three stages: attract, engage, and delight.

First up is the attract phase. Content at this stage grabs a potential customer’s attention. This can be in the form of a blog, whitepaper, or video. A lead gets here by clicking on an ad, social media post, or a search engine result. However, these behaviors do not indicate that this lead is ready to make a purchase yet.

After that comes the engage phase. In this stage, a prospect has demonstrated they have a problem your product can solve. They show this through digital behavior like downloading an ebook or joining a webinar, allowing you to engage them with educational content.

While each company divides the lead generation and qualification process differently, marketing is typically in charge of the attract and engage phases. Your marketing team will need to generate interest and awareness and educate the relevant audience on a product’s value through messaging and content (more on that later).

Halfway through the engagement phase, the prospect should ask for a quote or a trial period. They’re nearing a decision on whether or not to purchase.

Once the prospect reaches this point, the sales team takes over. The process will typically look as follows:

• Contact: Communication between the lead and sales rep begins.
• Qualification: The sales rep learns more about the company, their customers’ pain points , and asks questions to see if they meet the basic requirements to purchase the product (BANT is a popular sales qualification method but several other sales methodologies are used to qualify).
• Business case: The prospect tests the product through a free trial or POC to see if it can solve their needs.
• Evaluation: The decision-makers in the organization weigh the cost of the product to the results they achieved during the business case.
• Negotiation: Both sales reps and decision-makers discuss pricing details and feature needs.
• Close: A deal is agreed upon and your prospect turns into a customer.
• Renewal (Optional): Your customer renews their contract or subscription.

Right after your sales representative closes the sale, the lead leaves the engage phase and enters the delight phase. When your customer has reached this stage, they should be delighted with a painless onboarding process and friendly customer service options.

After that, your customer should ideally turn into a promoter. They bring you more customers, keeping the flywheel going and enabling you to grow better.

7. Choose one (or more) of the four most common sales strategies.

You’ve done all the required foundational work, now it’s time to pick a strategy that will push your product into the market. No one method will work for every product or market, so it’s important to consider the complexity, scalability , and cost of yours.

There are generally four go-to-market sales strategies — each one catering to a different product and business model.

The Self-Service model

The self-service model is when a customer purchases on their own. We typically see this model with B2C purchases in which a customer can find and buy a product via a website, like Netflix or Amazon.

This works best for simple products with a low-cost point and high volume of sales. It’s difficult to build, but, when successful, it sees a short sales cycle, zero cost to hire salespeople, and is highly profitable.

While you won’t need a sales team, you will need a marketing team to drive traffic and conversions to your site. The core marketing team would likely include growth marketing, performance marketing, and content marketing experts, though there will likely be other team members as well.

The Inside Sales Business Model

The inside sales business model is when a prospect needs to be nurtured by a sales rep to convert into a deal. This type of model works best with a product of medium complexity and price.

The sales cycle ranges between a few weeks and a few months. Here, you’ll invest in a sales team — but inside sales reps are less expensive than field reps.

With a high volume of sales, this model can be profitable and is fairly easy to build and scale as you hire more team members. The sales team in this model is typically composed of a sales manager that supervises a handful of reps.

The Field Sales Business Model

The field sales business model is when you have a full sales organization that closes large enterprise deals. These are typically complex products with high price points, which also means there’s typically a low volume of deals with a long sales cycle.

The sales team in this model is often very costly as the field reps are experienced, high-salary employees. This model is easy to build, but harder to scale, because it takes time and money to hire and train a full sales organization.

Members include a sales manager, field reps, sales engineers, a sales development representative (SDR) team, and sales operations.

The Channel Model

Lastly, in the channel model , an outside agency or partner sells your product for you. This is hard to build, as the people can be difficult to recruit and educate on the benefits of your product. They are also often less motivated to sell than your own sales team would be.

However, this is a cheap model, because you don’t need to pay a sales team of your own. It works best with a product that matches the partner’s interest. For example, if you sell phone cases, you might want to find partners selling related products, like Best Buy or Apple.

You can mix and match these strategies based on industry or customer size (i.e., number of licenses or seats). For startups, it’s healthy to scale over time rather than investing in an expensive sales team too early.

8. Build brand awareness and demand generation with inbound and/or outbound methods.

Now you need to fill your pipeline by snagging the attention of your target audience. This occurs through demand generation, which can happen with both inbound and outbound strategies.

With inbound, prospects discover your brand through marketing efforts and reach out to you or show signs of interest organically. Some examples of organic inbound traffic channels could be social media, content, or paid ads leading to a landing page.

Outbound demand generation is when a salesperson contacts a lead through cold outreach tactics. They might do this by reaching out to a contact list, sending warm emails , phoning leads , or gathering leads at industry conferences .

Once interest has been generated through these methods, sales conversations begin, and the leads are led to more educational content and then into the sales funnel.

9. Create content to get inbound leads.

Inbound leads are generally easier to convert and cheaper to acquire than outbound leads. This is because inbound leads are already partially educated on the business problem you solve, aware of your product, and usually more interested in buying your product.

Content marketing is the key to generating that inbound interest, as content will drive traffic to your site.

Your content marketing team will drive this inbound traffic by finding and targeting keywords that your potential customers would search for and then creating and posting related content on your website.

At the core of content marketing is search engine optimization (SEO) , which is the way a search engine ranks the content on the internet once a query is entered into the search bar. This will be a large source of your organic web traffic.

What goes into content marketing? It’s a cycle of keyword research, creation, and measurement.

• Keyword research: Identify keywords related to your product, analyze the volume (how often that keyword is searched), the difficulty of ranking for that keyword (i.e., how competitive that keyword is), and see who is already ranking for those keywords.
• Content research: Brainstorm content topics that include that keyword. See what articles already exist around these topics and begin to plan your content calendar.
• Content creation: Put those ideas into motion and have a writer create articles on those topics.
• Design: Add relevant images, infographics, videos, and other multimedia to your content so it’s more visual and engaging.
• Promote: Spread your content and drive traffic to your website by sharing the links via social media or emails to your customer database.
• Build links: Reach out to other publishers and ask them to link to your content to gain even more traffic with link-building tactics. This gives you site authority, which helps improve your SEO rankings.
• Conversion rate: Track and measure the engagement and conversion rates of your content. Keep doing what works and drop what doesn’t. From there, begin the content creation cycle again.

Your content team should develop content that aligns with the various stages of the buyer’s journey (top-of-funnel, middle-of-funnel, bottom-of-funnel).

Top-of-funnel content is lighter educational content, middle-of-funnel content is deeper, more applied learning, and bottom-of-funnel content is for those who are ready to buy and implement. To use SalesHero as an example, the content at each level of the funnel would look like this:

• Top-of-funnel content: "What is sales AI?"
• Middle-of-funnel content: "How sales AI can increase productivity"
• Bottom-of-funnel content: "Using sales AI to extract dark data"

If you're feeling overwhelmed, don't worry. I've created a chart you can fill in. Create a messaging strategy or content marketing plan based on your customer’s journey. The template includes notes on where you should be in the flywheel and funnel’s cycles.

Top-of-Funnel Content

Funnel Stage: Awareness

Flywheel Goal: Attract Prospects

What type of content will you create to catch the eye of potential customers in similar industries? Make a table like this one below.

Middle-of-Funnel Content

Funnel Stage: Consideration

Flywheel Goals: Attract and Engage Leads

In this phase, your audience might know of your service, or they might be researching products related to yours. What types of content do you create to move your service to the front of their minds?

Bottom-of-Funnel Content

Funnel Stage: strong> Decision

Flywheel Goals: strong> Engage and Nurture Leads / Gain and Delight Customers

Your audience is really interested in your service. How will you use content to sell them?

• Find ways to optimize your pipeline and increase conversion rates.
• Analyze and shorten the sales cycle.
• Reduce customer acquisition cost.
• Strategize ways to tap into your existing customer base.
• Adjust and iterate as you go.
• Retain and delight your customers.

1. Find ways to optimize your pipeline and increase conversion rates.

Growth requires more than simply picking a sales strategy and building a demand generation process. You must optimize.

Sales is a numbers game, and you can only be successful if you measure progress . The key performance indicators (KPIs) for managing a sales team are volume, conversion rate, and time.

You’ll also want to track how many opportunities come into the flywheel: your pipeline volume.

Then track how many leads turned into customers. Comparing the volume of the pipeline opportunities to the number of won deals will get you your overall conversion rate.

It’s even more important to optimize the conversion rate between stages. As opportunities move through the funnel, they’ll go through various qualification processes (i.e. basic qualifications, current solutions in use, technical evaluation, and closing), and you’ll want to track at which stage the opportunities fall out and why.

You’ll need to measure this for your overall flywheel and per sales rep. This information tells you where each rep needs to improve and potentially receive more training. Work to personalize your sales coaching efforts to shorten the sales cycle of each rep. Compare time and conversion rate to see who's better and faster in particular stages.

Track how many opportunities each rep converts and at what stage in the process they drop out. The sooner an unqualified opportunity falls out of the flywheel, the better, because less time, energy, and resources are spent on that particular lead.

2. Analyze and shorten the sales cycle.

Finally, track how long your sales cycle is. This is the amount of time it takes for an opportunity to enter the sales funnel and change to a closed/won deal. The goal is to shorten the conversion between every stage. This can be done by identifying common objections (and iterating ways to remove them before they happen), doing ongoing lead nurturing, and brainstorming ways to find the best-fit customers.

3. Reduce customer acquisition costs.

As a business owner , you’ll also need to optimize your customer acquisition cost . This will be very expensive at first, but as time goes on, you’ll need to reduce this cost by optimizing your processes, or you’ll be losing more money than you make.

Customer acquisition is how much it costs to gain a new customer or deal per $1. The lower the customer acquisition cost, the lower the impact your marketing efforts have on your PNL, and the higher the profit you get per customer.

4. Strategize ways to tap into your existing customer base.

A common adage in the industry is that it costs seven times more to acquire a new customer than it does to do business with an existing customer. That's because, if you're providing a great buying experience, existing customers already know, like, and trust you.

The best opportunity for companies to earn more and gain revenue is through renewals, cross-selling, and upselling . The average cost for a company to renew a product is $0.13, while upsells cost a company $0.28.

Many people think of sales as a black box. But with analytics and new sales AI technologies cropping up, business leaders can optimize their processes to accelerate business.

5. Adjust and iterate as you go.

Building a successful company is not reserved for those entrepreneurs who’ve been blessed with special skills.

Chances are, you’ve already built your product, and building a company is a very similar process. You must be strategic and continue to improve throughout the process.

Take time and continue to iterate, and you too can build a company. Return to areas of your plan that aren’t working and tweak them. Make note of the things that are working, and brainstorm ways to expand upon them.

6. Retain and delight your customers.

In this phase, you will focus on maintaining your customer relationships and spreading good word-of-mouth. This is where a flywheel strategy can be much more helpful than the funnel, which ends at sales. For a detailed rundown of the delight phase and beyond, check out this ultimate guide .

Although different products might require different launch strategies, the below template and steps should help you create a solid starter plan which can be customized along the way.

Go-To-Market Plan Template

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Creating a go-to-market strategy from scratch can be daunting — especially if it’s your first time launching a brand new product or service. That’s why we created a complete go-to-market kit to help you get started. You’ll find templates that help keep your team on schedule and promote alignment between all product stakeholders.

The kit includes:

• Product Launch Planning Template
• Product Update Email Templates
• Product Lifecycle Mapping Template
• Product Classification Template
• SWOT Analysis Template

Still stumped? Below, I’ve included a few more examples of go-to-market strategies that can help you inspire your own.

• Microsoft Surface
• Bread Beauty Supply

Via is a ridesharing platform that was founded in 2012 when Uber was still relatively unknown .

While Uber has bypassed Via in popularity and product usage, Via has effectively carved a niche in the transportation technology space.

Why Via’s Go to Market Strategy Works:

The company’s GTM strategy consisted of its emphasis on ride-sharing — that is, riders literally share rides with other riders who are traveling in the same direction. The driver takes a predetermined route and drops riders off at convenient locations, rather than picking up riders at private locations.

Via set out to solve a common pain point for commuters: overcrowded or unavailable public transit with inflexible routes.

Another pain point of the target audience was that Uber and Lyft rides were overpriced and couldn’t be used for daily commutes. Via looked at this problem and created a true ridesharing service that could fill the space Uber and Lyft didn’t fill.

Now, the company partners with private transit operators, schools, and public transit agencies to expand existing operations or provide more riding options for passengers. The result of Via’s go-to-market strategy is that it no longer sees Uber as a direct competitor .

2. Microsoft Surface

Microsoft Windows has long been the preeminent OS, and for good reason: most computer manufacturers offer Windows laptops and desktops.

So why would Microsoft launch its line of computers and tablets if its software is ubiquitous?

Why Microsoft Surface’s Go to Market Strategy Works:

In its go-to-market strategy for its Surface products, Microsoft set out to solve a common problem for tablet users. Tablets were primarily mobile devices; while they were convenient to carry, they didn’t offer the full functionality of a laptop. And for many people, owning both a tablet and a laptop was not financially feasible.

When it released the third generation of the Surface tablet , Microsoft made its position clear. The device was a fully functioning computer in tablet form. You could have a light device without sacrificing function. Compared to the Apple iPad, its principal competitor, the Surface tablet offered more functionality at the same price.

Now, the Microsoft Surface line has expanded to include laptops and desktops. Microsoft realized that laptop buyers may not purchase a Windows laptop because there are so many manufacturers to choose from. Specifications and hardware components vary from machine to machine.

With its Surface laptops, Microsoft makes the choice easier for target demographics such as college students and everyday users. These devices compete with Apple’s macOS offerings and are designed to seamlessly integrate with all of the features of Windows OS.

At first glance, the Owala brand of water bottles doesn’t seem much different from competitors.

But in its go-to-market strategy, the brand used its motto, "Do more of what you love," to hint at its products’ ease of use. You can "do more of what you love" since you won’t even waste time opening the bottle. The lid itself is where you sip.

Why Owala’s Go to Market Strategy Works:

With its product launch, Owala addressed common problems for water-drinkers: openings that are too wide, spills, and two-handed drinking.

Owala specifically targets those who are active. In its first series of Instagram posts, the brand posted a mosaic of a man on a motorcycle, and in most of its social posts, it includes people in workout clothes.

The company arguably entered an overcrowded space. Brands such as HydroFlask and Contigo dominate the industry. By addressing a specific target buyer and solving their problems, however, Owala successfully launched into that competitive market. The brand distributes its offerings through its website, BestBuy, and Amazon for optimum reach.

4. Bread Beauty Supply

Bread Beauty Supply , a Black- and woman-owned hair care line, set out to solve a common problem for its curly-haired audience: overcomplicated routines that waste time, energy, and products.

Why Bread Beauty Supply’s Go to Market Strategy Works:

The brand launched in 2020 and partnered with Sephora as its principal distribution channel. In its go-to-market strategy, the brand identified a segment of buyers who would rather keep their routine simple and leave their curls in their natural state.

Compare this strategy with that of competitor brands such as Pattern Beauty and Ouidad, both of which offer a multitude of hair care products that can dizzy, confuse, and overwhelm buyers. When creating its go-to-market plan, Bread Beauty Supply recognized that some people with curly hair would rather spend less, not more, time on their hair.

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While the curly hair care industry verges on overcrowded, Bread Beauty Supply successfully launched by taking a unique stance in the industry.

The Sip , a Black- and woman-owned champagne subscription service, makes drinking luxury wine more affordable.

Champagne clubs have always been around, offering monthly deliveries of delectable wines at a premium cost.

To the target audience, however, this model poses a few problems. The wine of choice for that month could fail to meet expectations, and that could result in a wasted bottle. And that is at full cost, too. One of The Sip’s competitors, Club Bubbly, charges $100 per month to deliver two bottles of champagne.

Why The Sip’s Go to Market Strategy Works:

In its go-to-market strategy, The Sip emphasized its mini-bottle program: subscribers can try three mini-bottles of champagne at a fraction of the cost. If you happen to like one, you can buy the full bottle.

By solving common problems faced by subscribers of wine boxes, The Sip not only attracted the subscribers of its competition, but opened up this type of subscription to buyers who could not previously afford it.

Vuclip , a mobile video-on-demand service, tapped into emerging markets with limited access to high-quality video streaming services. Consumers in these areas — including India, Thailand, and Egypt — dealt with slow video buffering speeds due to a lack of advanced mobile networks.

Why Vuclip’s Go to Market Strategy Works:

The company's go-to-market strategy rested on appealing to those "must-have" markets, where it could come in with a competitive advantage by presenting an accessible platform that addressed those regional consumers' issues with buffering.

The result? Vuclip built a subscriber base of more than 41 million consumers across over 3,000 cities, with plans to establish a presence in even more underserved markets around the world.

Upscope , an interactive screen sharing platform, came on the scene as a resource to suit a more technically inclined crowd than its competitors — namely onboarding, support, and IT specialists.

Why Upscope’s Go to Market Strategy Works:

The primary pain point the company looked to address was the trouble consumers ran into when trying to share their screens — particularly when it came to walking prospects, customers, or employees through technical subject matter.

The company addressed that issue by creating a solution that lends itself to instant and interactive screen sharing — sparing users the trouble of fumbling through the screen share process and letting all parties engage with the content they're seeing.

Upscope supported its go-to-market efforts with a solid content marketing strategy — maintaining an active web presence and blog. It also incorporated integrations with other tools into its solution, giving itself more visibility and clout.

Baggu is a reusable bag brand. While it seems rather simple on the surface, its go-to-market strategy has made a buzz in the world of sustainability.

Why Baggu’s Go to Market Strategy Works:

This brand was created to eliminate unnecessary waste through responsibly managing deadstock products and fabric. This appeals to eco-conscious consumers who are trying to minimize their use of plastic bags.

Accompanying its relatable mission, Baggu has held many collaborations that take its products from functional, to stylish statement pieces.

Baggu recently partnered with Joonbug , a Jamaican artist known for impressive skate designs, and made colorful patterns that showcase his cultural roots and style.

The products are visually interesting, eye-catching, and were marketed through Instagram — a social media platform designed for visual ads and promotion, and a perfect vehicle for a mutually beneficial collaboration for JoonBug, who is also a prominent influencer in the art sphere.

Thinx is a feminine hygiene company that makes underwear for people with periods. This re-imagined approach to menstrual products has been gaining more traction in the industry, and its go-to-market strategy has definitely aided in its success.

Why Thinx’s Go to Market Strategy Works:

A common pain point for people with periods is spending a lot of money on one-time hygienic products, and it’s not good for the environment, either. So offering washable underwear with a 2 year guarantee is a much better investment than the alternative.

Thinx is also known for partnering with organizations using cause marketing, like with Black Mamas Matter Alliance. BMMA focuses on the issue of maternal health (specifically for black women who are three times more likely to die from childbirth than other races) that Thinx’s audience would also care about or be aware of.

This strategy appeals to consumers who can feel good knowing they're buying something that gives back a portion of profit to something beyond themselves, especially if it raises awareness of inequalities in maternal health.

10. Metaverse

One of the most outlandish ideas of recent go-to-market strategies is none other than the launch of the Metaverse. It’s an immersive, digital economy made by Facebook, and a look into the future for the platform.

Why the Metaverse’s Go to Market Strategy Works:

This brand understands that people are leading digital lives more than ever, which includes more online shopping — but without the experience of shopping in person. So while it is more convenient to add items to your cart through clicks, customers give up the feel of shopping in store.

Metaverse solves for this, by incorporating the brick and mortar experience in a VR-centric, digital world.

In addition to solving the online shopping dilemma, the PR campaign and influencer marketing was such a huge rollout on one of the most major social media platforms, it caused quite a buzz through the internet and news outlets.

Create a Strong GTM Strategy for Your New Venture

Building a go-to-market strategy is critical before bringing your new product to market. With the steps I shared in this guide, you’ll be well on your way to launching a product or service that solves for your future customers and becomes profitable in the marketplace.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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How to create a go-to-market strategy: Guide with examples

Editor’s note : This blog was updated on 7 April 2023 to add a section on how to develop a go-to-market strategy and specify more examples of go-to-market strategy tactics and programs.

Go-to-market (GTM) strategy is key to any product’s success. Without one, you’re essentially driving blind — trying to introduce a product to an audience that, chances are, doesn’t know anything about it. The word “strategy” in “go-to-market strategy” emphasizes this well, you can’t just throw a last-minute plan together and hope it’ll work.

Thought and intentionality are the drivers behind go-to-market strategy. You have to really understand your target audience, its needs, and the context around you.

In this article, we’ll talk about what go-to-market strategy means, how to develop a GTM strategy, the various factors and considerations to account for, and demonstrate some examples of GTM strategy along the way. Let’s get started.

What is a go-to-market (GTM) strategy?

So what does go-to-market strategy mean, exactly? The name is pretty telling; go-to-market strategy is a thorough, comprehensive plan outlining how a company is going to bring a new product into the market it’s hoping to serve. The plan truly goes from A–Z and includes all aspects of the product, starting from research at the very beginning and to post-launch promotional activities and advertising (and beyond) at the end.

The objective of a go-to-market (GTM) strategy is simple: drive awareness, accessibility, and retention of a product from initial validation to scaling it for a much larger market population. As you might imagine, the strategies adopted will transform over time based on market confirmation.

The general notion is that go-to-market strategies are transactional, so companies often wait to execute until the product is ready to deploy.

However, a good product manager initiates the GTM strategy when conceptualizing a product idea. The strategy should capture new realities around business models, market maturity, brand positioning, competitive forces, and growth strategy.

The evolution of new business models

Software-defined solutions and as-a-service business models necessitate a transformational approach to GTM strategy. Products do not reach end-of-life anymore; they evolve and drive continuous innovation.

The lifecycle below represents how organizations now think about products and solutions. Every lifecycle step requires a conscious approach to a market strategy, not just the launch phase.

The product inception phase captures a pain point and creative solutions. Product strategy, however, needs to consider the product’s market entry, differentiation, viability, and feasibility. Each phase validates the hypothesis and refines the GTM strategy as we move through the cycle.

Products are rarely fire-and-forget nowadays. The deliberation on building stickiness, increasing switching costs, and creating long-term value for the customer is crucial.

Setting the scene: Analyze, aspire, action, accomplish

When introducing a new product in a new or an existing market, I often use the Analyze, Aspire, Action, Accomplish model to build a proper idea of what we’re working towards. It applies various frameworks at distinct stages of the product lifecycle. These help set us up for success as we build a GTM strategy:

The intent is not to explain the tools captured within the framework but to present the key outcomes from each phase:

The analysis phase requires a solid understanding of customer pain points (said and unsaid), market dynamics (what is available, why it is insufficient), and potential solutions to minimize or eradicate the gap.

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At this stage, the GTM aspects are usually not critical. However, solving a problem with no avenue to reach the customer is also futile.

The aspirational step is where I believe the hypothesis for a GTM strategy is crucial. In product parlance, segmenting, targeting, and positioning (STP) is an essential activity.

The key questions here are:

• In what market segments do you have a real opportunity?
• What is the path to get there (e.g., who else do you need to come along with you)?

This step should also inform you of critical competitors and the differentiators you need to win in the market. It should define your ideal customer profile, and, more crucially, identify beachhead customers .

The action stage should help determine a product-market fit , messaging (writing a press release, the FAQs, credentials that you expect to have, etc.), and the different  personas  you must target.

Once the product is launched to the market , the accomplish stage should help with data-driven product refinement .

A conceptual example

When pursuing my MBA, my group worked (unofficially) with Marriott on a concept idea to offer an experience-first product. While considering Marriott’s breadth of brands, we selected JW Marriott and Sheraton to provide an experience beyond just room and food to the middle-aged and Millennials, respectively.

The package considered everything from travel, activities, pricing, and even specific pilot locations where the offer would be live first. The concept also identified messaging for the personas and essential ecosystem strategies, including travel and experience partners.

How to develop a go-to-market strategy

Now, let’s go over how to develop a GTM strategy. The Analyze, Aspire, Action, Accomplish model I shared earlier is kind of like a mini version of what I’m about to break down.

You can use the following steps — or categories of steps, rather — for holistic GTM strategy.

• Initial research and context
• Evaluating product-market fit
• Competition
• Setting goals and milestones
• Launching the plan

1. Initial research and context

It’s vital to understand the context of the world around you before you try to bring a new product into the mix (or bring an existing product to new markets). Just like the “analyze” component, this step builds the foundation you need for a GTM strategy.

The first thing to consider is how mature the market is. The best GTM strategies to adopt often depend on the market’s maturity, which you can evaluate using the Ansoff matrix:

Consider an electric vehicle, for example. It is a new product in an existing market. The adoption threshold is dependent on solving the range anxiety.

As Tesla demonstrated, building a supercharger network was equally important as making the car itself.

I would argue that autonomous cars will be a new product in a new market. It’s easy to imagine this as an existing market, but an autonomous car has the potential to completely redefine how people think about car ownership.

Further, societal context is important. In 2013, Google launched Google Glass. Though Google thought it was super cool and innovative to bring a wearable, information-displaying headset in public, they failed to recognize the privacy concerns that came along with that.

The general public immediately saw through to the privacy concerns, and Google Glass didn’t last very long as a result. If they’d considered the context and implications around their new product sooner, they hopefully wouldn’t have poured as much time and resources into it.

2. Evaluating product-market fit

It should be no surprise that product-market fit holds a big piece of the GTM strategy pie.

Product-market fit refers to the product’s ability to fulfill the unmet needs of your target market. Driving your value proposition here is extremely important, as you want people to clearly see how you meet their needs in ways competitors can’t.

The general idea is to find the sweet spot where you’re offering just enough value that your customers find the product usable and your business sees it as feasible and viable. There are lots of ways to capture this data across both qualitative and quantitative methods . Things like customer interviews, surveys, and focus groups can be a great way to capture this information. You can also do observation studies to see if your product is being used by target customers in the way that you think and hope they are.

And, if you have a product that already exists in the market but isn’t being adopted as highly as you hoped (or is slowly being overtaken by competitors), it may be time for a rebrand.

In 2018, we researched cars, their perceived branding, and their attempt to rebrand themselves. It was interesting that vehicles such as Buick and Cadillac had transformed themselves to be more amenable to upper-middle-class people in their early 40s (BMW and Lexus had held this market), whereas Lincoln failed.

Such repositioning requires a considerable thought process from a GTM perspective, especially regarding social messaging, following, advertisements, product considerations — the whole nine yards.

3. Competition

What are your competitors doing? What are they not doing? How do customers perceive your competition’s products?

These are all great questions that can help you build a successful GTM strategy. You don’t need to namedrop your competitors to convince people that your product has an edge over theirs, but you can emphasize how your product differentiates itself from others on the market. If it’s obvious, customers will notice all on their own.

Though there are many tried and true methods for competitive analysis , here a few steps to follow to kick it off:

• Create a shortlist of competitors
• Do a competitor deep dive
• Look at holistic overview and strategy

By fleshing out these ideas, you can get a better view of who you’re directly competing with. Though you’re in the same market, you may not be direct competitors, and looking at these three steps can help you draw those conclusions.

Take Microsoft Surface and Apple iPads for example. Yes, they’re both tablets and would be considered competitors for that reason, but their features and target audiences don’t really make them competitors after all.

Further, when evaluating the competition, think creatively. Brita, for example, opted not to compete with other kitchen appliances. Instead, it was sold in the water aisle, which positioned it to compete with bottled water.

Such decisions are not determined at the launch stage but during inception. Cialis beat Viagra by redefining the customer purchase criteria where Levitra wasn’t. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that product differentiation was crucial in this endeavor.

4. Setting goals and milestones

Goal setting and tracking are going to help you figure out where you’re placing in your GTM race and keep you on track. Without clear goals that everyone buys into, there will be no real direction that your team is working towards, and you’ll find yourself in disarray.

I know everyone talks about SMART goals, it’s basically drilled into our heads. SMART goals, to everyone’s disdain, really do make all the difference. Setting goals that are smart, measurable, attainable, etc. makes it easier to see where and how you’re falling flat.

On the flip side, milestones will help hold you accountable to the pace you’re at — are you behind schedule, ahead, or right on the money? They provide an opportunity to evaluate your tactics, identify bottlenecks, and pivot when needed. By regularly reviewing your progress against milestones, you can make data-driven decisions to optimize your GTM strategy, improving your chances of success in the market.

For example, say the goal is to increase the number of new customers by 18 percent within the first six months after launching the product. You have a specific number to reach within a certain time frame, and in the case of our example, we’ll say it’s not an overly egregious goal. Your milestone can be to acquire 10 percent of these new customers by the end of the eighth week. The track is set, and you can adjust methods depending on how far behind or ahead you are of that finish line.

5. Launching the plan

Everything is in place — it’s time to launch! Boots are on the ground. This is the most nerve-wracking and critical stage of the journey. You’re going to need to align a number of things here.

First and foremost, ensure communication is clear and specific across all functions. Sales and marketing need to know what’s going on, as do executive teams and adjacent product functions. Collaborate effectively and ensure you’re informing the right stakeholders throughout the launch process.

Similarly to how goals and milestones are crucial, you’ll also need to put some KPIs in place to monitor how your GTM plan is performing. Check them regularly to see how you’re doing and adjust accordingly. There’s no shame in admitting that something needs to change — after all, all products didn’t come out perfectly from the get-go. Be ready to make changes and adjust your plan as needed to respond to changes in the market, feedback from customers, or any unexpected challenges.

Example of go-to-market strategy

As part of our capstone project, thanks to a fantastic initiative from the NIU College of Business, we worked on a real-life GTM, from cradle to grave.

The solution was a way to minimize readmissions. Preventable readmissions (readmission is when a patient returns to the hospital within 21 days after discharge for any reason) cost over  $25 billion , and Medicare incurs more than 60 percent of that cost.

Medicare instituted a penalty for hospitals where readmissions are too high. A database of all hospitals and their readmission rate (and propensity for pen) was available.

Based on the information, we devised a method to segment the ideal market, their demographics, and five states that maximized the sales motion. Note that the “ideal customer profile” is not genuinely perfect — it was a “what’s possible” with the resources available on-hand.

In addition, we identified a set of hospitals that would be the best candidates for a pilot. An extensive amount of math went into parsing through the spreadsheets — my group was willing to recommend me for a Ph.D. just for that work — but we distilled it down to a single roadmap of client profiles (pilot, short-term, long-term).

While the GTM strategy was to work with the hospitals, the eventual goal was to work directly with Medicare to save them at least 30 percent of the $17 billion spent on unnecessary expenses.

Product-led vs. sales-led growth

You’re also going to have to choose if you want to pursue a product-led or sales-led growth approach, as they represent fundamentally different methods of acquiring and retaining customers. Most articles about product-led vs. sales-led growth strategies push one versus the other. The truth is, you have to pick what’s best for your situation. You should also know where the inflection point is to switch from one to the other (or use them in tandem).

Before I go further, let me explain as I best understand it — because my approach often is not to choose between the two consciously.

Product-led growth

A product-led approach often depends on organic growth, backed by an exploratory model (freemium, trial to buy), self-serve capabilities, and a seamless user experience when it comes to setting up and using the product.

Companies spend considerable finance on marketing rather than on the sales motion. The product-led strategy enables a broader net and a lower acquisition cost (CAC).

A prominent example of a B2C product that took a product-led approach is Spotify.

Unbelievably, AWS started as a product-led offering, with self-service capabilities and utilities that enabled faster time-to-market and monitoring usage, free trial, and cost transparency. It held the No. 1 position in cloud hosting and attracted small businesses, especially startups.

However, Azure, being late to the party, took a sales-led approach. It built strong channel and solution partners, offered end-to-end advisory and execution, and quickly catapulted to no. 1, led heavily by large contracts with the top companies in Fortune 500.

AWS has since transitioned to a hybrid model and built a substantial presence in the large-cap market by offering both a sales-led approach and a marketplace, which are add-ons once they acquire a client.

The most significant driver for a hybrid approach is the transformation to as-a-service models. Many organizations consider customer success management as a sales function. While partially true, CSMs are not purely commission-driven and are usually not in the loop during the initial stages of a sale.

The expectation of driving adoption, cross-selling, upselling, and renewals to minimize CAC implies that they provide the convergence between product and sales-led approaches. I reach out to CSMs for product feedback because it tends to be rooted in data

Side note: If you can’t monitor KPIs and back your CSMs, you shouldn’t be in the SaaS business!

Sales-led growth

A sales-led approach to growth, on the other hand, depends heavily on your sales team or channel partners. Depending on your product (transformational versus incremental) and who you are (Amazon versus startup), your sales team will connect with clients, build relationships, explain product benefits, and take it through the contractual process.

As you might imagine, the success of your product also depends on the sales organization’s willingness to sell. If you’re considering shifting from a perpetual to a recurring model and do not regard the sales angle, you’re sure to have a paperweight on your hands!

B2B products that require long contract cycles and considerable time to deploy and onboard often require a sales-led approach. However, this doesn’t imply that sales will influence the product features or roadmap .

Creating a go-to-market strategy is more art than science. However, it is crucial to start with a hypothesis, do it early, and make it fluid enough to pivot based on data.

Consider the type of product you are building, the markets you are targeting to define the brand, the competition, the pilot customers, and the growth strategy you must adopt. While no crystal ball guarantees success, a conscious approach will amplify the probability.

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Go-To-Market Strategy: Process, Framework, Examples

Casey O'Connor

What Is a Go-To-Market (GTM) Strategy?

Why do you need a go-to-market strategy, when do you need a go-to-market strategy, the components of a go-to-market strategy, who is responsible for go-to-market, types of go-to-market strategies, 6 steps to build your go-to-market strategy, how to measure the success of your gtm strategy, go-to-market strategy example.

An effective go-to-market strategy is critical for any business launching a new product or an existing product in a new market. 

The GTM strategy outlines the many moving pieces of bringing a product to market, including information about the target audience, the marketing strategies to be implemented, and the sales strategies that will be used to sell it. 

In this article, we’ll go over everything you need to know about the go-to-market strategy, including when to design one and what to include.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What Is a Go-To-Market Strategy?
• When Do You Need a GTM Strategy?
• Who is Responsible for Go-To-Market?

A go-to-market strategy is a playbook that outlines the specific things marketing and sales teams need to execute in order to successfully launch a product to market.

• The market problem, and your product’s positioning as the solution to that problem
• The target audience and their pain points
• Marketing and sales plans, with timing being a specific decision factor
• The state of the market you’re planning to enter

The GTM strategy should demonstrate a strong value proposition and unique positioning among the competition. Ideally, the GTM is designed in a way that enhances the buyer’s experience.

In sum, the go-to-market strategy addresses three questions:

• Who is the customer?
• What is our offering?
• How can we reach the customer with the product in a scalable, repeatable way?

Every B2B company needs a go-to-market strategy. The GTM strategy should be used whenever your organization is:

• Launching a new product in an existing market
• Launching an existing product in a new market 
• Testing a new product’s market

The GTM strategy exists to help marketers and sales teams determine the product-market fit before roll-out so that any kinks in the product or process can be addressed.

Go-to-market strategies help prevent strategy/execution mistakes, oversights, and unnecessary complications in each of these scenarios. They help organizations prepare to position their product perfectly according to their budget, their market’s needs, and the specific qualifications of the buyer persona(s).

The GTM strategy, first and foremost, needs to address whether or not there is a need for your product — most startups fail because they realize too late that there is no room for their offering in the market.

Any time your team launches a new product or launches an existing product into a new market, you should develop a go-to-market strategy. Defining the need is the first and most important step of the process.

There are other times, too, that warrant a GTM strategy. The inefficiencies outlined next may be less defined, and perhaps harder to pinpoint than the launch of a new product, but still all indicate the need for a go-to-market planning session.

Reduce Time to Market

Time to market (TTM) represents the amount of time it takes for a company to bring a new product from the point of conceptualization to its first release into the market.

Shorter TTMs have been shown to cost fewer overall resources, offer a significant competitive advantage, and generate more revenue over time.

A solid GTM strategy will help your sales team orchestrate an efficient and profitable product launch.

Save Costs After Too Many Failed Products

Launching new products can be an expensive endeavor for teams that aren’t mindful of how they plan. Unfortunately, many businesses have first-hand experience in this — over 95% of new product launches fail . 

If your team isn’t new to launching products, but yet still struggles to come out ahead, a GTM strategy can help.

The GTM strategy will ensure that product-market fit, strategic messaging, pricing strategy , and target audience are all given the green light before your product hits the shelves.

Provide a Positive Customer Experience

Even for companies who do take initiative in creating a GTM strategy, finding the right approach can be a challenge. 

Here’s the secret: align your go-to-market strategy with the buyer’s journey .

For a top-tier GTM strategy, design your content marketing plan — including mapping out the marketing channels and social media platforms you’ll use — around the needs, values, and pain points of your ideal customer. 

The way in which your team designs and executes your go-to-market plan will be unique to the business plans, strengths, and goals of your specific organization. 

That being said, there are some basic frameworks that can effectively guide you through the process of creating your own. Here’s one example in flow-chart form :

The following are some things that any GTM strategy should include.

Product-Market Fit

When you measure product-market fit , you’re essentially gauging whether there’s a need and room for your product in the market. ​​

In other words, the PMF is designed to show how well a product fills a need in a market and how likely the sales team is to be successful in selling it. Every GTM strategy needs to validate PMF before anything else. 

Target Audience

Of note, Gartner reports that the average B2B buying group includes six to ten decision-makers — be sure to create buyer personas for each.

Competition

A thorough GTM strategy should also include a competitive analysis that defines your unique selling proposition . This will help your salespeople define their messaging and communicate with potential customers in a way that helps you stand out. 

You’ll also want to use the GTM strategy as a way to highlight the level of demand for your product.

Distribution

Your GTM strategy needs to also discuss how you plan to distribute your product and offer customer support.

Of course, this isn’t necessarily a sales-specific job. But it’s important that everyone from marketing to sales to the customer support team are informed of each of the steps in the chain of the go-to-market strategy.

It’s also worthwhile to include your most recent sales metrics and KPIs , as well as your future goals. 

While these stats don’t necessarily have any bearing on the tangible strategies you’ll use to launch your product, it’s important to keep in the back of your mind where your performance currently stands, and where you’re hoping to end up.

Branding and Messaging

According to a 2019 Edelman study , over 80% of consumers said they need to trust the brand from which they make a purchase. 

One way to earn this kind of trust is through rock-solid branding and well-refined messaging. A value matrix can help add structure to the process of defining your position. 

Remember, too, to test and track how effectively your various message points resonate with your buyers. 

Tip: Grab some psychology-backed tips and strategies to ensure your message resonates with buyers.

Perhaps the star of the GTM strategy show, your marketing and sales strategies will make up a large bulk of the actual document.

In it, your teams should outline strategies for all of the following:

• Lead generation
• Demand generation
• Content marketing
• Pipeline optimization
• Sales channels
• Shortening the sales cycle
• Reducing customer acquisition cost
• Tapping into your existing customer base
• Onboarding new customers

Depending on your team’s goals for the product launch, you may address additional strategies, as well.

In general, the product marketer is responsible for heading up the development of the GTM strategy. For some sales teams, this may be a new role. 

The responsibilities of the product marketer may be familiar, even if the job title isn’t. They hold a number of other responsibilities within the sales and marketing departments.

Although the product marketer takes the lead, it’s still important that sales and marketing are fully involved in the process of creating the GTM strategy. This document is best addressed collaboratively — this will ensure the highest likelihood of customer success. 

Sales and marketing alignment is key here.

Historically, there have generally been two main types of GTM strategies: the product-led GTM strategy and the sales-led GTM strategy.

Product-Led GTM Strategy

A product-led GTM strategy puts the product itself front and center when it comes to attracting new leads and retaining satisfied customers. The product actually acts as the salesperson through the value it provides the user, and customers are able to buy, renew, and upgrade directly within the product itself. There is usually little contribution from the sales team with a product-led GTM strategy. 

Sales-Led GTM Strategy

A sales-led GTM strategy, on the other hand, uses resources from both sales and marketing to generate interest in a product and close deals. Almost all sales in a sales-led GTM strategy are initiated and closed by a sales rep. 

Hybrid Strategy

Both types of GTM strategies can be very effective in the right context. Given the many pros and cons of using each strategy independently, many teams have actually opted to create a hybrid of the two. The product-led sales GTM strategy takes pieces from product-led and sales-led GTM strategies and combines them to create a new approach.

In a product-led sales GTM strategy, sales and product are partners; they both contribute to closing the deal . 

An organization may offer product-led strategies like free trials or free features, while simultaneously training the sales team to be ready to jump in as needed to address prospect questions or concerns, and ultimately to guide the deal to close. 

The product-led sales GTM strategy seems to have presented a perfect middle ground for many B2B companies. In fact, over 80% of SaaS sales teams report using a product-led sales GTM strategy. 

Regardless of which kind of GTM strategy your team may choose, it’s important that sales and marketing are on the same page about how exactly it will be designed and executed.

Follow these steps to build an effective GTM strategy for your own team. 

1. Define Your ICP and Buyer Personas

The first step in designing any GTM strategy is to clearly define, in detail, your ideal customer profile and the various buyer personas you may encounter in the buying process. 

Most buyer personas fulfill specific individual roles in the buying process. A User, for example, is someone involved in the buying process that will ultimately use our product. An Influencer is someone who has sway over others in their organization and can help convince others to agree to the purchase. 

Other buyer roles may include Gatekeeper, Decision Maker , or Initiator. You should develop buyer personas for each of these. 

Don’t cut corners here — the success of your GTM strategy will depend on how clearly and accurately you’re able to define and attract your ideal buyer — especially if there are multiple people involved in the buying process. 

2. Research the Competition 

Competition is another critical component of an effective GTM strategy. 

Spend plenty of time analyzing who your competitors are in your market, and how they position their offer. Understanding how your competition exists in the market will help you stand out from the crowd. 

3. Create a Value Matrix

A value matrix, though not necessarily a required component of a GTM strategy, can be incredibly helpful in defining how your product can meet the unique needs of your buyer better than your competitors’ can. 

As shown above, a value matrix is a detailed outline of each buyer persona, their pain points, and how — specifically — your offer speaks to those pain points and problems. The value matrix helps marketers and salespeople craft effective and targeted language around the value your product can bring to the prospect’s organization. 

Use what you know about your most successful customers to help create the value matrix. Whenever possible, use the specific language they use to describe their problems and the value they find in your product. 

4. Set Goals

A good bulk of your GTM work is complete once you’ve defined your market and where you sit among the competition. Once those are clearly defined, it’s time to set some goals. 

5. Choose and Implement Your Strategies

Before you can deploy your GTM strategy, you need to define what approaches, tactics, and/or content you’ll use to execute it. 

There are a variety of ways to do this. The biggest-picture decision you’ll need to make is whether you’re tackling your GTM strategy via inside or outside sales . Many teams choose a hybrid of both approaches. 

Your specific tactics don’t need to be set in stone; it’s okay to adapt as you see fit as you watch the GTM strategy unfold. 

6. Test and Optimize

When the GTM strategy is complete, it’s time to deploy it in the field. But there’s one more step in the process that sales teams need to follow once it’s executed: testing and optimizing the effectiveness of the GTM strategy. 

Be sure to carefully track sales metrics and KPIs to determine where and how to spend your resources for attracting and retaining happy customers. 

Developing effective GTM strategies takes time, and will likely require several iterations before your teams feel completely comfortable with the process.

Any GTM strategy that’s expected to be successful should be continuously monitored, tracked, and adapted as needed.

The following metrics, in particular, will help teams measure the success of their GTM strategy: 

• Website visits
• Click-throughs 
• Outbound calls
• Conversation time
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Average revenue per customer 
• Average revenue
• Recurring revenue 
• Net revenue retention

Your sales team should be able to review these metrics in relation to the SMART goals you set when you created your GTM strategy. 

One of our favorite go-to-market strategy examples was created by Microsoft . 

In 2014, Microsoft launched the third edition of their tablet, Surface. The tablet’s introduction came at a time when many people were already using either: 

• A Microsoft OS on a desktop or laptop, or
• An Apple iPad or other tablet

The GTM strategy for their third-generation Surface tablet took a different approach. They were testing a new product — a fully-functional computer in tablet form — in a new market. They chose to market the Surface to the market of people who were looking for a highly portable yet fully capable computer. 

This positioning helped Microsoft set itself apart. It was not competing with itself in regards to desktop computers, because the market for the Surface consists of people looking for portable devices. On the other hand, they also weren’t competing with iPad users — their product was less tablet and more computer. 

Microsoft developed a very effective GTM strategy that helped them position themselves as completely unique among the extremely crowded computer-and-tablet market.

What does your GTM strategy look like? Have you designed one before? Try following the framework outlined in this article the next time you gear up to launch a new product. 

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• Product management
• What is a go-to-market strategy?

Last updated: February 2024

If you release a new product feature and no one hears about it — does it even make a difference? It takes a lot of hard work to ideate, plan, roadmap, build, and deliver new product functionality. But the value of what you have created is not always apparent to customers. It is up to you to deliver the gift .

This is where go-to-market strategy comes in. A go-to-market (GTM) strategy outlines how you plan to launch new experiences to customers, including how you will communicate the value of what is being released. The goal is to translate technical functionality into messaging that resonates with your audience — informed by the overall product strategy .

Product development teams craft go-to-market strategies to stir up awareness and excitement around all types of launches — for brand new products, enhancements to existing ones, and expansions into new markets. GTM strategy can also encompass long- or short-term plans. You might review GTM strategy annually to examine how your overall approach is performing and get aligned on major product plans for the year. In the short term, go-to-market strategy focuses on the individual releases happening on a regular cadence.

In this guide, we will cover the "who", "why", and "what" behind excellent go-to-market strategies (plus, we will throw in a free template to help you get started). Keep reading or jump ahead here:

Who owns the go-to-market strategy?

Why is go-to-market strategy important, what does a go-to-market strategy include, how to create a go-to-market strategy, go-to-market strategy template, set strategy and launch brilliant products with aha roadmaps. sign up for a trial ..

Years ago, go-to-market activities were distinctly separated by function. Product management set the product direction, engineering built it, marketing did outreach, and sales closed the deal. It was this way for decades. But in today's world of product-led growth , product teams are ditching rigid siloes — instead embracing a much more cross-functional approach.

Now, go-to-market strategy ownership is shared among product marketing, product management, and engineering at many tech companies. Typically a product marketing point person will drive the effort and coordinate with the rest of the core product team. It is also best-practice to bring in sales and support team members for alignment on messaging, pricing, customer training, and even as a channel for getting the word out about new features.

This shared-ownership model is common for established businesses. But at small and early-stage companies without dedicated product marketing teams, GTM strategy is often wrapped into the overall marketing strategy and spearheaded by the broader marketing team .

The real value of a product marketing manager

The product manager vs. the product marketing manager

It is always exciting to deliver new product value to customers. But it can also feel like a lot of pressure. Between the ups and downs, go-to-market strategy keeps you focused on the end goal by supporting you in three main areas — alignment, customer experience, and direction.

Alignment GTM strategy clues the rest of the organization into your plans for delivering something new to your target audience. It offers a single source of truth — so everyone understands how to talk about the new functionality, what the benefits are, and who to share the news with. When everyone is aligned on your GTM strategy, it provides a stronger message and a more cohesive experience for customers.

Customer experience Go-to-market strategy is a key component of your customer experience . The way that people are introduced to your product can help shape their overall perception of your offering. For prospective customers, this means educating folks about what you are building and getting them excited. For existing customers, a solid GTM strategy demonstrates the continuous value you provide.

Direction Creating a GTM strategy is only the first step in the overall go-to-market process — it sets the direction for the launch activities that follow (like, building a go-to-market roadmap and writing promotional content, for example). Your GTM strategy is your guide to planning the most impactful outreach for your target audience. It can also help you evaluate the effectiveness of your approach post-launch.

Beyond this, successful go-to-market strategies come with a number of benefits:

Increased awareness of your company and product

New customer growth

Improved engagement or retention from existing customers

Higher product usage

Internal recognition for your product team's efforts

Product strategy vs. go-to-market strategy

Marketing strategy vs. go-to-market strategy

A solid GTM strategy details everything from impact to outreach, including the components in the table below:

An example of how you can capture product positioning in Aha! Roadmaps .

Planning how you will bring products to market requires high-level strategic thinking and cross-functional agreement on your direction. If you are thinking broadly about creating or transforming your go-to-market approach , try asking yourself these questions to get the ideas flowing:

Who buys our product today?

What problem does our product solve for them?

Where do customers currently go to learn about our product?

What steps do they take to purchase our product?

Why do they choose our product over a competitor's?

What challenges do users experience with our existing product?

What channels can we use to market this product to new potential customers?

Then, follow these steps to see your go-to-market strategy take shape for each launch:

1. Identify a GTM-worthy release Not every feature requires its own go-to-market launch — especially if the functionality is low-impact or expected. Focus on enhancements that are high-value or give you a competitive edge. Discuss upcoming releases with your product team to decide on ones that make sense.

2. Draft the positioning Summarize the core functionality, the challenges it addresses, and messaging for customers. You should also note which goals, initiatives, and personas you are targeting with this launch. (Need ideas? Try one of our product positioning templates .)

3. Determine distribution Plan how you will get the word out. You might rely on a usual mix of communication channels or consider new ones depending on the launch. Document your approach for each channel.

4. Put it all together Combine your positioning, distribution plan, and any other relevant research or context into an abstract.

5. Host a kickoff call Discuss and refine your go-to-market strategy with your product team. Be sure to also get input from sales, support, and leadership.

With your go-to-market strategy in hand, the next step is to bring it to life. That means drafting content for each communication channel, creating a go-to-market roadmap, and prepping for launch day.

Related: 6 steps to develop a super go-to-market-roadmap

Setting go-to-market strategy takes time and thought — this free template makes things a little simpler. Download our go-to-market strategy template to get everything organized without starting from scratch.

If you want to fully optimize your go-to-market approach , try Aha! Roadmaps to define your strategy. With Aha! Roadmaps you can capture positioning, personas, and more — then seamlessly connect to your go-to-market roadmap for a chaos-free launch.

Popular templates:

• Marketing strategy
• Product launch plan
• Product positioning
• Target audience
• Value proposition

Launch with confidence. Bring lovable customer experiences to market with Aha! Roadmaps — try it free for 30 days .

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Go-to-Market Strategy 101: Your Complete Guide

Author: James Kessinger

Updated: March 18, 2024

Growth is the dream of every business owner. The prospect of growth is never more exciting or uncertain than when your company is executing a go-to-market strategy.

So many moving parts demand a comprehensive strategy flexible enough to respond to challenges but strong enough to keep its shape in the face of innumerable pressures.

Our guide today will give you the 101 on go-to-market strategies and some actionable tips to create your own GTM plan.

What is a Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy?

At its core, a go-to-market strategy is the methods and practices your company employs to introduce a new revenue stream. This could mean a product launch, a new feature, or an expansion into a new market.

Go-to-Market Strategy vs. Marketing Strategy

Your GTM strategy is not the same as your marketing strategy.

You can think of a GTM plan as the transition phase between creating a new revenue source and the act of turning that source on. Perhaps more accurately, it’s the plan to turn that source of revenue on.

This is in contrast to a marketing plan that is more narrowly focused on promoting the product and generating demand for it.

What’s in a GTM Strategy?

Any good GTM strategy should have these three aspects.

1. Flexibility

Your GTM process needs to remain efficient and flexible in the face of any challenge. Your leaders should be competent and in synch with the grand strategy to execute the vision without the need for inefficient chains of command. Lower-level workers need to understand the vision just as well, so they can adapt to challenges and call for necessary support before problems become unmanageable.

2. Repeatability and Scalability

Go-to-market is a process that directly feeds the growth of your business. In essence, it is growth because it involves expanding revenue channels and generating demand for brand-new products or features.

This is a process your company has to optimize over time because there are far too many moving parts and unique variables for any one strategy to ever be considered perfect.

A GTM strategy, therefore, needs to be repeatable and iterative. Each new version of go-to-market should build on the ones that came before it, incorporating new perspectives and data on performance.

Since GTM is fundamentally a growth strategy, it needs to be scalable. If your GTM isn’t scaling, then you aren’t growing.

3. A Unifying Perspective

Your first GTM strategy meeting is the time to lay out goals and expectations. More than this, it’s a time to get everyone on board with the vision your leaders have crafted.

All stakeholders need to understand their roles and how they stand to gain from the success of the plan and the company. This kind of unifying vision is what brings people together and forms a cohesive team. It builds motivation and understanding, and leads to a productive strategy.

Examples of Go-to-Market Strategy for Startups and Large Businesses

Go-to-market channels, or strategies, are best understood as sets of goals and how you plan to achieve them. For simplicity, we’ve organized this list into three types of GTM, defined by their primary mode of demand generation.

However, you could also look at these from the perspective of execution and build a plan with those ideas as the foundation.

Inbound Led

An inbound-led campaign is the bread and butter of many B2B GTM operations.

It involves generating and capturing demand via content marketing. Content should be marketed through multiple channels to ensure maximum lead capture. Data should be enriched on the back end before being qualified and fed to sales, which focuses on high-quality leads and conversions.

In an inbound-led campaign, your growth is tied to the ability of marketing and sales to work together to drive conversions. The more efficiently they can carry out this task, the more you’ll grow.

Product Led

Sometimes a product can speak for itself.

A product-led GTM strategy is right for SaaS companies that can roll out features and expansions at a minimal initial cost. The strength of the product means that users will uncover new features and adopt new products organically. Upselling, deals, checkout, and scaling can all be managed from within the product.

In a product-led GTM, growth is tied to the ability of the product to deliver value and promise even more through added features.

Category Led

An idea can transform a marketplace.

If your company has a revolutionary idea or technology, you can focus on becoming a category leader. This will be based on your ability to assume an authoritative position in your marketplace, either through thought leadership or culmination around a revolutionary product.

For category-led GTM, your growth is tied to your ability to build a movement and spearhead a new marketplace for your developing product or idea.

How Do You Create a Go-to-Market Plan?

Any go-to-market example will involve many moving parts and must be uniquely designed for your company and revenue stream.

Here are three principles you should follow when forming a new GTM plan.

1. Put Together a Strong Team

A go-to-market team needs representatives from marketing, sales, product, technology, customer service, and senior leadership. This is a complex team with many moving parts, so pick leadership candidates based on their ability to understand and articulate a strong vision while allowing for employee flexibility and enabling problem-solving.

2. Identify Your Motion

You’ll need to determine what motion your company will be executing. A motion is defined by the steps your company takes to add and nurture the new revenue stream that’s going to market.

The actions needed for each of these motions are unique, so each one will need a different team with distinct responsibilities.

The three motions identified by GTM partners are:

• A new buyer persona: A new idealized buyer that your company needs to cater to. You’ll likely need new marketing materials, sales strategies, onboarding, and content.
• A new product or service: You may now have new competitors, a new marketplace, and new requirements on educational content and industry knowledge.
• A new geographic location: You may need new sales, marketing, onboarding, and resource strategies to equal or surpass growth in other locations.

3. Follow the M.O.V.E Framework

GTM partners developed the M.O.V.E. framework as a strategic process designed to simplify planning and streamline thought processes. If you’re unsure how to begin planning, these steps are a great place to start.

M.O.V.E. stands for:

• Market: Who to market to?
• Operations: What do we need to perform efficiently?
• Velocity: When and how can we scale?
• Expansion: Where will we grow the most?

M.O.V.E. stands for four questions that your leadership and key team members will all need to agree on answers to before implementing your plan.

Go-to-Market Must Be Constantly Reiterated

It’s crucial to understand that go-to-market is not a singular strategy or action. It can’t be encompassed by a single department or goal other than “for the success of the company.”

The point of acknowledging this is to understand that every GTM plan or strategy needs to be created with the goal of efficiency, flexibility, and a unified vision.

Read more about go-to-market strategies and how to optimize your newest revenue stream as quickly and efficiently as possible in “The Comprehensive Guide to Go-to-Market” ebook.

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Business Model Vs. Go To Market

Where a business model is a holistic framework intended to explain the various building blocks that make up an organization and how it keeps its competitive edge, a go-to-market strategy is focused on launching new products and services to market, and therefore get the business through the first stage of traction and growth. A successful go-to-market strategy helps build a solid business model.

Table of Contents

Business Model:

• Definition: A business model is a comprehensive framework that outlines how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. It encompasses various building blocks that describe the key components of the business, including its value proposition , target customer segments, revenue streams, key resources, key activities, and cost structure.
• Scope: The business model provides a strategic understanding of how the organization intends to operate and sustain itself in the market, ensuring long-term profitability and growth.
• Purpose: The primary purpose of a business model is to establish a systematic approach to create and deliver value to customers while achieving sustainable competitive advantage and financial success.
• Example: For instance, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model may involve offering a cloud-based software product to a specific target market on a subscription basis, with a focus on recurring revenue and customer retention.

Go-to-Market Strategy:

• Definition: A go-to-market strategy outlines how a company plans to introduce and promote its new products or services to its target market . It involves the planning and execution of marketing and sales activities to achieve market penetration and gain initial traction.
• Scope: The go-to-market strategy is specifically focused on the launch of new products or services, addressing questions such as target audience, positioning, distribution channels , pricing, and promotional activities.
• Purpose: The primary purpose of a go-to-market strategy is to successfully enter the market with a new offering, create awareness among potential customers, and establish a strong initial customer base.
• Example: For example, a technology startup launching a new mobile app may use a go-to-market strategy that includes targeted online advertising, influencer marketing , and app store optimization to reach its intended audience and drive downloads.

Relationship between Business Model and Go-to-Market Strategy:

• Interconnection: A successful go-to-market strategy is essential for the initial launch and growth of a business, especially when introducing new products or services. It is a crucial step in turning the business model into a reality and generating revenue.
• Alignment: The go-to-market strategy should align with the broader business model to ensure that the value proposition and competitive advantages identified in the business model are effectively communicated to the target market.
• Iterative Process: As the business evolves and expands, the go-to-market strategy may need to be adjusted to align with the evolving business model, market dynamics, and customer needs.

Key Takeaways:

• A business model provides a comprehensive framework for long-term value creation and competitive advantage, encompassing various aspects of the business.
• A go-to-market strategy is specifically focused on successfully launching and marketing new products or services to reach the target audience and achieve initial traction and growth.
• The go-to-market strategy is an integral part of turning the business model into reality and generating revenue.
• The two concepts are interconnected and should be aligned to ensure effective communication of the value proposition and competitive advantages to the target market.

Case Studies

1. Streaming Services:

• Netflix: Netflix’s primary business model is a subscription-based streaming service where users pay a monthly fee to access a vast library of films and television shows.
• Components: Value proposition (original content), technological model (streaming technology), distribution model (apps on multiple devices), and financial model (subscription revenue).
• When Netflix decided to expand outside the US, they partnered with local content producers, optimized their content library for regional preferences, and ran localized marketing campaigns.

2. Ride-Sharing Platforms:

• Uber: Connects drivers with riders via an app, taking a commission from each ride.
• Components: Value proposition (convenient rides), technological model (app-based platform), distribution model (direct to consumer via app), financial model (commission-based revenue).
• Uber launches in new cities by offering promotions to both drivers and riders to quickly gain a user base and then adjusts pricing based on demand.

3. E-Commerce Platforms:

• Amazon: Online marketplace selling products ranging from books to electronics.
• Components: Value proposition (vast selection, quick delivery), technological model (online platform, AI for recommendations), distribution model (online, with physical fulfillment centers), financial model (sales, subscription for Prime members).
• When launching Amazon Prime, they promoted the value of free two-day shipping and exclusive access to movies, music, and books to entice subscriptions.

4. Direct-to-Consumer Brands:

• Warby Parker: Sells eyeglasses directly to consumers online, bypassing intermediaries.
• Components: Value proposition (affordable, stylish eyewear), technological model (online try-on tools), distribution model (online sales, few physical stores), financial model (product sales).
• Warby Parker introduced the “Home Try-On” program, where customers could select five frames to try on at home for free, making it easy for customers to transition from traditional eyewear shopping.

5. Software Solutions:

• Slack: A communication platform for teams.
• Components: Value proposition (improved team communication), technological model (cloud-based platform), distribution model (direct to businesses via online), financial model (tiered subscription pricing).
• Slack initially targeted tech startups and offered a freemium model. They relied on word-of-mouth and the platform’s inherent virality (as users invited other team members) to grow.

6. Fitness Companies:

• Peloton: Offers exercise equipment integrated with a subscription-based workout class streaming service.
• Components: Value proposition (high-end home workouts), technological model (hardware-software integration), distribution model (direct to consumer), financial model (equipment sales and subscription revenue).
• Peloton positioned itself as a luxury fitness brand, leveraging influencer partnerships and high-quality advertising to target affluent consumers.

7. Food Delivery Services:

• DoorDash: Connects people with the best in their cities and helps local businesses grow.
• Components: Value proposition (convenience), technological model (app-based platform), distribution model (partnerships with restaurants), financial model (commission and delivery fees).
• DoorDash often launches in new cities with promotions and partnerships with popular local restaurants to quickly acquire users.

Read Next: Business Models , Tech Business Models , Go-To-Market Strategy .

More Strategy Tools:  Porter’s Five Forces ,  PESTEL Analysis ,  SWOT ,  Porter’s Diamond Model ,  Ansoff ,  Technology Adoption Curve ,  TOWS ,  SOAR ,  Balanced Scorecard ,  OKR ,  Agile Methodology ,  Value Proposition ,  VTDF Framework .

Connected Strategy Frameworks

ADKAR Model

Ansoff Matrix

Business Model Canvas

Lean Startup Canvas

Blitzscaling Canvas

Blue Ocean Strategy

Business Analysis Framework

Balanced Scorecard

Blue Ocean Strategy 

GAP Analysis

GE McKinsey Model

McKinsey 7-S Model

McKinsey’s Seven Degrees

McKinsey Horizon Model

Porter’s Five Forces

Porter’s Generic Strategies

Porter’s Value Chain Model

Porter’s Diamond Model

SWOT Analysis

PESTEL Analysis

Scenario Planning

STEEPLE Analysis

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How to Build a Strong Product Go-To-Market Strategy That Drives Adoption?

10 min read

Your product go-to-market strategy is the final ingredient for any successful product launch. It is a small but prominent element that drives every other component of your marketing strategy.

As a product marketer , it is your job to identify the best target audience for your product, while also finding the best pricing options, distribution channels, and unique value propositions.

This article covers all you need to know to create a solid GTM strategy for your SaaS startup or B2B business model.

• A go-to-market ( GTM ) strategy is a comprehensive plan detailing how you want to launch your product.
• Unlike a go-to-market strategy, which focuses on the product launch phase alone, a marketing strategy refers to a longer-term approach toward achieving success with your brand. A product strategy , on the other hand, focuses only on the product (answering the who, what, and why of the product).
• A go-to-market strategy is needed whenever you’re launching a new product into an existing market, entering a new market with an existing product, or entering a new market with a new product.
• A GTM strategy provides direction for all team members, reduces your product’s time to market, and helps you cut costs.
• A typical B2B GTM strategy details the business objectives, a unique value proposition, pricing details, marketing channels, and distribution channels.
• Confirming you have product-market fit before launching your product ensures you have customers who are happy to pay for your product, use it, and share the word about it.

To build the best possible go-to-market strategy, you should:

• Define your target audience and what their JTBDs .
• Differentiate your product from other similar products on the market to avoid product parity
• Properly position your product and choose the right messaging to convey its value to your audience.
• Determine whether you’ll adopt the product-led growth strategy or the sales-led strategy .
• Choose specific and relevant marketing platforms to help you reach your target market.
• Design a launch plan before the product is ready and assign clear roles to team members.
• And create goals for tracking your team’s success with the product launch.

What is a product go-to-market strategy (GTM)?

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a comprehensive business plan for bringing a new product or service to market.

A good GTM strategy mitigates the risk of a product launch by defining a target market, identifying a marketing plan and sales strategy, and finding an ideal pricing strategy.

GTM strategy vs marketing strategy vs product strategy

Although they may appear interchangeable, a go-to-market strategy differs from a marketing strategy .

A typical marketing strategy is a long-term approach to achieving success with your brand’s marketing efforts. It defines how the brand will keep up with changing times to attract new customers and drive customer retention .

The GTM strategy, on the other hand, is a laser-focused plan designed strictly for product launch purposes.

Finally, a product strategy determines what products the company creates, why it creates those products, and for whom it creates them. It defines the problems you’re solving and is a core part of any product go-to-market strategy or longer-term marketing strategy .

When do you need a product go-to-market plan?

Whether you’re a new business or an experienced and fairly successful company, a go-to-market strategy is essential to ensuring you penetrate your target market and grab their attention.

A go-to-market strategy is especially important in the following product launch scenarios:

• When you’re launching a new product into an already existing market. Think successful digital workspace brand launches a new lead generation/management product targeted at its customers.
• When entering a new market with an existing product. Think successful US-based SaaS product expanding into the European market.
• When entering a new market with a new product. Think tech startup launches their first app.

The importance of a go-to-market strategy

According to a study by Havard Business School , 95% of the new products launched each year fail. A GTM strategy ensures you do not add to that statistic by helping your business in several ways.

For starters, a product go-to-market strategy provides a clear plan and direction for your market entry. By identifying your target audience, their pain points, and the best approach to reach them, a GTM strategy eases your entry into the market.

The result is a clear sense of direction for all teams. With everything from your content marketing strategy to your pricing strategy , value proposition, and sales process clearly defined, your product enjoys a clear path for growth.

Product go-to-market strategies also help you reduce your product’s time to market. It achieves this by helping you prioritize tasks relevant to market entry, better position your product and its messaging, and define your sales and distribution channels.

A concrete GTM strategy even helps you reduce costs. It identifies optimal promotion channels and highlights indexes like your customer acquisition cost, which help you make better-informed decisions.

Ultimately, a GTM strategy protects you from the financial implications of a failed launch.

What are the main components of a B2B GTM strategy?

Every product go-to-market strategy has multiple moving parts driving its success. What follows are the most salient components to keep in mind when creating your go-to-market strategy:

• Objective: What are your business/marketing objectives? Perhaps you want to create more awareness for your brand, generate leads, maximize your market share, or protect your existing market share. Be sure to track the success of your objectives using OKRs .
• Unique Value Proposition: Your value proposition highlights your brand’s competitive advantage over any other product or service. It reveals the value customers receive for the money paid.
• Pricing Strategy: How much will you sell your product to your target market? Will you adopt a user-based, subscription-based, flat-rate, tiered, or freemium pricing model ? Note that your pricing will influence the buyer’s perception of your product.
• Marketing and Sales Channels: How would you reach potential customers? Seek channels where your target customers are most likely to be found and determine how best to approach them.
• Distribution Channels: How will you distribute your product or service to your customers?

Make sure you have product-market fit before planning a big launch

Before working on your product launch strategy, it’s important to confirm you’ve achieved product-market fit .

A company achieves product-market fit when its product satisfies the needs of enough customers – who are happy to pay for it, use it, and tell others about it. Such a product is easy to scale as you’re sure to enjoy acceptance from your prospective customers.

Poor product-market fit can dampen your launch and reduce your chances of success. So, before rolling out that new product into the market, use PMF surveys to measure how close you are to achieving product-market fit.

How to build a go-to-market strategy?

There are many steps to building an effective product go-to-market strategy. Although it may seem a little complex at first, the following steps will get you started:

Define your primary target audience

The first step to any successful product launch is identifying your primary target audience.

• Who are they?
• What is their primary goal?
• Why do they want to achieve this goal?

Put this information together to create an ideal buyer persona . For a SaaS product, build your buyer personas around the company type and the jobs to be done by the user.

You can also create multiple buyer personas for your product, varying the buyer persona on three key aspects:

• Demographics: This includes the user’s job title, where they work, and background.
• Goals: What job is the user trying to do?
• Pain points: What difficulties keep the user from completing the job?

Differentiate your product

Product differentiation involves highlighting the unique features of your product that stand it apart from the competition.

Differentiating your product makes it easier for you to achieve customer fit , enjoy greater customer loyalty , boost customer retention , and charge premium rates.

Moreover, you need to differentiate your product from your competitors to avoid product parity .

For instance, consider this comparison of Userpilot and Appcues by product review platform G2:

Convey your product value with proper positioning

In the competitive world of SaaS products, product positioning is a gold mine. It defines your product’s market niche, highlights the product value, and identifies the most optimal method of presenting the product to different potential customers.

Amongst other things, a successful product positioning improves your product launch, helps you attract the perfect customer, and gives you an edge over the competition.

Decide on your key messaging

Why should customers buy from you?

That should be the question you answer behind your messaging.

Your key messaging should highlight the customer’s pain points, as well as your product value and how your product eliminates those pain points.

Develop a value matrix for each buyer persona. The value matrix maps buyer personas to their business problems, your product’s solution, and a relevant marketing message that ties the problem and solution together.

You can model yours after this sample value matrix from SalesHero.

Define your pricing and sales strategy

SaaS companies employ different pricing models to ensure they’re appealing to their customers. You’ll need to figure out which model is best, based on your product, competition pricing, and target market.

You’ll also need to decide on a sales strategy to get your product to users. Sales strategies fall into two broad categories:

• Product-led strategy: This strategy depends on the product to drive business growth. It typically adopts the freemium , free trial , or demo (or a mix of all three) pricing strategy to get users hooked on the product.
• Sales-led strategy: The sales-led strategy uses sales processes to move potential customers along the sales funnel. Unlike the product-led model, which is a self-service model, it is more hands-on, with the sales team providing 1-on-1 guidance to qualified leads.

Choose specific and relevant marketing channels for the launch

Your product go-to-market strategy is incomplete without a plan to reach your audience. Who makes up your target audience? Where can they be found? How do you reach them?

Your chosen marketing channels should align with your ideal audience. Use different channels for different phases of the product launch. For instance, you could:

• Launch your B2B SaaS product on Product Hunt to reach other product developers.
• Use paid advertising to reach a more diverse audience.
• Use product demos to showcase your product to potential customers.
• Recruit beta testers to test the product and offer feedback.

And, if you’ve only launched a new feature or product update, a simple in-app launch message should be enough to inform your customers.

Put together the launch plan and assign roles

From the marketing team to the product and sales teams, a product launch requires everyone’s effort and commitment.

Prepare in advance for the launch. Ensure every team member understands the product, the launch goals, and their roles.

A successful launch process must be clear and concise. Work with a launch checklist to ensure you’re not leaving anything out.

Set specific goals for tracking success and align teams around them

Define product goals to help you achieve your vision. Goals bring life and purpose to your overall marketing strategy.

Goals also help align and inspire your team behind common objectives, drive you to deliver value according to a focused plan, make effective prioritization decisions, and measure success.

To ensure your goals are effective, make them SMART.

SaaS GTM best practices

The steps above should help you create a killer product go-to-market strategy for your launch. But you can further refine that strategy by following these GTM best practices.

Create the strategy before the product/service is fully developed

Creating a go-to-market strategy should be done before bringing your new product to the market.

A well-curated GTM strategy prepared ahead of time ensures you’re accounting for everything. It helps you avoid costly mistakes, like launching your product to the wrong market.

Keep the plan simple

As extensive as a go-to-market strategy may first seem, the most successful go-to-market strategies are simple, not complex. An overly complex strategy will only make it difficult for the team to stay focused and streamlined.

So keep your GTM plan to one page. Make it clear who you’re targeting, what you’re offering, and how customers benefit. Sometimes, a soft launch using only one channel is all you need to validate your product and gain initial traction.

Focus on a single market and audience

Although you could have multiple audiences and buyer personas for your product, stick to the one for your launch.

Launching to just one audience streamlines your actions. It allows you to focus on creating value for a definitive market in need of your product or service.

Try a beta launch to test product-market fit before the full-scale launch

One way to really know what the market thinks of your product is to recruit beta testers.

Beta testers provide useful feedback on the product and inform you of how best to improve the product.

If you have an existing product, you could invite beta testers from within using an in-app slideout or modal to come test out a new feature.

Try reducing your customer acquisition costs with viral growth loops

A growth loop is a compounding growth strategy where user actions and outputs trigger new user inputs. This strategy embeds marketing into the product, taking advantage of product usage to drive virality.

Thus, as more users adopt the product, their actions lead even more users to the product, creating a cycle that drives down customer acquisition costs.

Offer free trials to let your customers experience value before committing

With most B2B SaaS products adopting the subscription-based pricing system, free trials are more important than ever. Carefully determine the free trial length that gives users enough time to try the service before they commit to it.

Offering limited free trials to users gives them a low-risk opportunity to realize your product’s value and transition into paying customers.

Your product’s go-to-market strategy is the key to any successful product launch. Be sure to create a market strategy that’s comprehensive but simple. It should identify your target audience, their struggles, and how best you can reach them with your product.

And as your customer base starts filling up, Userpilot helps you learn more about these customers and how your product helps them, creating a feedback loop that further improves your go-to-market strategy.

Book a Userpilot demo to learn more about how it helps you drive customer acquisition as well as customer retention.

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Complete go-to-market (GTM) strategy framework with examples

Mar 23rd, 2021

What is a go-to-market strategy?

Components of go-to-market strategy, go-to-market strategy framework, examples and templates of go-to-market strategy.

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Starting a business can be an exciting adventure. Among the most popular reasons to start a business are financial independence, career growth opportunity, creative freedom, and personal satisfaction. However, to get your business going, you need to deal with many issues, including legal, sales and marketing, financial, people management, and many more. 

Launching a startup can be challenging during the first few years. According to US Small Business Administration data, about two-thirds of newly established businesses survive through the two-year mark, and almost a half strive for longer than five years. The factors that contribute to the startup failure are the absence of market need, shortage of funds, inappropriate team, and cost issues. Due to these reasons, a business plan is the number one step in creating a successful startup.

Proper planning helps define your products and services, clarify your business objectives and analyze the competitors. Your business plan should include a marketing approach to make people aware of your products and let them find you. This document serves as a roadmap to structure your business and the tool to convince investors that your company will bring them many happy returns. 

Go-to-market strategy is the company’s tactical plan to deliver value to customers by launching the new product or service to achieve a competitive advantage. The go-to-market strategy provides the algorithm to take the product to market and make it visible and known among potential buyers. It can be created for a new product or feature that targets a new customer segment, a new price-based segment, or a new geographical market. For example, if the company selling products in the low-cost segment wants to serve the premium segment with a new product, the GTM strategy might be a good solution.

Go-to-market strategy answers three main questions: who the customers are, what the offering is, and how the target customers can be reached in a scalable and repeatable way. In simple words, a go-to-market strategy is an outline of how the product will be delivered to customers. 

Businesses can benefit from developing a go-to-market strategy in the following ways: it can reduce time to market , save costs on failed product launches, provide a positive customer experience, clarify the mission and ensure a successful product launch. Also, the GTM strategy helps reduce customer acquisition costs, strengthens the company’s capacity to tackle challenges, guides the team throughout the process, and establishes a path for growth.

To build an effective GTM strategy, you need to communicate with your customers, have a mission-driven company, and keep up with the competitors. Consequently, the successful go-to-market strategy includes three C’s: Customers, Company, and Competitors.

The three-component model is a popular concept to develop an effective GTM strategy. The components are dynamic and interrelated, and each of them affects the other ones. 

Customers are the target audience and driving force of your business. First, define who your audience is. The product should meet their requirements. You can gather a lot of relevant customer data by using in-depth interviews and questionnaires. The questions relate to demographics, gender, disposable income, the reason for buying your products, the details of the decision-making process, and pain points.

Additionally, you can use secondary sources of information about your customers: read available industry researches; review industry specialized online and paper media sources, such as websites or magazines; research customer profiles in Twitter or Linkedin to understand what do they publish, what do they discuss, what sources of information do they subscribe to. Finally, if you already have a website, review your users’ behavior to gather additional insights.

After collecting the essential data about your customers, you can run a social media campaign with a request to leave the contact details like email address and phone number. This base will allow you to stay in touch with the customers by providing additional materials like how-to videos and coupons. Personalize your messaging with the customers and use storytelling to connect with the audience.

To become successful, the company should clarify the mission, identify the resources, aspirations, and competencies. These factors determine whether the focus of your business will be on price leadership or operational efficiency, innovative culture with product leadership, or a service-oriented culture. The strong values help to ensure that the marketing strategy remains constant in the long run.

The most important part of the go-to-market strategy is the product. Building a great product requires a lot of skills, curiosity, and creativity. To develop a successful product, the company needs to learn through trial and error, considering the changing technology, business opportunities, team dynamics, and customer needs. Furthermore, creating a great product is a never-ending process. The market needs are changing all the time, so the product should adapt to the inevitable changes. One of the best ways to examine the market need is to launch the beta version of the product and improve it by gathering feedback.

Also, you need to estimate the product cost to understand the lower bound for pricing. Then you should assess the value of the product to potential buyers, so later, you would define the upper bound for pricing. It is essential to analyze the pricing strategies of your competitors. Taking into account this information, you will be able to set the prices.

Competitors

To stand out from the competition, you should create a unique value proposition and analyze your competitors . The data should include product portfolios, capabilities, the way they present themselves, goals, and accomplishments. Some of the sources of information about your competitors include their website, annual reports, and newsletters. You may analyze customer reviews, define what is missing in the competitors’ products, and then consider what features you can add to your product to satisfy customers’ needs.

The other features to review are the competitor’s pricing, content strategy, the way they market the products, the level of engagement on the competitors’ content, social media strategies, and presence. In addition, you can perform a SWOT analysis to learn about your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Once you've armed yourself with the preliminary research into your customers, your company, and your competition, you're ready to start creating the GTM strategy. Below we'll review the most effective frameworks and relevant examples to help you develop a GTM strategy particularly suitable for your business.  

The go-to-market strategy framework consists of ten simple steps that will provide you with a deeper understanding of the target market, your industry, product-market fit, competition, demand, and distribution. The strategy covers a lot of information that will prevent you from mistakes while bringing the product to market or mastering the new market segment.

1. Identify the target market and buyer personas

There are two common purchasing scenarios for the products. In the first case, the purchasing party is a non-business customer or a small business. In the second case, the purchasing party is a larger enterprise.

When your target audience is non-business customers, you need to create a realistic buyer persona. It will be helpful in developing products and creating content to better target potential buyers. A buyer persona is a fictional character who has characteristics of the ideal customer based on research. The features of buyer persona are the name, behavioral traits, demographic information, and interests. 

You need to perform several simple steps to create the audience persona. Carry out your audience research considering age, location, interests, spending patterns, and challenges with the help of Google Analytics, customer database, and social media analytics. Then identify the problems your target audience is trying to solve and understand what support you can offer.

In the case of creating the buyer persona for larger businesses or enterprises, the course of actions will be different. The first step is to analyze who will buy your product and who will make the purchasing decision for your offering. The decision-makers are called “the buying center” . 

The buying center usually comprises seven roles during the sales process: initiator, user, influencer, decision-maker, buyer, approver, and gatekeeper. The initiator is the one who demonstrates the initial interest in the product. The user is the person who uses your product regularly. The influencer has the power to affect other people’s purchasing decisions. The decision-maker usually approves the purchase. The buyer manages the budget. The approver is a person who grants the final approval and then pushes the initiative to a management level. Finally, the gatekeeper has the right to prevent the implementation of the product.

To convince these people to buy your product, you need to understand their motives, goals, problems, and pain points. The roles may change depending on the industry, your product, and other factors.

2. Research the demand 

Once you have defined the buyer personas, you need to clarify their problems and whether your product or service would fit their needs. At this stage, you should consider your product value and your buyer personas’ pain points, which they face daily. Moreover, you have to look at the bigger picture and research the industry’s struggles and your product’s impact on the target market. 

Then study your competition and define the features of your product that differentiate you from the existing solutions. It is essential to learn what the target audience likes and dislikes about the available products.

3. Develop your messaging

Messaging is a set of key points your company uses to talk about itself and the value you provide to customers. Messaging is focused on what and how you communicate about your company, product, or service. It will become the basis for various marketing materials, such as slogans, press releases, social media posts, presentations, etc.

Your message aims to convey the main idea about your product or service to potential buyers, express what value you offer, why you are different, what you stand for and what problems you solve. It is crucial to establish an emotional connection with your customers addressing their needs and desires. Use humor and speak the natural language consumers talk about in everyday life.

You need to start by defining the company’s marketing strategy and the objectives you want to achieve with your messaging. The next step is to identify the keywords that would be associated with your company, product, or service. Following, you should draft concise and memorable message statements. You can organize the statements into a framework, including the target audience, positioning, and brand promise.

The competitors’ messaging strategy is a good source of information that will help you develop your statements. Define the distinguishing factors that set you apart from the competition: what makes your product unique and why your customers should choose it over the other offerings.

4. Understand your customer’s journey

The buyer’s journey helps predict your customer’s behavior and the number of stages during the purchase process. Consider the customer’s journey from the buyer’s perspective and your company’s perspective. 

The buyer’s journey typically consists of four stages:

• Awareness. At this stage, your customer gets acquainted with your product. The potential buyer receives the information from social media ads, blog posts, videos, or search engine results.
• Consideration. The customer shows interest in your product and the problem it can solve by engaging with the content. The prospect asks for a trial period or studies the educational content about your product before making a decision.
• Decision. During the decision-making process, the customer communicates with the sales team and negotiates the pricing details and product features.
• Loyalty. When the decision is made, the buyer needs the reasons to stay loyal to your company. In the majority of cases, the most significant opportunity to build loyalty lies in providing excellent customer service.

5. Outline the pricing strategy

Pricing sends a message to your customers about the value your product provides. The pricing might reflect the idea that your product is exclusive and, accordingly, it would be more expensive. On the other hand, the lower price can be your advantage over the other competitors. The pricing depends on the target market, your competitors, and other aspects like PR and marketing. To set a reasonable price, you need to take into account the needs of your buyer personas to understand whether it fits their goals.

6. Create the external marketing plan 

Building brand awareness is a necessary step to draw your audience’s attention. This stage covers branding, lead generation, content creation, website, PR, events, and advertising. The popular methods to reach the target audience include social media, search ads, emails, landing pages, cold calls, industry conferences, webinars, and Ebooks. Once the potential buyers get interested in the product, it is time to proceed to the next stage and provide the educational materials or free trials to motivate them to make a decision.

7. Generate content

Content marketing is a very effective tool to encourage your customers to purchase and turn one-time shoppers into loyal buyers. The content educates the customers about the problems you solve and increases brand awareness. The customers will be able to find your content by conducting a keyword search. Search Engine Optimization will enhance the chances of your content appearing higher in the search results. Therefore, it would increase your traffic and boost sales.

The demand for video content is growing year over year. According to the study by HubSpot, more than 54% of consumers prefer videos from brands over other types of content. More than 86% of businesses use videos as a marketing tool to increase user engagement, build brand awareness and improve customer loyalty. Moreover, videos are the most-shared and very measurement-friendly type of content.

Your business can increase engagement and convert users due to video content shared through Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. You can create different types of videos to promote your brand, such as product demos, testimonials, interviews, how-to videos, and more.

8. Develop your sales funnel

This step clarifies how the prospects become your customers. You need to mind how your team would find the potential buyers, engage with them and then sell your products. It is essential to know what tools your sales team will use to optimize sales. The sales representatives might need software tools and presentations to demonstrate your product’s value to potential customers. The other issues for consideration are the training of the team and the ways to manage sales reporting.

9. Pay attention to customer support service

Customer support turns your one-time buyers into customers for life. To develop loyalty and make the buyer feel special, you should create friendly customer service. It is important to think about the offer you would provide to your clients to help them use your products - the tools, the software, and the customer support team. Consider using social media platforms to monitor and respond to queries and complaints. 

10. Define success metrics 

The success metrics help estimate whether you are reaching your goals. While choosing the suitable metrics, keep in mind whether the metrics align with the company’s strategy, the difficulty of calculations, and the time needed to analyze the results. The indicators that will help you estimate your company’s health include Monthly Recurring Revenue, Annual Recurring Revenue, Customer Acquisition Cost, Customer Lifetime Value, and Net Revenue Retention.

The following frameworks are useful models to review the company’s marketing capabilities from various points of view. The frameworks will help evaluate marketing operations’ effectiveness and determine the changes needed to support new strategic direction.

Go-to-market strategy for startups 

The lack of thoughtful planning is one of the common reasons for startup failure. That is why the robust GTM strategy is a hedge against future risks. You need to choose between the broad set of buyers or narrow target market, channel sales or direct sales, and two-sided or one-sided markets.

The startup GTM strategy framework was created by Michael J Skok for the Harvard innovation lab. On the left side of the picture, there is a simple marketing and sales cycle that describes the stages the potential customer passes on his way to the purchase of the product. At first, the customer becomes aware of your offering, then comes the interest and understanding of how the product can serve the customer’s needs. The following stages are the engagement of the potential buyer, purchase of the trial, and finally, the purchase of the product.

It is often difficult to measure the progress with engaging the audience and turning the potential customers into interested buyers. So you need to pay attention to metrics like Net Promoter Score that will help you estimate the results.

Michael J Skok states that in the case of startups, the building of a brand should be based not on the product or service. Instead, it should manifest the founders, team, ideas they represent, and the company’s culture. Also, the startup should be consistent from the start to get brand integrity.

When launching a startup, answer the following questions:

• What about the world that is changing that makes us necessary?
• What do we promise to customers at a basic level?
• What makes you unique?
• What makes you valuable to your customers?
• What emotions do you want to evoke in your customers?
• If your startup was a person, what would it be like?
• How would you present yourself to the world?

SaaS go-to-market strategy

The main feature that distinguishes SaaS go-to-market strategy from the other companies is the target audience. You are marketing to people, who are grouped in companies, so you need to choose not only the most suitable company but also bear in mind the decision-makers. 

The go-to-market strategy will also depend on the company’s size, and it will differ for enterprises and small businesses in each case. Another distinctive feature of the SaaS go-to-market strategy is the opportunity to provide free trials of the product. It eliminates the need to talk to a sales representative before making a purchase. However, the competition in the SaaS market grows, and the customer acquisition cost increases as well.

The template by DevSquad for SaaS businesses contains the foundational points you need to think through to develop an effective GTM strategy. This template is very convenient for building a GTM strategy because it fits one page and brings together all the major elements. With the template’s help, you can define one end-user and buyer persona, stick to one audience, one target market, and one main acquisition channel at a time. You can identify the best niche for your product and apply a narrower approach to your plan.

This strategy is designed to prevent entrepreneurs from making such mistakes as targeting too many markets at once, using too many marketing channels, and reaching out to enterprises where the sales cycle is usually longer and more complicated than for smaller companies. 

Salesforce’s go-to-market strategy

Salesforce GTM strategy proposes defining the market segment you are targeting, describing the key characteristics of your potential buyers, and identifying your offering and value proposition. Also, you need to think through the channels for communication with the customers, budgeting, financial model, and marketing plan. 

To build your value proposition, you need to develop a simple statement that describes your offering and its advantages over your competitors. To define communication channels, think about where your customers would purchase your product and how they would receive support and answers to the questions. Creating the budget requires prioritizing your business needs like sales and development and making forecasts concerning future profits.

The last part of Salesforce’s strategy is marketing activities such as creating a marketing plan and marketing calendar with the events where you will demonstrate product value to customers. The last point of the strategy requires discussing the goals with the team and collecting feedback.

McKinsey go-to-market framework for established enterprises

According to McKinsey’s approach , the go-to-market strategy includes seven directions of growth applicable for well-established businesses. 

• The first way for a company to grow is to sell a wider product range to existing customers. You can increase the frequency of purchases due to promotional programs or sell additional products or services.
• The other way is to attract new customers to the existing range of products.
• One of the most common paths to growing your business is to introduce new products and services.
• You can redesign your value-delivery system by providing more benefits to your customers, such as increased product choice, broader service, or lower prices.
• Large businesses can improve the industry structure through the acquisition of other companies and mergers.
• Your company can expand into new geographical markets or increase the coverage of regions where you already operate.
• Many companies grow by stepping out into new businesses where they can apply the existing skills.

Successful companies often use several directions of growth simultaneously; some of them, like Disney, use all seven paths at once.

IBM’s go-to-market strategy implementation

IBM is a vivid example of the exceptional implementation of the new go-to-market strategy. IBM’s selling model changed in the 1980s due to the changes in the IT market when the number of customers grew, but they decreased in size. At first, the company had only one sales channel — the distributors or direct sales force. When this model proved ineffective, IBM started adding new channels, including value-added resellers, direct mail, telemarketing, dealers, and catalog operations. 

In recent years, the company added about 18 new channels to communicate with the clients. The new GTM model is called hybrid because it combines direct and indirect channels. Due to the hybrid model, IBM managed to achieve a competitive advantage in the market, and now it is a leading cloud platform company.

Developing a winning go-to-market strategy is critical before bringing a new product to market or entering the new market. When creating the GTM strategy, keep in mind the main components: customers, company, and competitors. The other elements for consideration include target markets, channels, product or service, price, and positioning. Before you start building the strategy, think of the current state of your business, your existing product portfolio (that's where BCG growth-share matrix may come in handy), your objectives, the methods to achieve the goals, and how long the implementation would take.

The most important steps are to define target customers and target markets. The next step is to understand what customers’ problems the product would solve. Then you should develop messaging, consider the buyer’s journey, create a pricing strategy, build brand awareness and generate content. The last steps are developing a sales funnel, customer support service, and measuring the results. Though GTM strategy is only the first stage of achieving business success, it gives your company a greater chance to accomplish impressive results.

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What is Go-To-Market (GTM)?

Go-to-market (GTM) is the strategic process a company goes through to make a product or service available to customers (i.e. bring it to market). This is the plan through which you let customers know that your product is available, communicate the value it brings them, and demonstrate why it’s better than the competition.

Go-To-Market and Product Management

What is go-to-market (gtm) for product managers.

Go-to-market (GTM) is the strategy, planning and execution behind a successful Product Launch. Go-to-market ensures that the target audience not only discovers the product but also comprehends its value and relevance to their lives.

Do you value setting your product's price and distribution channels accurately? Would you like a marketing and sales strategy so irresistible that users stop what they’re doing and double-click your product ads? That's where a robust go-to-market (GTM) strategy comes in. 

You want to make potential users feel so seen and engaged that they can’t help but learn more. And if your product is good (which we’re sure it is!), users will stick around. A strong GTM strategy means higher up-front product adoption, more long-term revenue, and a product that stands out miles above the competition. 

Your go-to-market strategy decides how the audience learns about the product, including timing, channels, and messaging. Make sure to put your product in front of the right audience, at the right time, in a manner that will make them most likely to use or even purchase your product.

Why Does Go-To-Market (GTM) Matter for Product Managers?

Customer knowledge is power. As a Product Manager, it’s critical that you understand GTM strategy in order to better make customer-centric decisions. At every step of the product process, you should be asking yourself, “How will first-time users view this? What value does this add to users, and how can we better communicate that value?” 

Go-to-market is also when you’ll see the rewards of cross-functional collaboration outside of the Product Team. 

As Product Manager, you're the keeper of the Product Vision , so it’s your responsibility to communicate the purpose and value of the product across the company. Other teams need Product Managers to:

Validate customer messaging

Provide training materials and selling guides for sales

Share news on product updates

When you equip these teams with intimate knowledge of the product value, you’re setting up go-to-market for success! 

When Go-To-Market Goes Wrong

A go-to-market strategy not only determines the success of your product but of your entire company.

Just consider Microsoft Vista – a 2006 operating system launch so infamous that people still call it “Microsoft’s biggest failure.” You might say, “What’s the big deal? Microsoft is still a wildly successful company.” True. But it’s not as successful as say…Apple.

Microsoft’s fumbled go-to-market in 2006 is the reason Apple was able to pull ahead and become what it is today. Microsoft launched a buggy product and failed to understand the market, losing loyal customers – forever, in some cases. 

Microsoft vs Apple is a very public comparison, but smaller versions of this battle play out with smaller companies every day. Your company most likely can’t recover from a bad go-to-market strategy the same way Microsoft did. Not all product launches will be stunning successes, but having a strong go-to-market prevents you from completely missing the mark.

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

To create and execute a go-to-market (GTM) strategy, you need to:

Conduct market research to identify target audience

Select your customer acquisition channels 

Create messaging based on audience and channels

Go to market! 

Audience and channel are tricky to get right, but the payoff is worth it. Consider how Airbnb entered through a niche market. 

Airbnb started off targeting conference attendees. Why? Because since they knew when and where the conferences took place, they knew how many people would be there, in what city, plus the length of their stay! 

They understood pain points (other conference-goers competing for the same accommodations) and needs (distance from event space; pricing). This focused approach led them to their first major success – 600 stays in Denver during Obama's Democratic National Convention. And the rest is history.

Next up is messaging. To define your go-to-market messaging, answer these questions:

WHY is this product/company important? WHY are you doing this?  

HOW are you going to do this? 

WHAT is special about your company’s mission that will make a customer want your product over a competitor’s?

Keep in mind: Product Marketing Managers (PMMs) in particular are your key partners for go-to-market. They can help support go-to-market activities like segmenting customers, choosing the appropriate customer acquisition channels, and creating external-facing messaging.  

Key Components of Go-To-Market (GTM)

The key components of a go-to-market (GTM) strategy typically include:

Market Research: Conducting thorough research to understand the target market, customer needs, preferences, and trends. This helps in identifying the right market segment and designing a compelling value proposition.

Product Positioning: Clearly defining how the product or service solves customer problems or meets their needs, and differentiating it from competitors. This involves crafting a unique selling proposition (USP) and positioning the offering effectively in the market.

Pricing Strategy: Determining the appropriate pricing model and strategy based on factors such as production costs, market demand, competitor pricing, and perceived value. The pricing strategy should align with the product positioning and target market.

Distribution Channels: Identifying and selecting the most effective channels to reach the target customers. This may involve direct sales, partnerships, distributors, online platforms, or a combination of channels.

Marketing and Promotion: Developing a comprehensive marketing plan that includes advertising, public relations, digital marketing, content creation, social media, and other promotional activities. The plan should be tailored to reach the target audience and communicate the value proposition effectively.

Sales Enablement: Equipping the sales team with the necessary tools, resources, and training to effectively sell the product or service. This includes providing product knowledge, sales collateral, customer insights, and sales methodologies to maximize sales effectiveness.

Customer Acquisition and Retention: Implementing strategies to attract new customers and retain existing ones. This may involve lead generation, customer relationship management (CRM), customer support, loyalty programs, and ongoing customer engagement initiatives.

Metrics and Analysis: Defining key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of the go-to-market strategy. This includes tracking sales revenue, market share, customer acquisition costs, customer lifetime value, and other relevant metrics to assess performance and make data-driven decisions.

These components work together to create a comprehensive GTM strategy that ensures a successful Product Launch, market penetration, and sustainable growth.

Go-To-Market in Action

“ I’ve launched enough products to know that a solid go-to-market strategy can be the difference between product success and failure. It’s not enough just to build a product that provides value. You need to shout it from the rooftops. Hey! Look over here! We’ve made this awesome product for you! Cool tech becomes cooler when more people know about and use it. ”

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Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy: What It Is, Examples & Template

• by Apostle Mengoulis
• June 17, 2021
• 15 minute read

Are you a marketer, a startup founder, or simply a motivated business owner looking for ways to get things off the ground?

You may be looking for ways to raise awareness for your early-stage company or planning to launch a new product and naturally want to generate buzz around it. 

No matter why you need a go-to-market (GTM) strategy, we’ve created a concise guide to help you understand how such a strategy works and how you can get the most out of one. 

To be more specific, in this guide we’re going to take you through the following:

• What a GTM strategy is
• Differences between a go-to-market strategy and a marketing strategy or marketing plan
• Examples of go-to-market strategies for inspiration
• How to build your own go-to-market strategy

What’s more, we’ve created a template that you can download and use to save you both time and money. 

Seems like we’ve got lots to cover. 

Let’s get right into it. 

Choose the Section You Want

• What’s a Go-to-Market (GMT) Strategy?

5 Go-to-Market Strategy Examples to Inspire You

How to build a go-to-market strategy for your startup, our proven go-to-market strategy template, what is a go-to-market (gmt) strategy.

A go-to-market strategy is a tactical plan that includes and summarizes all your moves in order to hit the mark in a new market when you’re launching a new product or company. 

Put another way, a GTM strategy is an action plan that’s compiled using the main elements of your new business move, such as:

• Identifying your target audience and target market
• Identifying solutions that your product offers
• Defining your unique value proposition (UVP)
• Defining your acquisition strategy
• Defining your buyer personas
• Defining your messaging 

And so on and so forth. 

To sum up, we’d say that a GTM plan is basically the steps you will take to bring your product or service to the market. 

With under 50% of businesses making it to their fifth year , we can see that, when it comes to new businesses or new products, the odds aren’t quite stacked in your favor. 

Moreover, startup failure rates in 2020 tell us that 90% of all new startups fail , which clearly shows that having a great product might not be enough; you need to have a well-defined go-to-market strategy in place. 

The statistics present you with a challenge as a new business or a business that’s launching a new product. 

That’s why you need a solid strategy that’ll help you hit the ground running. 

We’re not saying this to put extra pressure on you, but we encourage you to be realistic as to how difficult it’s going to be to survive as a new business.

As promised a little further up, we’re now going to discuss the difference between a GTM strategy and a marketing strategy. 

What’s the difference between a go-to-market strategy and a marketing strategy?

In case you thought that a GTM strategy was the same as a marketing strategy, we need to set a few things straight; firstly, they’re not. 

A marketing strategy is an ongoing process that includes all the marketing efforts , from digital marketing activities — such as content marketing, inbound marketing, paid acquisition or referral marketing — that your business is making. 

On the other hand, a GTM strategy, as we’ve already discussed, is a far more specific, one-time process that focuses on a specific event , such as a new product launch . 

Let’s get into more detail about the characteristics of each of the two strategies. 

A marketing strategy:

• Includes all marketing actions a business plans to take
• Encapsulates marketing actions in relation to distribution channels as well as the target audience for the whole business
• Is based on a long-term approach that aims to make sure that a business will keep up with existing products and upcoming trends in the market
• Often includes marketing elements and analysis such as SWOT analysis and detailed market research
• Covers actions on brand positioning as well as how to attract the audience that’ll appreciate the brand and will engage with it
• Is usually undertaken by an entire marketing team
• Is an ongoing process  

A go-to-market strategy :

• Is usually built in the context of launching a new product or business
• Can be different for each of the products that a company sells
• Will be different based on the type of the business. e.g. B2B or B2C
• Will have a marketing strategy as part of it for a specific product a company’s launching
• Includes an analysis of the buyer journey as well as a segmentation of the audience into sub-audiences
• Focuses on covering new product launches and activities around a specific product’s lifecycle, from the creation of a product to the distribution process and its eventual discontinuation
• Is based on a short-term approach in relation to a segment of the market that’ll be interested in the product
• Covers actions in relation to communicating a product’s competitive advantage
• Will generally have every step targeted towards a specific buyer persona or target customer
• Usually involves members of a company’s product marketing team, customer support team, and sales team
• Will have a fixed timeline .

After seeing some of the main characteristics of each strategy, let’s get into the examples we’ve prepared for you.

We’ve now established what a GTM strategy is and exactly how it’s different from a marketing strategy. 

As we covered a little further up, the vast majority of startups sadly don’t last long after they’ve launched, partly because they lack a well-defined go-to-market plan. 

There are, however, some companies that have managed to not only have a successful launch, but also find a product-market fit (PMF) and subsequently start growing and scaling. 

In this section, we’re looking at six different examples of inspiring GTM strategies from some interesting and innovative companies. 

Let’s dive right into the first example we have for you. 

Example #1: Visme for Desktop Launch

Image Source: Product Hunt

The first inspiring go-to-market example we want to share with you comes from Visme, which is a modern graphic maker .

Earlier in 2021, Visme launched a new product, Visme for Desktop; an all-in-one design platform that can be used on both Mac and Windows. 

As you can see on the screenshot above, part of the company’s GTM strategy was to launch on Product Hunt and raise awareness for the product and the overall brand. 

In fact, the product was voted as Product of the Day on April 13, 2021. 

The enthusiastic comments say it all:

Pretty neat, isn’t it?

What’s more, Visme’s founder, Payman Taei, made sure to share the news with his social media audience by posting about the product on his LinkedIn account. 

Have a look:

Image Source: LinkedIn

Both the Product Hunt page as well as Payman’s post include all the relevant information to appeal to their target audience. 

More specifically, as we can see, there are nods towards the new product’s use cases as well as the pain points the tool aims to address. 

As you can probably imagine, these are essential components of a go-to-market strategy that take into consideration important customer needs and provide potential customers with solutions. 

Additionally, given that an effective GTM strategy needs to present a new product in a detailed and well-defined way, it comes as no surprise that the Product Hunt presentation provides users with images of how the desktop app looks. 

Here’s an example:

Let’s get to the next go-to-market strategy example we want to show you. 

Example #2: Challenger Bank Monzo Launch

Image Source: Monzo

Our second example of a successful company with a truly smart GTM strategy comes from app-based challenger bank, Monzo, established in the UK in 2015.

Before we get into analyzing their strategy, let’s have a look at the following screenshot:

What we see above is a step-by-step illustration of the logic behind their strategy when people were joining the waitlist for a Monzo online bank account.

As you can see, the new users needed to join a waiting list with a queue of over 15,000 users registered before them. 

If someone wanted to take a lead and get ahead of all those others, they could use their unique referral code and share it with people they know. 

Every time you shared your code and Monzo got a new user signed up from your referral , the app moved you up the queue by several thousand places. 

You might have heard about it before – it’s called the leaderboard giveaway – and it’s basically as simple as inviting people to get higher on the leaderboard.

Sounds pretty exciting and intriguing, right?

The reason we’re including this example in our GTM guide is because the core of the company’s GTM strategy lay in some very interesting tactics which can be summarized in the following elements:

• The power of a well-structured referral program  
• The power of virality starting from one person inviting another to join the app
• The benefits of community marketing and building a community prior to launching your product

Building a waiting list that gives users the opportunity to get an advantage over the rest of the queue can be very efficient.

Why wouldn’t you want to be in front of others? 

When it comes to Monzo’s launch that we just saw, the initial launch targeted residents of London, which helped make the experience more focused and tailored to individual users. 

Since their Alpha launch in 2015 – the one where they made good use of the leaderboard giveaway – Monzo has managed to grow a lot and achieved revenues of £67 million in 2019 – which is equal to around $95 million.

They must have done something right!

Example #3: Robinhood’s Pre-launch

Image Source: Robinhood

Building a pre-launch campaign might sound like a challenging task, but if done right, it can help your business find great results from its product launch. 

With the goal of making the stock market accessible , Robinhood, which was then a small startup, entered the market in 2014.

Their go-to-market strategy was heavily based on the following elements:

• Creating  a VIP experience that built anticipation and FOMO
• Gamifying the experience of getting access to the product
• Targeting millennials who didn’t have as much access or exposure to investing and trading products up to that point

All three elements written in the list above were accompanied by the company’s main messaging, which was, as we said a little further up, to “ democratize finance for all ”.

This strong messaging, along with some interesting and engaging tactics, like building a signup waiting list with a strong referral incentive , had high chances of hitting the mark. 

Similar to what we saw Monzo doing earlier in this post, Robinhood created a waiting list that allowed users to get priority access by being invited by those already in the queue and then spreading the word about the product, thus getting its first users to sign up for the app.

The more friends that joined, the sooner you’d get access . 

This tactic made users want to engage with the product and also made them feel that the product was exclusive, which made their willingness to join even stronger. 

Let’s now move on to the next great example we have for you.

Example #4: TaxJar Focusing on Killer Content

Image Source: TaxJar

Different companies have different cornerstones for their GTM strategies and that’s the way it should be. 

Each company has a different business plan, business model, values, ambitions, and different decision-makers and stakeholders involved in different company activities. 

For eCommerce business TaxJar, the way to deal with competition was pretty clear and straightforward. 

To be more specific, TaxJar, which brought the dynamic of automation into sales tax reporting and filing and was launched in 2013, was able to identify a key competitive differentiator. 

From what TaxJar CEO Mark Faggiano told Nicole Shimer , we can easily pick up the following two points as core elements of the startup’s GTM strategy:

• Educate the world on sales tax by creating and sharing easy-to-find and easy-to-understand content around sales tax
• TaxJar was based on the approach of being a technology company rather than a tax company

As Mark Faggiano puts it:

“ Before we existed, most of the content that was available was either hard to find or hard to understand. Therefore, we decided to build the best content we could to help people wrap their heads around sales tax, which feels like an insane problem that’s changing all the time. As a result, we were able to build trust and customers began to try the product because they trusted and understood what we’re saying. This also helped us succeed through word of mouth , which has been a tremendous lever for growth.”

Want to have a look at what TaxJar’s content looks like?

Here you go:

We’ve grabbed a few blog post titles that clearly show us just how easy it is to get informative content around sales tax and what that might look like. 

One of the objectives of content is to inform your target customer, just like how TaxJar is doing here by creating articles that speak to different industries, such as telehealth and online pharmacies. 

By creating content that resonates with your target customer, you’re hitting some of the key functions of a GTM strategy that we talked about, like reaching out to your ideal buyer and pointing out your competitive advantage.

As simple as that!

Keep reading to find out more about the last example we’re showing you. 

Example #5: Lemlist Launch on Appsumo

Image Source: Lemlist

Lemlist, an email outreach platform to send personalized outreach emails, launched on Appsumo in early 2018. 

Since its launch, it managed to achieve $250K annual recurring revenue (ARR) in 2018, which increased to over $4 million by early 2021 , and they’re planning to take it to $10 million by the end of the year.  

The main point around Lemlist’s GTM strategy lies in its move in 2018 to launch on Appsumo – a marketplace for early-stage startups that want to get some attention and traction by offering very special deals such as lifetime access for $X. 

As you can probably imagine, such a space allows businesses to get things off the ground and grow big, and fast. 

In fact, Lemlist went on Appsumo twice in their first year – the second time was with a Black Friday deal:

Image Source: Appsumo

We can clearly see that part of their go-to-market strategy was having a special deal on Appsumo which allowed them to get some capital that they could then use to build the product and grow the business.

What’s more, Lemlist’s GTM strategy also included going on Product Hunt in an attempt to generate buzz around the product and spread the news within a tech product-loving community. 

As you can see, the product was voted Product of the Day on January 24, 2018, demonstrating how popular it was and making more and more people aware of it. 

We’re now done talking about our five SaaS go-to-market strategy examples that’ll hopefully inspire you to create your own. 

Because we understand that you might need a bit of help in terms of putting some of these tactics into action, we’re taking you through a simple but concise, step-by-step process of creating your very own go-to-market strategy. 

Here we go…

We’ve already established that having a well-organized go-to-market strategy is a must, especially for startups. 

If you’re wondering how to create a go-to-market strategy for your startup, we’ve got you covered. 

In this section, we’re taking you through a step-by-step process of building a go-to-market strategy for startups. 

To illustrate the process, we’ll be using screenshots from our GTM strategy template you can also download – for free! – and implement yourself. 

Here’s step number one. 

Step #1: Understand the target market

The first step for an efficient go-to-market strategy is to understand your target market . 

First things first; your target market is basically defined as the segment of potential buyers that your product or service will be targeting. 

Put another way, your target market is the group of people that are most likely to become your new customers. 

Understanding the characteristics of that group allows you to craft your sales strategy, sales process, pricing strategy, customer onboarding process, customer support process as well as map out the whole customer experience, end-to-end. 

Understanding your target market encapsulates a wide range of actions that your startup needs to take, including the following steps:

The actions highlighted in the template screenshot above are:

• Conduct a SWOT analysis
• Create a list of your direct competitors
• Competitor analysis and creation of a competitive matrix
• Identifying partners and collaborators that can help your startup get early traction

Once you’ve completed all the actions in this first step…

…you’re off to the next one. 

Step #2: Understand the target customer

Following up on the first step of understanding your target market, looking closer into your target customer is yet another important step in the process. 

This step, which, by the way, is one of the most fundamental things you’ll do, is all about identifying and understanding your target customer, which will allow you to create a product that’ll meet their needs and standards. 

When you get to this step, you’ll need to:

• Conduct detailed and rigorous research into the ideal customer profile
• Define your goals and value matrix
• Conduct demographic and psychographic analysis
• Define the pain points and challenges you might face in relation to your product and how it might be perceived by the target customer
• Create an ideal customer journey map. AKA a buyer’s journey

Some questions to consider when working with the idea of your ideal customer should be along the lines of:

• Who might be the people buying from me and why?
• Are there common characteristics and interests between the people who’ll be buying from me? 
• What will my customer base look like?

Finding the answers to those questions, as well as others you might find useful to consider, will allow you to understand your core customers better, making it easier for you to guide them down the sales funnel when your product launches. 

Keep reading to find the next step in the process of building your go-to-market strategy.

Step #3: Define your positioning

The third step we want to bring your attention to is to define your positioning . 

A simple definition of positioning will provide you with a deeper understanding of the main elements of this process. 

Have a look at this definition by Entrepreneur:

Image Source: Entrepreneur

In other words, positioning is all about how a product or service differentiates from competitors and what kind of niche it can fill. 

To put it simply, when we talk about positioning, we basically talk about where a product fits into a market as well as the business roadmap.

The way you position your product is always in relation to the target market and target customer you’ve previously identified. 

Here are some key actions companies need to take when they get to this particular step:

• Define your brand positioning statement
• Come up with your unique value proposition
• Define your unique brand identity
• Create your main branding elements

You may have noticed that the bullet points above are touching upon how a product is going to be branded, which is one step further than just where it sits in the market.

When you’re in the steps of positioning your product or service, keep in mind that this step also includes telling people about your brand and product. 

This one takes us to the final – big – step of the process. 

Let’s get into it. 

Step #4: Define your marketing strategy

After you’re finished with the previous step, you can get into defining your marketing strategy . 

Your marketing strategy is one of the most important elements of your GTM strategy.

As you can see in the screenshot above, defining your product marketing strategy is a key action that’s included in this step. 

More specifically, before launching your startup, you need to get your product marketing strategy straight. 

Once that’s done, you can define your pricing strategy: 

• Are you planning to test different pricing strategies or pricing plans?
• Will you be offering freemium accounts or free trials?

These are vital questions you need to answer before you get started with your actual launch. 

Additionally, you need to decide on the distribution channels for your products. 

Will you be investing in sales and hiring salespeople? Running content marketing, paid advertising, opening physical stores, organizing webinars ? Or maybe you’ll invest in branded swag and promotional products?

Defining the marketing channels you’ll be using for raising brand awareness and acquiring customers is an integral part of your GTM strategy.

Moving forward, having defined some success metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) will make it more likely that you’ll efficiently keep track of your progress. 

Additional actions in this final step are:

• Define your pre-launch campaign
• Define your launch campaign
• Define your post-launch campaign

Last but not least, your GTM wouldn’t be complete without defining your full marketing funnel – from customer acquisition to retention and referral – as this can help your startup get some early traction and build some lead generation activity after the product has been launched. 

We’ve said quite a lot about what elements a go-to-market strategy includes. 

If you can’t wait to start working with our go-to-market strategy template for your own startup, wait no more!

It’s right here. 

As you’ve already seen in the previous section of our blog, we’ve created a GTM strategy template that’s free and easy to use. 

Here it is:

The template includes all the steps we analyzed just a moment ago, along with all the individual actions companies in need of a GTM strategy can take. 

What’s more, it comes with a dropdown menu that allows you to customize the status cells depending on your progress through each of the actions. 

The options in terms of the status are the following three:

• In Progress
• Not Started

Last but not least, if you feel like keeping additional notes for streamlining the process and keeping track of your progress, then you can also make the most out of it by using the comments section. 

Download the template and give it a go.

We’re closing this up. 

Before you go

There you have it. 

In this post, we’ve given a simple go-to-market strategy definition and also talked about how it’s different from a marketing strategy. 

We’ve also shared a downloadable GTM template that you can use for free to save yourself some time and money. 

Moreover, by sharing several successful GTM examples, we identified some key components of a GTM plan, including launching a referral marketing campaign. 

Feel free to try Viral Loops for free ,  and see the efficiency of referrals yourself.

Thanks for reading!

Apostle Mengoulis

Apostle is a core member of the founding team at Viral Loops. He has worked closely with hundreds of referral marketing campaigns made with Viral Loops. Apostle has years of experience in growing and marketing companies and co-founded Growth Hacking University.

Great checklist to ensure you are not blindfolded in your GTM strategy.

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3 Key Elements of a B2B Go-to-Market Strategy (with Examples)

In the highly competitive SaaS economy, marketers and revenue leaders are tempted to focus on demand generation and marketing strategies when planning a new product or service launch. After all, foundational marketing is fundamental to driving revenue.

But a sound go-to-market strategy (GTM) cannot be overlooked when planning your product or service release. An effective GTM can be fairly straightforward, but it should always provide the strategic underpinning on which future marketing efforts rest.

Table of Contents:

• What is a Go-to-Market Strategy (GTM)?

Go-to-Market Strategy Framework

Go-to-market plan methodologies, marketing strategy vs. go-to-market strategy, key elements of a gtm strategy, 7 steps to building a gtm strategy, examples of go-to-market strategies, what is a go-to-market strategy (gtm) .

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is an action plan that defines how a business positions its products or services in the marketplace. It provides a blueprint for reaching and serving customers, often outlining a unique selling proposition (USP), customer personas, competitive landscape, and marketing and sales strategies.

A GTM strategy is a pivotal aspect of your business plan. It aligns the organization's goals and resources with its marketing and selling tactics, ensuring a seamless customer journey from awareness to conversion. Without a GTM, businesses risk launching products or services that don't meet market needs, resulting in wastage of resources and potential failure.

A GTM strategy should address four key points:

• Product-Market Fit: What problem(s) does your product solve?
• Target Audience: Who is experiencing the problem that your product solves? How much are they willing to pay for a solution? What are the pain points and frustrations that you can alleviate?
• Competition and Demand: Who already offers what you’re launching? Is there a demand for the product, or is the market oversaturated?
• Distribution: Through what mediums will you sell the product or service? A website, an app, or a third-party distributor?

There are two major methods for developing a GTM strategy, the funnel and the flywheel:

• The traditional funnel method focuses on attracting leads and nurturing them into sales, while
• The flywheel approach uses inbound marketing and other strategies to build long-lasting customer relationships.

Before we dive in, let's get on the same page regarding the difference between a marketing strategy and GTM:

• Marketing strategy involves increasing revenue by identifying buyer personas and understanding the target audience. It focuses on generating demand and increasing brand awareness.
• GTM strategy involves creating an execution plan for how the product or service will be sold and implemented. It involves pricing, packaging, distribution, sales operations, and a deep understanding of the competitive landscape.

Therefore, GTM should be integral to any product or service launch plan. It helps create a roadmap for increasing revenue and achieving sustainable success by considering the total buying experience, from initial contact through post-sale customer service. A GTM strategy should include a detailed plan for understanding the target market, segmenting customers, and pricing and packaging products or services to maximize revenue and market share.

GTM strategy also helps ensure that all business activities are planned, coordinated, and executed promptly. It's important to ensure that the launch is well-run and meets all expectations to leverage increasing revenue opportunities fully.

An effective go-to-market strategy should be tailored to the target audience and incorporate product market fit and positioning, pricing strategies, sales enablement, digital marketing tactics, and partnership development. It should also be agile enough to adapt to changing customer preferences and market conditions. Finally, the strategy should focus on increasing revenue through increasing product adoption from existing customers while simultaneously acquiring new customers.

By taking a data-driven approach, leveraging automation tools and measurement techniques such as A/B testing or personalization technology can help ensure that your campaigns are optimized for success. Implementing a comprehensive GTM strategy alongside your marketing strategy can maximize customer engagement and drive revenue growth and ROI for the long term.

While the level of complexity and detail can vary, along with the format of the documentation, here are the fundamental components you'll need to include in your GTM documentation:

1. Market Intelligence

To know how to introduce a product to a market, you need to understand the market you’re entering. The best way to gain that understanding is to conduct market research.

Many resources are available to help you gain insight into your market, from publishers like IDG to research companies like Gartner. Additionally, tools like the Ansoff Matrix can be effective frameworks for vetting your research. The Ansoff Matrix was developed by a mathematician and breaks product  market introductions into four paths:

Market penetration , where you sell an existing product to an existing market

Market development , where you sell an existing product to a new market

Product development , where you sell a new product to an existing market

Diversification is where you sell a new product to a new market.

Understanding not just the market but also how your product relates to it is essential to developing your GTM and guiding your research and your messaging later on. Additionally, it is essential for your GTM documentation to contain a thorough competitive overview, including points of competitive differentiation. These can range from differentiated features to pricing or functionality. Challenging yourself to create a simple answer to the question of "What problems does my product solve" will pay significant dividends in your longer-term sales and marketing strategy.

2. Market Segmentation

The second element in a successful GTM is market segmentation. The findings from the market research you completed in the market intelligence phase determine who will most likely purchase your product, solution or service.

The market segmentation phase takes your market research one step further to help you understand the decision-makers within that market. Rather than defining your target market as CMOs at mid-sized SaaS companies, use your market research to create a buying center and buyer personas .

The B2B buying center consists of the various roles involved in a purchasing decision — from research and evaluation to actual purchasing. Understanding each buyer's role enables you to craft messages that appeal to the right person.

If you’re following the product development path, conduct research on your existing customers so you can best speak to their pain points. If you’re following the market development or market penetration path, survey your current customers about their experience with your product to inform how you frame your value proposition.

Developing buyer personas and ideal customer profiles (ICPs) will enable you to segment your market to target the best-fit customers. For example, instead of simply targeting CMOs at mid-sized SaaS companies, you’re targeting CMOs at mid-sized SaaS companies who are struggling to set up a reporting structure to prove the ROI of their marketing efforts.

3. Product Positioning

The final component of your go-to-market is how you convey your key value proposition. The value proposition is the unique blend of product features, advantages, and insights that your company offers. It explains why customers should choose your product or service over others.

You understand the market you’re entering and who your customers are. Develop your product  positioning and messaging strategy to stand out from your competitors and resonate with buyers.

When creating your product messaging, ask yourself:

• How does your offer address the need in the market?
• What supports your claim that your solution will fulfill their need?
• Why should your target market believe you?

Positioning is often considered a "marketing function." However, the most effective GTM strategies build cross-functional alignment on core product messaging long before marketing activates campaigns and sales initiatives, so building positioning into your GTM strategy early will benefit your entire business.

4. Pricing Structures

When it comes to pricing structures, there are a few key things to keep in mind:

• First, consider the market dynamics, including factors like supply and demand, competition, and the overall economic climate. This can help you determine the optimal price point for your product or service, taking into account how much customers are willing to pay and what your competitors are charging.
• Next, you'll need to think about your cost structures, which can include everything from production and manufacturing costs to marketing and sales expenses. By understanding your costs, you can ensure that your pricing structure is sustainable and profitable over the long term.
• Finally, determine how much value customers perceive in your offering. This can be influenced by a variety of factors, including the quality and uniqueness of your product or service, the level of customer support and service you provide, and the overall customer experience.

By understanding what customers value most about your offering, you can ensure that your pricing structure reflects that value and encourages continued loyalty and engagement.

Other Factors to Consider

In addition to the main components of a GTM strategy, there are several other factors to consider when launching a new product or service in the SaaS and subscription economy.

Digital Presence: A strong online presence includes having a well-designed and user-friendly website and activity on social media platforms that are popular with the target audience. Utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) tactics can also help improve the visibility and ranking of the website in Google.

Strategic Partnerships: Identifying and building partnerships with complementary businesses or organizations can help increase reach and exposure for the product or service and provide access to new customer segments.

Lead Generation: Lead generation involves attracting and cultivating potential customers for a product or service. This tactic  can be done through tactics such as creating marketing materials and utilizing social media and lead nurture strategies to increase visibility and drive conversions.

Sales Enablement: Sales enablement involves providing the sales team with the necessary resources and training to sell a product or service effectively, including sales collateral and training on the product or service and the sales process. Sales enablement helps improve the overall customer experience and drives revenue growth by ensuring that the sales team has the tools and knowledge they need to sell the product or service.

Customer experience and support: Providing a positive customer experience and offering high-quality customer service and support can help increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, leading to increased retention and potentially even upselling opportunities.

Data and analytics: Regularly tracking and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of the GTM strategy and help inform future optimization efforts.

Marketing Mix: The marketing mix refers to the various elements that can be controlled in promoting a product or service. These elements include product, price, place (distribution channels), promotion, people, process, and physical evidence. The marketing mix should be considered when developing a GTM strategy to ensure that all elements are effectively aligned to achieve revenue goals.

Step 1: Identify the Buying Center and Personas

Understanding your customer is crucial when preparing your product for the market. The "buying center" refers to the group of decision-makers involved in purchasing a complex B2B solution. Identifying these individuals and understanding their roles can help tailor your product to their needs.

Step 2: Craft a Value Matrix

A value matrix helps identify the business problems each buying center persona faces and how your product can solve those problems. It also includes a relevant marketing message that ties the problem and solution together.

Step 3: Test Your Messaging

Once your value matrix is in place, test your messaging by advertising on various platforms. This will help you understand which messages resonate with your audience and optimize your larger campaigns based on these insights.

Step 4: Understand Your Buyer’s Journey

Understanding the journey a potential customer will take is crucial. This journey can be viewed from the buyer's perspective and from the perspective of your company. The buyer's journey can be divided into three stages: attract, engage, and delight.

Step 5: Choose a Sales Strategy

Choosing a sales strategy that aligns with your product and business model is crucial. There are four common GTM sales strategies:

• Self-Service model
• Inside Sales Business Model
• Field Sales Business Model
• Channel Model

Step 6: Build Brand Awareness and Demand Generation

Attracting your target audience's attention is crucial for filling your pipeline. This can be achieved through demand generation, which can be facilitated by both inbound and  outbound strategies.

Step 7: Create Content to Get Inbound Leads

Inbound leads are generally easier to convert and cheaper to acquire than outbound leads. Content marketing is key to generating inbound interest, as it drives traffic to your site. Your content marketing team will drive this inbound traffic by finding and targeting keywords that your potential customers would search for and then creating and posting related content on your website.

To bring the concept of a GTM strategy to life, let's explore three practical examples based on New Breed's large arsenal of customized strategies that lead to our clients' success stories. These instances demonstrate how diverse teams have successfully implemented their unique GTM strategies to meet their goals.

Example 1: A SaaS Company Serving SMBs

This SaaS company aimed to boost product adoption and stimulate revenue growth by attracting new customers. Their GTM strategy was multi-dimensional:

• Strategic Partnerships: They allied with business consultancies and small business associations, offering exclusive discounts to their members, thereby expanding their customer reach.
• Risk Alleviation: They introduced free trial periods and comprehensive onboarding support, reducing potential risks and fostering a smooth transition for new customers.
• Credibility Enhancement: They showcased success stories and testimonials from satisfied customers, bolstering their brand's credibility and trustworthiness.
• Targeted Marketing: They launched focused paid ads, personalized email marketing campaigns and dynamic landing pages, effectively reaching small business owners and influential decision-makers.
• Usage-Based Pricing: They implemented a usage-based pricing model, where customers pay only for the features they use, promoting product adoption and driving revenue growth.

Example 2: A B2B Manufacturer of Industrial Equipment

This B2B manufacturer aimed to cultivate relationships with potential customers, enhance customer satisfaction, and boost revenue. Their GTM strategy was comprehensive:

• Industry Engagement: They actively participated in trade shows and industry events, showcasing their products and establishing valuable connections with potential customers.
• Product Mastery: They provided in-depth product training and technical support, ensuring customers felt confident using their products and enhancing overall satisfaction.
• Focused Marketing: They utilized targeted social media posts and email campaigns, reaching industry thought leaders and potential customers.
• Strategic Partnerships: They collaborated with distributors and resellers, expanding their brand's reach and ensuring their products were easily accessible to customers.
• Tiered Pricing: They offered tiered pricing plans, where customers could choose from a range of packages based on their specific needs, catering to each business's size and unique requirements.

Example 3: A B2B Provider of HR and Payroll Software

This B2B provider sought to elevate customer satisfaction, streamline the sales cycle, and drive revenue growth. Their GTM strategy was robust:

• Strategic Collaborations: They partnered with HR consulting firms, offering exclusive discounts to their clients, thereby expanding their customer base.
• Risk Mitigation: They offered free trial periods and onboarding support, encouraging potential customers to adopt the product and reducing the perceived risk of investing in a new solution.
• Focused Marketing: They deployed targeted ads and email campaigns, effectively reaching HR professionals. Thought Leadership: They developed webinars and educational blogs as part of a comprehensive B2B content marketing strategy, demonstrating the software's value and positioning the company as an industry expert.
• Value-Based Pricing: They introduced a value-based pricing model, where the price is set based on the perceived value of the product or service to the customer, ensuring the pricing strategy aligns with the value delivered.

The components of a go-to-market strategy are simple: market intelligence, market segmentation, and product messaging. But, the execution of those steps can be more complex depending on your product and the market you’re entering. Being methodical about each step and doing your due diligence will help set you up for success.

To learn more about the importance of demand generation in the success of a GTM strategy, check out our Essential Guide to Demand Generation.

This post was originally published June 7, 2019 and has been updated and refreshed for relevance.

Elizaveta Shkurina

Sr Creative Strategist specializing in B2B brand creation, sales enablement, and SaaS demand generation. With 8 years of experience, she excels in driving ROI and revenue-driven KPIs through collaborative innovation.

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• How can I sign up for Max?

How much is Max?

Does max offer a free trial, where can i watch max.

• Is HBO Max merging with Discovery Plus?
• Can I watch movies in 4K?

What movies and shows are on Max?

Hbo max has relaunched as 'max' — here's what that means for new and existing subscribers.

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HBO Max is now called Max . The relaunched streaming service merges HBO's library of original series with content from Discovery Plus , along with a huge catalog of blockbuster movies and TV shows. 

The service costs $20/month for the Ultimate plan with ad-free 4K support, $16/month for ad-free HD streaming, or $10/month for ad-supported HD streaming. Most people who already have HBO through cable automatically get Max without having to pay extra.

In its previous form, HBO Max was already one of the best streaming services , and the "Max" rebranding and expansion should add a bit more value. Its large selection of hit movies, prestige series, and unscripted content makes it a strong competitor in the increasingly crowded digital entertainment market. 

Below, we've detailed all the basics to help you decide if Max is right for your needs, including pricing, content selection, and what the Discovery Plus merger means for existing HBO Max members.

How can I sign up for Max (formerly HBO Max)?

You can sign up for Max through Max.com. You can also subscribe directly through select partner services, including Amazon Prime Video , AT&T , DirecTV , Spectrum , Hulu , and YouTube TV . If you were an existing HBO Max member, your subscription automatically transitioned to Max on May 23, 2023. 

Max costs $16/month for ad-free streaming or $10/month for ad-supported streaming, the same as HBO Max did. In addition, Max now has a new Ultimate ad-free plan for $20/month. 

Subscribers can save up to 20% by signing up for an annual subscription to any plan. An annual Ultimate plan is $200 a year, an ad-free plan is $150 a year, and an ad-supported plan is $100 a year.

Max's ad-supported plan offers HD streaming on up to two screens at a time with commercials. The ad-free plan offers commercial-free streaming in HD on up to two screens, along with support for 30 downloads. The Ultimate ad-free plan adds 4K support with Dolby Atmos audio, 100 downloads, and lets you stream on up to four screens at a time. 

Though HBO Max initially offered a free trial after launch, Max does not give new members a trial. However, there is one workaround. Amazon Prime Video members can get a one-week free trial of Max if they sign up for the service as a Prime Video channel . The trial is only available to new members.

Max can be streamed via its official website and the Max app, which was formerly the HBO Max app. Existing members might need to manually download the new Max app.

You can find the app on Apple, Android, Roku, PlayStation, Xbox, Amazon Fire TV, and Chromecast devices, as well as smart TVs from LG and Samsung.

Those who sign up for Max directly through a partnered service, like Hulu, will be able to access regular HBO content through the partner service's app. To watch Max exclusives, however, you still need the separate Max app.

When is HBO Max merging with Discovery Plus?

HBO Max and Discovery Plus merged into one streaming service called Max on May 23, 2023. The new service replaced HBO Max, but Discovery Plus continues to remain as a separate platform. 

Ad-supported and ad-free Max plans remain the same price as those on HBO Max. A new Ultimate tier with 4K streaming support is now available for $20 a month. Existing HBO Max accounts will automatically migrate to Max.

On its own, Discovery Plus still costs $5/month with ads or $7/month without ads. The service offers shows from Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, Food Network, and HGTV, along with several original series .

During its Q2 2022 earnings call, Warner Bros. Discovery outlined how HBO Max and Discovery Plus complement each other by appealing to different demographics . Now that they're combined, the new service has the potential to attract a wider range of subscribers by offering all of HBO Max's scripted content and Discovery Plus' unscripted titles . 

Can I watch movies in 4K on Max?

HBO Max previously offered a limited selection of 4K titles through its ad-free plan ($16/month), but new Max subscribers now need the Ultimate plan to get 4K support ($20/month). If you signed up for HBO Max's ad-free plan before May 23, 2023, you still received 4K streaming for six months but now need to switch to continue.

Though 4K support is now more expensive, Warner Bros. Discovery has expanded Max's library of 4K content as part of the rebranding. At launch, Max had more than 1,000 movies and TV episodes in 4K, which is almost eight times the amount of 4K content that was on HBO Max. Many 4K titles also support HDR (high dynamic range) using the HDR10 and Dolby Vision formats.

Some notable titles in 4K on Max include " The Last of Us ," " Game of Thrones ," the " Harry Potter " films, and classics like "The Wizard of Oz" and "Goodfellas." You can find a full list of 4K titles and supported 4K streaming devices on Max's website.

Like HBO Max, Max includes access to new and classic HBO shows, from " The Last of Us " and "The Sopranos" to " Succession " and " House of the Dragon ." On top of that, Max offers content from Discovery Plus, additional movies and shows from the Warner Bros. Discovery catalog, and brand-new originals .

Warner Bros. will also bring all of its new theatrical releases to Max after they play on the big screen. Some notable movies on Max right now include "Barbie," "Shazam: Fury of the Gods," "Blue Beetle," " The Menu ," " The Batman ," " Black Adam ," " Don't Worry Darling ," and " Elvis ."

Meanwhile, some popular Max original series you can stream right now include hit shows like:

• The White Lotus
• " Peacemaker " 
• " Our Flag Means Death "
• " Doom Patrol "
• " Tokyo Vice "

Beyond original programs, the catalog offers a wide range of TV series from Discovery, HGTV, TLC, DC, Cartoon Network, CNN, and Adult Swim. The Max movie catalog also incorporates critically acclaimed films from TCM, Criterion Collection, and Studio Ghibli, alongside hundreds of blockbuster Warner Bros. movies.

The Max catalog is not permanent, however, and the service is known for removing content with little warning. For example, recent cost-cutting measures led to the removal of shows like " Westworld " and shorts from the "Looney Tunes" franchise.

You can purchase logo and accolade licensing to this story here . Disclosure: Written and researched by the Insider Reviews team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our partners. We may receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at [email protected] .

• Main content

Opinion: Homeless camps are impacting my business. Police say they can’t help.

It is the responsibility of our elected officials and policymakers to manage these issues and provide for the safety of our citizens and businesses..

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) A no camping sign as the site of a future legal homeless camp is announced in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023.

In September, I signed on as one of the nine plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Salt Lake City over its handling of homeless camps. I was disappointed to see the case thrown out .

Mayor Erin Mendenhall’s response that the issue is best addressed by elected officials and policymakers, not the courts, indicates that she doesn’t understand the intent of the lawsuit. Her statement reflects exactly what the lawsuit asks: to give the elected officials and policymakers who have dropped the ball the responsibility — and hopefully the motivation and incentive — to do something to help minimize the problem.

Allow me to provide some examples which demonstrate the concern. A transient woman lived in the alley behind my business for six weeks. She would scream obscenities at our cars and charge them as we would try to drive by. People in an encampment to the side of our building would ask our customers if they wanted to purchase drugs. Encampment residents built fires in grocery carts. Upon confronting a transient man that was defecating against our back door, he threatened to “gut” me with his knife. The police allowed him to continue living in the alley anyway. A homeless individual sat pleasuring himself in our private parking lot for three hours. The police never came, despite multiple calls requesting assistance.

Elected officials and policymakers are expected to help in these situations. Instead, the situations were ignored and no action was taken, regardless of the number of times they were reported. As a business owner, I was powerless to do anything about these situations. I wanted to feel safe, and I wanted my employees to feel safe.

A police officer who could see my frustration spoke to me about it. He said that we weren’t getting much response because our reports indicated the issues involved a person experiencing homelessness. The officer indicated that law enforcement’s hands were tied because the mayor’s office had asked them to leave the homeless alone. He suggested that we should not include the homelessness information in our report and just focus on the illegal activity. For example, drug use, defecation, lewdness etc. Upon following his advice, we were able to get a bit more help.

As a business owner and tax-paying citizen, I should be able to focus on my business, my employees and everything that happens inside my walls. That is where my expertise, and responsibility, lie.

I am not an expert in handling a transient woman attacking me inside my business, extinguishing shopping cart fires or managing inappropriate public behavior. I do not have the answers on how to handle these situations. I would like to stay in my lane and help my own business to thrive.

It is the responsibility of our elected officials and policymakers to manage these issues and provide for the safety of our citizens and businesses. These items and concerns are in their lane. These areas are a part of their job and what they are paid to manage so citizens feel safe and so businesses can focus on business. That is what the lawsuit was about.

(Photo courtesy of Randy Topham) Randy Topham

Randy Topham loves Salt Lake City. He owns a commercial property, as well as a personal residence, in the city.

The Salt Lake Tribune is committed to creating a space where Utahns can share ideas, perspectives and solutions that move our state forward. We rely on your insight to do this. Find out how to share your opinion here , and email us at [email protected] .

Donate to the newsroom now. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax deductible

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How entrepreneurs can keep their office space operating well.

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Air conditioner above employee

While spring brings the beauty of blooming flowers and pleasant temperatures, it also ushers in a period of heightened weather volatility. As warm and cold air clashes, it often leads to the development of strong thunderstorms, heavy rainfall, hail, and even tornadoes in some regions.

Recently, one of our offices had some significant weather damage that had to be repaired. When this happened to me, I looked at options that could have prevented some of these issues. As much as I want to be mad at mother nature, as a business owner one of my responsibilities is to keep operations running smoothly. Knowing how to react to rapidly changing weather can ensure safety and minimize the impact of severe storms. Below, I’ll go over a few ways you can prepare and protect your office from extreme weather.

Conduct a Risk Assessment

It's necessary to understand the specific risks your office space faces during extreme weather, and a risk assessment will provide that information. You’ll identify areas that could be especially susceptible to damage. Look at windows, doors, and your roof. If water gets in, this is usually where a breach will occur. You’ll also want to think about landscaping features that could cause damage. You don’t want high winds picking up patio furniture and hurling it through a window.

Tall trees near your building can be especially risky, and they might need to be trimmed or cut down. If they fall, they can cause structural damage or even injure your employees. Debris can damage utility lines, HVAC systems, lighting, water lines, and your roof. It can also limit access to the property if a roadway is blocked.

While you can definitely do a walk through to look for risks yourself, you might consider consulting with a professional risk assessor or structural engineer to conduct a thorough evaluation. They can recognize potential issues that may not be immediately apparent and offer solutions.

Samsung Issues Critical Update For Millions Of Galaxy Users

Netflix s best new show arrives with a perfect 100 critic score, ufc 300 results bonus winners after historic event, reinforce the building.

Strong winds associated with hurricanes and tornadoes can easily damage your office building, but there are ways to give it a fighting chance:

Protect Windows and Doors

When your office is located somewhere that often experiences severe weather, it’s worth investing in impact-resistant doors and windows. If storms are less common, you could install protective coverings like storm shutters or plywood panels instead. You want to ensure all entry points are properly sealed to prevent water from coming in during heavy rain or flooding.

Secure Roofing and Siding

Roof damage is a common issue during severe weather events. Unfortunately, it’s also some of the most serious damage because it can lead to leaks and structural instability. Inspect your building’s roof regularly for loose shingles, damaged flashing, or signs of deterioration. Reinforce roofing materials as needed and consider installing hurricane straps or braces if you live in an area that sees storms regularly. Similarly, you can reinforce exterior siding to withstand high winds and flying debris.

Implement Flood Prevention Measures

Flooding can destroy your office. It can ruin equipment, documents, and even the building itself. If your office is located in a flood-prone area, you could install flood barriers or place sandbags around entry points to mitigate risks. You should also think about elevating electrical panels and HVAC systems. Considering ductless mini-split systems from companies like HVACDirect.com can be advantageous in flood-prone areas as they are typically installed higher on walls and are less susceptible to water damage.

To protect your people—which is the most important thing—make sure that your office has a comprehensive flood evacuation plan in place as well. This plan should include clear evacuation routes and designate assembly points at safe locations outside the flood zone. Assign specific roles and responsibilities to designated personnel, such as evacuation coordinators and first aid responders, to ensure an organized response.

Choose Backup Power and Communication Systems

Power outages are common during extreme weather. If you experience one, just know it’ll disrupt essential operations. It’s smart to invest in backup power sources such as generators or uninterruptible power supplies to keep critical systems running. Additionally, alternative communication channels such as satellite phones or mobile hotspots can help you stay connected with employees or clients during outages.

That said, if you know your workers are safe at home, always prioritize their safety over business. Avoid pressuring them to continue working if it compromises their safety. A few days of downtime won't bankrupt your business, and if it does, there are likely bigger issues at play. Ensuring that employees feel safe and supported during emergencies can foster trust and loyalty, which are invaluable assets for any organization in the long run.

Develop an Emergency Response Plan

One of the most important things you can do when preparing for an emergency is to have a plan. Clearly outline roles and responsibilities for employees, designate evacuation routes, and establish protocols for shutting down operations and securing sensitive equipment.

For instance, you could assign your operations manager the responsibility of overseeing the shutdown of all non-essential operations and securing sensitive equipment. This would include telling staff to power down computers to prevent damage from power surges. You might tell your IT personnel to ensure critical data is backed up and securely stored, either physically or on cloud-based servers, to mitigate the risk of data loss. They should also shut down servers and network infrastructure to minimize the risk of hardware damage or data corruption.

Conduct regular drills to ensure that all employees are familiar with emergency procedures and know how to respond effectively in crisis situations. You might feel like you’re in high school again meeting up in the parking lot and taking roll call, but there’s a reason you practice. The more familiar everyone is with what they need to do, the more confident they’ll be during actual emergencies. It reduces panic and leads to a more coordinated response if a crisis occurs.

It’s Better to Be Safe Than Sorry

While all this talk about emergency preparedness may seem extreme, taking the time now to prepare will be worth it if you do have to face a severe weather emergency. Protecting your office space and your team requires proactive planning, and the better your plan, the better off you'll be. Beside ongoing maintenance and the tips above, make sure you also have adequate insurance coverage to protect your office space from potential damage.

Your business is an investment, and you don’t want to lose it because you assumed it would always be safe. The world is unpredictable. Review your existing insurance policies to ensure they provide sufficient coverage for property damage, business interruption, and other weather-related risks. Depending on your location, you might want to purchase additional coverage to address specific vulnerabilities identified during your risk assessment.

Hopefully, by following these suggestions, you can minimize the impact of extreme weather events on your office operations and ensure the safety of your employees.

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The Sunday Read: ‘What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise’

Inside the notorious “catch and kill” campaign that now stands at the heart of the former president’s legal trial..

By Lachlan Cartwright

Read by David Linski

Produced by Jack D’Isidoro and Aaron Esposito

Narration produced by Anna Diamond

Edited by John Woo

Original music by Aaron Esposito

Engineered by Corey Schreppel and Steven Szczesniak

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At the center of the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Manhattan is the accusation that Trump took part in a scheme to turn The National Enquirer and its sister publications into an arm of his 2016 presidential campaign. The documents detailed three “hush money” payments made to a series of individuals to guarantee their silence about potentially damaging stories in the months before the election. Because this was done with the goal of helping his election chances, the case implied, these payments amounted to a form of illegal, undisclosed campaign spending. And because Trump created paperwork to make the payments seem like regular legal expenses, that amounted to a criminal effort at a coverup, argued Alvin Bragg, the district attorney of Manhattan. Trump has denied the charges against him.

For Lachlan Cartwright, reading the indictment was like stepping through the looking glass, because it described a three-year period in his own professional life, one that he has come to deeply regret. Now, as a former president faces a criminal trial for the first time in American history, Cartwright is forced to grapple with what really happened at The Enquirer in those years — and whether and how he can ever set things right.

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