Module 4: Go to market strategy

With the problem and the solution defined and early validation of problem-solution fit established, you are ready to think about your go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Simply put, this is the process with which you will bring your product or service to end customers. You will find that the process of developing your GTM strategy closely mirrors how you develop great solutions via design thinking or user-centered design: You have to start with humans.

The difference here is that rather than only talking to end users, you need to find and build knowledge about ALL of the stakeholders who are involved in making a purchase decision for your product or service. In this module we will cover the following key topics.

  • Buyer personas and the buying process: We will explain how you might map and build personas for each of the stakeholders involved in the buying process.
  • Funnel metrics and growth hacking: We will discuss the sales funnel and explore options for awareness generation & the use of data to drive sales.
  • Channel strategy & GTM: We will pull it all together and show you how to develop a go to market strategy for your venture.

 

Stakeholder Mapping & Buyer personas:

For most products and services, there are multiple people involved in the “buy” decision. For consumer products, the economic buyer is often the same as the end user. This simplifies things to some extent – and yet, there are usually other people involved who influence the decision making process of the economic buyer. For B2B, it gets complicated since the economic buyer is almost never the same as the end user and there are often 6 or 7 personas involved, with a relatively more complex buying process. In this section, we will start with mapping the stakeholders and building buyer personas – which follows a similar process as primary market research for product development, but the focus is on the buying process, not the way the end user uses the product.

 

Buying process & customer journey map

Once you understand the buyer personas / decision making unit (DMU), you will need to map the buying process for your product or service around the economic buyer. There are several stages in the buying process, starting with the economic buyer and/or end user realizing that they have an unmet need. They then start exploring options. They find a few, and they may test them out for a period of time. If one of the solution works, they will pay – converting to a paying customer.  If they love the solution they may buy more options and tell their friends. Mapping this process for your specific business is key, since it then gives you a roadmap to focus your sales efforts every step of the way.

Sales process & growth hacking

Thus far we have been mapping the customer’s journey and the buying process or decision making process (DMP).  This is a pre-requisite to developing a sales process designed to reach your economic buyers, champions, end users and other stakeholders within the window of opportunity during which they are searching for solutions and are open to considering your solution as an alternative.  With that data in hand you are ready to develop a sales process. In this section we will discuss best practices for awareness generation, developing effective ways to track prospective customers as they move through your sales funnel, and using data to optimize your funnel to increase sales.

Channel strategy

Sales channels can be direct (meaning that your customers contact your company to buy your solution – for example, you may sell product directly on your company’s website) and indirect (meaning that your customers contact a third party reseller / distribution partner to buy your solution – for example, you may sell product on Amazon who serves as your online e-tailer).

Generally, as a startup, direct sales gives you more data to work with in the early days of selling to customers and as non-scalable as it is, it is worth doing for data collection. Over time, however, you will need to consider the suitability of the channel according to your venture type, business model and price point – all topics that we will cover in the next post.

GTM strategy

With all the pieces in place you are finally ready to put together a go to market strategy. You will need to integrate everything you know about your venture to date: Market segmentation and beachhead selection; end user personas and their needs and wants; a differentiated solution that solves those problems; your unique value proposition and competitive advantage; a deep understanding about your buyer personas and the buying process; and your sales funnel and channel options. You will develop a go to market strategy that integrates all of the above that will guide you as you choose specific channels, generate leads and nurture them into paying customers.

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