Launching a New Product? You Need a Great GTM Strategy
As a fractional CMO who helps early-stage startups develop and execute successful product launches, I’ve seen time and again how an effective go-to-market (GTM) strategy is the key to growth.
At aidigitalprofits, we partner with our clients to map out a strategic blueprint for bringing their innovative new products and services to market.
Here are the 10 steps we walk companies through when crafting a comprehensive GTM strategy:
Step 1: Pinpoint the Problem
We start by conducting in-depth market research to ensure there is a clear and sizable market need. We also pinpoint the specific pain points and frustrations your product is positioned to alleviate for target customers.
Defining this “product-market fit” is crucial to ensure you launch something buyers truly want and value.
Step 2: Define Your Audience
Next, we dive deep into profiling your target customers. This includes developing detailed buyer personas through research and surveys.
Understanding your audience’s precise pain points, preferences, and purchasing motivators is crucial for positioning and messaging.
Step 3: Analyze the Competition
We thoroughly research your competitive landscape, including assessing competing products, pricing, and go-to-market strategies.
This allows us to identify whitespace opportunities and areas where your offering can differentiate itself to carve out a unique value proposition.
Step 4: Clarify Messaging
For each well-defined persona, we develop tailored messaging and value propositions that speak directly to their needs and how your product uniquely solves them.
Authenticity through highly relevant communications is the key to engagement.
Step 5: Map the Buyer’s Journey
Analyzing the typical customer decision making process and journey allows us to deliver the right content and touchpoints at each phase to guide buyers smoothly along towards purchase.
Step 6: Choose Marketing Channels
Based on where your audience is most active, we select the ideal marketing and advertising channels to use, and align messaging to each stage of the journey for maximum impact.
We have used Hubspot very successfully in multiple B2B situations.
AiDigitalProfits fCMO
As a fractional Chief Marketing Officer (fCMO), my role is to guide my clients through the intricacies of developing effective go-to-market strategies. In my experience, I’ve observed two primary methodologies: the traditional funnel and the innovative flywheel.
The funnel approach, a classic method, revolves around drawing in leads and guiding them through the stages of awareness, consideration, and decision-making to ultimately convert them into sales. It’s a linear process, focusing on attracting and nurturing leads until they make a purchase.
On the other hand, the flywheel method takes a circular approach, emphasizing inbound marketing and the cultivation of enduring customer relationships. Instead of simply pushing leads through a funnel, this strategy prioritizes attracting, engaging, and delighting prospects, leads, and customers alike. It’s a continuous cycle where the goal isn’t just to make a sale but to create lasting customer satisfaction and loyalty.
In the flywheel model, the journey doesn’t end when a lead becomes a customer. Instead, the focus shifts to retaining them by consistently providing exceptional experiences, valuable content, and potentially new products or services. The flywheel keeps spinning as the company continually works on attracting, engaging, and delighting customers, fostering a cycle of sustained growth and satisfaction. As a fCMO, I help my clients navigate these methodologies, tailoring strategies that align with their unique goals and values, ultimately driving success in their go-to-market endeavors.
Step 7: Build a Sales Strategy
Depending on your business model, product, and audience, we architect the optimal sales approach – whether self-serve e-commerce, inside sales, field sales, channel sales, or a hybrid model – to best convert prospects into paying customers.
Step 8: Set Measurable Goals
We develop clear launch objectives, KPIs, and metrics aligned to your targets to define success and allow agile tracking of progress throughout launch execution and beyond into ongoing optimization.
Step 9: Create Clear Processes
Finally, we document strategies, plans, and processes in detail so you can repeatedly execute effective product launches at scale as your company grows.
Step 10: Monitor Ongoing Execution
Post-launch, we establish processes to monitor execution and performance on a set cadence. This allows us to course-correct in real-time if KPIs are missed and apply learnings to future launches.
At aidigitalprofits, our fractional CMOs become trusted members of your team throughout the strategy development and execution process to ensure your GTM delivers measurable results.
Let’s connect to explore how we can architect your next winning product launch together.