A product go-to-market strategy is a step-by-step plan designed to successfully launch a new product or service or enter a new market. This comprehensive process requires careful analysis of target markets, competitor products, target customers and financial restrictions. To move from concept to commercialization, an effective product go-to-market strategy should go through four distinct stages:

  1. Product and Market Analysis: Understand market needs, preferences and trends.
  2. Mapping the Buyer’s Journey: Outline the stages of customer engagement.
  3. Marketing and Sales Channels: Create effective sales channel distribution strategies and marketing campaigns.
  4. Goals and Results: Define the objectives and results to qualify a successful launch.

Product & Market Analysis: The Cornerstone of Success

A detailed product and market analysis is the most crucial step in the product journey. This involves identifying pain points, building buyer personas and defining the target market by assessing the following:

  • Problem Identification: Determine the problem your product or service aims to solve with a unique value proposition.
  • Customer Profiling: Create an ideal customer profile that includes geography, demographics, budget, pain points and customer needs.
  • Industry Analysis: Research the industry landscape, competitors, market trends and growth opportunities for your solution.
  • Market Research: Discover barriers to growth, common marketing tactics, geographical preferences and industry restrictions for your proposed market.
  • Cost Analysis: Assess revenue expectations and production costs necessary to turn a profit.
  • Pricing Strategy & Business Model: Determine the value of the product or service and develop a pricing strategy that aligns with overall business objectives.
  • Supply Chain and Logistics: Determine the bandwidth required of teams and resources that will be supporting the launch. This includes the production, distribution and inventory management of the product.
  • Risk Analysis & Mitigation Strategies: Conduct a risk analysis for new market entry to ensure mitigation strategies are in place.

This process sets the stage for a successful product launch. The data and information from which allows organizations to anticipate competitive shifts, prevent target missteps, alter the go-to-market timeline, modify product/service positioning and avoid regulatory pitfalls.

Mapping the Buyer’s Journey: Visualizing the Funnel

After executing the market analysis, the next step is to utilize that information to map the buyer’s journey and define key messaging, which will inform the product marketing strategy.

The first step to mapping the buyer’s journey is to create a value matrix for target customers. A value matrix outlines the problems and product benefits relevant to customers in the following areas:

  • Pain Points: Primary challenges and problems target customers are facing.
  • Product Benefits: Specific benefits customers will gain by using the product.
  • Key Messages: Notable product features that connect to the buyer’s problem.
  • Competitor Differentiators: Unique product attributes and qualities that are distinct from competitor offerings.

After building a value matrix, additional marketing materials can be created, like value propositions, messaging guidelines and content templates. These materials will correspond to the buyer’s journey and are also an integral part of the product marketing strategy. The journey is best visualized as a funnel:

  • Top of the funnel: Buyers are made aware of the product and how it can act as a solution to their problems by capturing their attention through an effective value proposition and marketing strategy.
  • Middle of the funnel: Customers compare the presented product against competitors’; it should ultimately demonstrate why the product being offered is the best choice.
  • Bottom of the funnel: Close customers on purchasing the product as part of their decision-making process.

With the buyer’s journey established, it’s time to build the sales and marketing strategies for the product.

Marketing and Sales Channels: Bringing the Product to Market

This phase is critical in creating awareness, generating demand and driving sales of the product. With effective marketing and sales, teams can identify potential customers and produce user-specific content to gather better leads. To get started, the following should be considered:

  • Channel Selection: Identify suitable sales channels for distributing the product based on target market data.
  • Website Development: Create a website that establishes brand trust by offering product resources to facilitate transactions.
  • Marketing Campaigns: Develop a multi-channel marketing strategy that includes social media, email marketing, content marketing, influencer partnerships, launch events and traditional advertising formats.
  • Sales Training and Support: Provide sales teams and retailers with product information and marketing materials to help promote and sell the product.
  • Customer Support Infrastructure: Set up a responsive and reliable system to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty with solutions, including a formal help desk and customer relationship management platforms.

These strategies should be combined to match the unique product being created and target customers relevant to the industry and business model.

Goals and Results: Defining Key Objectives and Establishing Benchmarks

Clear timelines and specific objectives should be defined to ensure teams stay on track. These will also be used to determine the success of the go-to-market strategy. Here are a few different frameworks for setting measurable goals:

  • SMART goals: This stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. These goals are clear and precise, and timeframes are used to gauge progress and to ensure efforts align with the product’s long-term success.
  • Key Performance Indicators: These are quantifiable metrics for tracking the progress of business objectives. Teams should track these specific metrics within a larger goals framework for clarity and visibility.
  • Objectives and Key Results: This involves matching an objective with a result, i.e., “[Objective] measured by [key result].” This allows teams to create direct measurements of achieved results.

By creating these goal frameworks, businesses will have a clearer picture of the product launch’s success and areas for improvement. These metrics will set clear goalposts for growth and highlight areas for improvement during expansion.

Every successful go-to-market campaign is built on a foundation of planning and research. These steps will not only enable a business to craft exceptional customer experiences and standardize future go-to-market activities but also plan for growth and setbacks throughout the product lifecycle.

With these four steps, any team can build a foundational framework to target a specific audience, set goals and build effective processes for an incredible product launch.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. How do I identify the right sales channels?
    Channels which already provide your service or product are a good place to start. Ensuring the niche your product fills isn’t complex or difficult to maintain is ideal for an initial launch.
  1. What kind of metrics should I track?
    For most businesses, metrics like turnover rate, response rates and time-on-page work for web-based metrics. In regards to content, total number of views, increases in followers, downloads and shares are good metrics to track.
  2. Which marketing channels are the best for me?
    For services, focus on building trust with customers and demonstrate the reliability of the service. For products, choose tactics involving demonstrations and explanations of specific features.
  1. What are the first steps to begin conducting a market analysis?
    Identify your competitors, customer interests and common pain points, then narrow your research within these parameters until you have a comprehensive view of your chosen market.
  1. How do I track customers in my sales funnel?
    Metrics and customer relationship management (CRM) tools are an easy place to start. The data provided will allow your team to determine how and when potential customers are engaging; create a plan to ensure continued interest.

How MorganFranklin Consulting Can Help

If your organization is looking to build an effective go-to-market strategy, MorganFranklin Consulting can help. We have extensive experience in optimizing retail plans and creatively solve for the challenges we work with our clients on. Rather than recommending form-fitting solutions to a standard industry process flow, our experts ask questions to understand your product’s current state and desired future state. This allows us to go beyond technology to ensure data, people and processes are uniquely considered when delivering solutions that drive real results.

To learn more, or to schedule a call with one of our subject matter experts, go to www.morganfranklin.com/contact.

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