What are the steps involved to create a successful go-to-market plan?

Question

Morgan Molnar · Accepted Answer

As part of our GTM launch framework & process roll out, we created a GTM strategy & execution plan templates that correspond with different market launch & customer impact tiers. If you nail the GTM strategy, the plan will fall into place if you have the foundational framework.

Here are some of the things that make up a highly effective GTM strategy & plan. You can pretty much tackle each of these in order, starting with aligning on the process goals & timeline, then working on the GTM strategy, which will then inform the launch execution plan.

1) Align on the launch process

* Clear launch goals (and accountability)
 * Launch timeline
 * Roles & responsibilities (we use a DACI model)
 * Success measurement & tracking

2) Develop a focused strategy

* Market & competitive intelligence
 * Ideal customer profile & target personas
 * Product messaging & differentiation (incl. message testing)
 * Product/feature naming
 * Pricing & packaging

3) Collaborate on an effective execution plan

* Product readiness (both in terms of product releases, but also ensuring product-market-fit)
 * Acquisition strategy
 * Campaigns & demand gen programs
 * Sales & success enablement
 * Effective content/collateral
 * Customer advocacy

Amanda Groves · Answer

Define your why:

* Why does this feature/product matter? (value)
 * What use cases does it solve for? (messaging) 
 * How does it compare to the "old way" of doing things? (solution statement)
 * How does it compare to the competition? (competitive differentiator)
 * What does good look like for launch? (KPIs)

Define your audience:

* What personas will benefit from this feature? (audience targeting) 
 * What market segment/industry is it for? (ideal customer profile) 
 * How can my target audience get started? (activation) 
 * What does success look like for them? (implementation)

Product owns the feature up to development complete, while Product Marketing owns market readiness. Use these questions to inform market readiness and intentional, successful launch planning.

Dave Steer · Answer

Great question - you'll see the answer is some of the questions/answers throughout the AMA. I'll add a few other steps:

First, be intentional about the core working group. Go-to-market can be vast, so it's important that you have key functions (sales, customer success, marketing, revenue operations, and more) represented.

Second, align the team on the stage of the business. Sangram Varje and Bryan Brown recently published MOVE: The 4 Question Go-To-Market Framework which offers a maturity assessment of where your company is in its evolution from defining problem-market fit, product-market fit, and platform-market fit.

Third, make sure that your go-to-market strategy is aligned. I recently worked with a coach who helped us develop our market vision (our sense of where the market was headed) and then the company, product, GTM, and operational strategy to respond to the changes that we saw in the market. It was an exercise that helped me sync GTM with the broader company strategy.