What is Go to market (GTM)? + Strategy, Implementation & Measurement

For any B2B business, building an exceptional product is only part of the journey. What is as critical, if not more, is putting it before the right audience and clearly communicating how it addresses their needs, solves their problems effectively, and helps improve their efficiency.

A robust, well-crafted go-to-market strategy is essential for this. Without it, even the best product risks going unnoticed or misunderstood by the target audience.

Why every business needs a go-to-market strategy

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a detailed, action-oriented plan that businesses use to deliver their products or services to the intended audience. It serves as a blueprint for aligning sales and marketing efforts effectively.

For B2B businesses, a robust GTM strategy is critical because every industry and sub-sector is saturated with multiple solutions addressing the same pain points. A clear GTM strategy ensures your product messaging and positioning stand out, your sales efforts target the ideal customer profile, and your product reaches the right audience at the right time.

This guide has been written to give you a masterclass on go-to-market strategy: What is go-to-market strategy, why your business needs it, the benefits of a solid GTM plan, the challenges involved in GTM planning, what all is included in a B2B go-to-market strategy, and how different it is from a marketing strategy, and the steps to create a go-to-market strategy.

What is a Go-to-Market Strategy?

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a step-by-step plan used to launch a product to market or bring a product to a new market, drive awareness about it, and ensure it reaches the target customers. A go-to-market strategy is used to clearly define the target audience, plan the marketing and sales strategy, and align all activities and processes so that the company is able to effectively convey product value to the ideal customers and drive conversions.

The go-to-market strategy for every product and every company will be unique, based on the product, the target market, the ICP, the competitive landscape, and several other such factors. The strategy will clearly identify the market problem and customer pain points, and highlight how the product/company is the ideal solution and why it is better than the alternatives.

Key components of a GTM strategy

At its core, a GTM strategy includes a clear understanding of the ICP and target market, a marketing plan, and a sales plan that includes both outbound sales and inbound sales strategies. It outlines a step-by-step plan to organize and streamline all aspects of presales, sales, marketing, advertising, branding, and customer advocacy.

Product positioning:

This involves clearly defining how your product solves specific pain points for your customers and why your solution is the best fit.

• What problems are you solving? And what features or solutions of yours will deliver wow moments to prospects and customers?
• How does your solution make customers’ work easier and better?
• How do you establish this and communicate it with them in a way that resonates with prospects?

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and target audience:

Not every product is built for every kind of business. It is critical to define who your ICP is and who you are not targeting, so you can channel your go-to-market efforts in the right avenues rather than trying to take the product to a wide audience and water GTM efforts down.

• Which sectors and personas is your product built for? Who will benefit most from the features and functionality of your product?
• What are the common requirements?
• How can we craft messaging and storytelling to reach and engage them effectively?

Competitor benchmarking:

It is as important to understand your competitors’ positioning, and the market scenario overall, so that you can articulate how your product is different from the incumbents and addresses the market needs or gaps. With this understanding, you will be able to highlight where competitors fall short and how your product is better than competitors.

• What are the key weaknesses in competitors and what are customer complaints?
• How is your product better suited for your ICP?
• How will you communicate these differentiators in your sales pitches and marketing messages?

Revenue model and split between inbound and outbound sales:

The GTM strategy should clearly define which sales channels and marketing channels will be used for the GTM process, and what the revenue target for each channel will be. This will include outbound, inbound, Product-Led Growth (PLG), and partnerships or resellers. A good go-to-market strategy will have a breakdown of budgets, resources, priorities, the targets for every channel and how they will be achieved.

GTM strategy vs. general marketing strategy

A go-to-market strategy and a general marketing strategy might seem similar but they’re quite distinct and serve different purposes. A GTM strategy focuses specifically on launching a product, entering a new market, or targeting a specific audience segment. It’s a roadmap drawn up to achieve goals like driving adoption, gaining market share, or generating early revenue.

A general marketing strategy outlines the company’s overall marketing objectives and covers aspects like building brand awareness, creating demand and improving leadgen, and establishing the product value.

A go-to-market strategy is typically created for launching a product, expanding to a new market, or upselling and crossselling products. A marketing plan details how you’ll execute your overall marketing strategy and could go beyond the specific launch.

When Do You Need a Go-to-Market Strategy?

A company requires a go-to-market strategy typically when it is

• Launching a new product in an existing market
• Bringing an existing product to a new market
• Introducing a new product in a new market

In B2B companies, however, the GTM strategy is constantly refreshed and updated because every feature launch requires a go-to-market strategy and because competition and market dynamics are constantly evolving.

• Established businesses need a go-to-market strategy while launching new products or entering new markets with new customer segments.
• Small businesses need it when they begin to scale and go beyond their existing market Businesses of all sizes need an updated GTM strategy while undergoing strategic changes such as mergers, acquisitions, or pivots in product direction business models.
• Companies that are suddenly seeing an increase in competition also need to relook at their GTM strategy and ensure they dont lose their competitive edge.

Types of businesses and teams that benefit from a GTM strategy:

• Product teams, because they can ensure that the product aligns with market needs and is positioned accurately and effectively in the market.
• Sales teams, since they get clarity on the ICP, target personas, sales pitches, playbooks, and channels for outreach.
• Marketing teams, as they can use the go-to-market strategy to craft tailored campaigns and messaging for the specific market or product.

Benefits of a Well-Crafted Go-to-Market Strategy

• Alignment across teams: A go-to-market strategy ensures that marketing, sales, product, and customer success teams are aligned on the product’s positioning, messaging, and goals. The alignment is essential to minimizes confusion, streamlines efforts, and ensure stronger impact
• Faster market entry: A GTM strategy helps optimize the time taken to take the product from finish to the customers’ hands and ensure features are shipped quickly and effectively.
• Improved customer understanding: A good GTM strategy is built on a deep understanding of the customer preferences, and pain points. This eventually helps improve customer engagement and satisfaction.
• Smart resource allocation: A proper GTM strategy is critical to ensure that resources are not spent on the wrong activities. Be it budget, people, or time, knowing where to allocate what resource helps avoid waste.
• Cost savings: Having a clear GTM strategy minimizes unnecessary expenses by identifying how best to get high ROI from the sales and marketing efforts.
• Competitive advantage: By clearly defining how your product stands out, you can establish your differentiation and gain the competitive edge that is required in a crowded market.
• Troubleshooting before launch: Strategizing go-to-market efforts is helpful in also avoiding any gaps or issues that might come up after launch, and help with crisis management in case of issues.

Essential Elements of a Go-to-Market Strategy

The essential elements of a go-to-market strategy refer to the foundational building blocks or key aspects that define the strategic approach. They outline what needs to be addressed to ensure the GTM strategy is comprehensive rather than go into how they will be executed.

• Target audience identification: This includes creating an ICP that outlines the characteristics of the most valuable customers and building out detailed buyer personas that capture their needs, pain points, and processes.
• Value proposition and key messaging: This covers what actually sets your product apart from the rest and why yours is the best solution for your ICP. This has to resonate with prospects, and sets the foundation for all marketing campaigns and sales pitches.
• Marketing and sales alignment: In any B2B business, the marketing team creates demand and generates leads while the sales function handles converting those leads into customers. A GTm strategy is critical in ensuring that there is alignment between the two departments and all efforts are channeled in the same direction. Regular communication and collaboration between these teams is critical.
• Distribution and marketing channels: This refers to the work that goes into defining the best channels to reach the ICP. It covers both the sales channels and marketing channels. An effective go-to-market strategy matches the right channels for each kind of activity.
• Pricing strategy: While the pricing strategy is something that is considered by the C-suite and senior management, it will start be one of the main elements of a go-to-market strategy. It will consider aspects such as the customers’ willingness to pay, competitor pricing, overall cost structure, and market conditions.
• Sales enablement: A GTM strategy should be designed in a manner that it equips the sales team with the tools, resources, and training they need to close deals and convert leads. A go-to-market strategy should include a strong sales enablement program ensures that sales teams are in a position to pitch the product well, establish differentiation from competitors, and personalize outreach.

How to Build a Go-to-Market Strategy: A Step-by-Step Framework

Now that you know the basics, you’re ready to start putting together your go-to-market strategy. Follow the steps below and you will have a solid strategy you can start executing.

Step 1: Identify the problem

As you did when you first started developing your product or company, you need to clearly articulate the problem you’re solving before you draft your go-to-market strategy. The definition of the problem is the foundation of a strong go-to-market strategy.

• Understanding customer pain points: Speak to people across companies and across levels to understand the market, the challenges they face, and the issues they would like a product to address. This will help you build a successful product and hit product-market fit, which indicates how well your product serves a solution to customer pain points.

Researching industry challenges: Alongside first-party research, be sure to study trends, analyze reports, and understand market trends to identify broader problems and forecast future requirements.

Step 2: Define the ICP and target audience

It is important to have a clear understanding of exactly who you will be selling to and who you are building the product for. Within one function or department, there are many personas and many ICP profiles. So simply saying you’ll build a product to solve an account-based marketing problem won’t suffice. It is critical to define the ICP and also define who your product is not for, so your efforts are all channeled in the right direction.

• Ideal customer profile (ICP): This refers to the kind of company you’re building your product for - the size, industry, segment, customer base, etc., and defines your perfect customer. To learn more about how to define your ICP and get a step-by-step framework, read our ICP guide here.
• Buyer personas and segmentation: Once the ICP is defined, it is important to define and flesh out personas to represent specific audience segments in the ICP. Write down a detailed profile of each persona, including firmographics, behavioral traits, role objectives and targets, pain points, etc. Creating buyer personas helps you differentiate between various kinds of people who fall under your ICP and enable you to personalize and tailor your messaging and pitch to every person you reach out to.

Step 3: Conduct competitive and market research

Once you’ve spoken to people in the business/sector you want to be a part of, and you have narrowed down the target audience, you need to look outside at the market and see how and where your company/product would fit it. Understanding the competitive landscape and market conditions will help you with your positioning and messaging, and also give you a sense of the product roadmap you need to have.

• Analyzing competitors: Evaluate direct and indirect competitors’ products, feature sets, pricing models, and their go-to-market strategies.
• Identifying market demand and trends: Spend time speaking to industry analysts and think tanks to understand market demands, to see how the industry has evolved so far, and understand forecasts and projections.

Here are some questions you should have answers to:

• How many direct competitors do you have and how many play in the same market segment?
• Do your competitors target all the buyer personas that you are targeting?
• What about the other products do your ICP customers like and what are the gaps?
• Where is the market headed?
• Where in the market do you fit in?

Step 4: Define your value proposition

By this stage, you should have a clear understanding of the market problem based on interviews with your target audience and ICP. You’ll also have insight into where your competitors stand. Now, compare these findings with your product to identify the sweet spot, which is your value proposition or unique selling point. Your value proposition is the promise of what your product or service delivers and why it matters.

• Clarify what sets your product/service apart: Cover the unique features, benefits, or approaches that you’re taking that makes your product solve the problem better than competitors.
• Mapping to customer pain points: Once the value prop is clear, it is essential to go a step further and clearly articulate how your solution addresses the specific problems of your audience and which feature or functionality addresses which customer pain point.

Step 5: Craft your key messaging

Now that the value prop is defined and framed, it is time to turn that into messages that can be used for the sales pitches and marketing campaigns. This is critical to ensure that the audience clearly knows what they get from your product and how you are different from other players.

• Tailoring the message for different audience segments: Identify and frame the story for each persona to highlight how your product addresses their specific needs. The same product often solves multiple use cases, but the messaging must be tailored for each persona or segment. In your go-to-market strategy, focus on defining a unique narrative for every persona one that resonates with their challenges and clearly demonstrates how your solution meets their requirements.
• Consistent messaging across platforms and teams: Whether it is an ad, an email marketing campaign, a blog, a presales demo, or a sales pitch on a cold call, the messaging should be aligned and standardized. The stories will be different but the underlying message should be common across all GTM processes.

Step 6: Map the buyer’s journey

The focus now shifts entirely on the buyer. You need to now take the time to understand your customer’s buyer journey which refers to the process that a customer goes through from realizing the need to buy a product to actually owning one. This includes multiple steps and stages. A clear view of the buyer’s journey helps you align your efforts and ensure that the customer chooses your product over others.

• Stages of the buyer’s journey: Define each stage of the buyer journey, from awareness, consideration, to decision-making and identify key activities at each stage.
• Aligning marketing and sales efforts at each stage: From the company’s perspective, the customer moves through three stages – top of the funnel (TOFU), middle of the funnel (MOFU), and bottom of the funnel (BOFU). TOFU is when they know they want a product but may not know about your brand. This is where the marketing team plays a major role in creating awareness about the product and brand. MOFU is when the prospective customer weighs your product against competitors and your presales and marketing teams establish the competitive edge and differentiators. BOFU is where customers actually decide whether to purchase the product and take the decision. The buyer journey varies widely between different companies and sectors and it is critical for you to understand the buyer journey of your ICP and your buyer personas.

Step 7: Select marketing channels

Once you have clarity on the buyer journey, you can chart your marketing plan and prioritize the marketing channels based on what works best for your ICP. You will have to decide the marketing channels for every stage of the funnel, and can decide how much budget to allocate for which channel at which stage, and how much revenue targets to assign for each.

For example, content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) content can raise brand awareness among TOFU customers, webinars would be ideal for those in the MOFU, and personalized demos are best suited for those at the bottom of the funnel.

Meet your audience where they are by leveraging the right channels.

• Choose channels based on audience behavior: Make note of where your audience spends their time and engage them where they spend the most time.
• Plan multi-channel campaigns: Ensure you’re engaging your audience across multiple touchpoints.

Step 8: Plan your sales strategy and approach

There are multiple approaches to running your sales programs based on the kind of business you are and. You have to first finalize your sales strategy and then assemble a sales team accordingly.

B2B companies often use a mix of sales and growth strategies; here are some of the most common approaches:

• Outbound sales: This involves roactive outreach to potential customers through cold emails, calls, or social media. This model relies heavily on a well-trained sales team that chases high-potential leads using buying intent signals and prospecting with personalized lead data.
• Inbound sales: This refers to attracting leads organically through content marketing, SEO, webinars, and other demand generation efforts. Most of these would be warm leads as they come to your company rather than you reaching out to them.
• Partnerships and reseller-led sales: This approach focuses on collaborating with other businesses, agencies, or resellers to distribute your product. The partners or affiliates usually handle the sales process and expand your reach faster.
• Product-led growth (PLG): This model focuses entirely on the product, using the features and functionality as the primary driver of growth. While the initial sale often happens through other means, any upselling or expansion happens from the product rather than additional sales efforts.

Once the sales model is set, the execution needs to be outlined.

• Sales team structure: Talent acquisition and the team structure depend largely on the sales model and approach you pick. You will have to accordingly hire the right kind of talent, define roles and responsibilities, and a reporting structure for all team members.
• Sales cycle definition and alignment with marketing: The next step is defining the sales cycle and different stages in the sales process, and enabling every sales rep to execute this efficiently.
• Marketing alignment: The marketing team plays a key role in sales enablement and ensuring that the sales team is equipped with all collateral they need to be successful at every step of the sales cycle.

Define processes and automation

The go-to-market strategy is complex, with many moving parts and many intertwined processes or activities. To ensure that confusion is minimized and that all activities are easily trackable, it is critical to put granular processes in place and provide every member of the GTM team with clarity on the go-to-market strategy. There are two key pieces that you need to tackle at this phase:

• Marketing and sales workflows: This includes clarifying the workflows and processes for every aspect of sales and marketing. This is important because the GTM process is not linear and there are often a lot of overlaps between the activities that the different teams within the sales and marketing function handle.
• Tools for automation and efficiency: The market is rife with tools that help with nearly everything that a GTM team does. The go-to-market strategy should also outline the details about tools like CRM systems, email automation, and analytics platforms that different members of the team might use.

Measure success and iterate

As your go-to-market strategy takes shape, it is important to keep track of the metrics you will use, so you can iterate before the situation gets derailed.

• Setting clear goals: A go-to-market strategy is incomplete without a solid plan for measuring the success of the campaign. Your go-to-market strategy must have team-wise and department-wise goals.
• Post-launch strategy and iterative improvements: The GTM team leadership must periodically and regularly analyze progress and performance, gather feedback, and refine the approach to improve efficiency.

Here are a few common metrics for measuring success of a go-to-market (GTM) strategy:

Customer-focused metrics

• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) which is the total revenue a business can expect from a customer over their entire relationship.
• Customer Retention Rate, the percentage of customers that stay with your company over a specific period, indicating satisfaction and stickiness.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS), which indicates the customer’s likelihood to recommend your product.

Revenue and growth metrics

• Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) or Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), revenue stream from subscriptions.
• Expansion Revenue, the additional revenue from existing customers through upselling or cross-selling.

Efficiency and productivity metrics

• Sales Velocity, indicating how quickly deals move through your sales pipeline to close.
• Time to Productivity which is how quickly new sales hires can contribute to revenue.

Market penetration and engagement metrics

• Market Share: Tracks your product’s position relative to competitors in the target market.
• Engagement Metrics (CTR, Open Rates): Monitors how prospects are engaging with GTM campaigns, like emails or ads.

Pipeline and forecasting metrics

• Lead-to-Opportunity Ratio which shows how effectively leads are converted into sales opportunities.

Types of Go-to-Market Strategies

Go-to-market strategies can vary significantly depending on the size, goals, budgets, and target audience of the business. Startup GTM strategies are more agile while enterprise strategies are broader and more structured.

Startup-focused GTM strategies

Startups often operate with limited resources and smaller budgets, so their go-to-market strategies are designed to make the most within these constraints. A startup’s GTM strategy typically involves:

• Targeting niche markets to build credibility and avoid competition.
• Refining and pivoting the approach based on feedback from customers.
• Optimizing spends and extracting better ROI

Enterprise-focused GTM strategies

Enterprises have larger budgets, more resources and require a more structured GTM strategy covering a wider set of processes.

• Enterprise go-to-market strategies scale their reach across multiple segments while customizing for specific sectors.
• They use data-driven insights from market research and consider market trends while strategizing.
• They clearly define the involvement of all functions such as sales, marketing, revops, and other teams involved in GTM.
• They use SaaS products and other sales and marketing tools to execute the go-to-market strategy.

In addition, you can categorize go-to-market strategy into other types based on the business models, industries, and goals:

• Product-led go-to-market strategy: In this approach, the product is at the centre of the strategy and is popular among SaaS companies and other tech businesses. The focus is on product experience and usability to convert users into paying customers.
• Sales-led go-to-market strategy: The focus here is on sales, specifically outbound sales, often in collaboration with account-based marketing teams. It involves using a dedicated sales team targeting specific high potential customers and driving customer engagement through demos, consultations, or direct outreach.
• Marketing-led go-to-market strategy: Here, marketing drives customer acquisition and engagement through branding, content, and demand-generation campaigns. This would mean focus on inbound leadgen through content marketing, SEO, social media, and paid advertising.
• Partner-led go-to-market strategy: This approach uses partnerships or third-party relationships to drive distribution and sales in collaboration with channel partners, resellers, or affiliates.
• Regional go-to-market strategy: This approach is tailored for businesses expanding into specific geographic regions or markets. The focus is on localization of product, messaging, and sales efforts to suit cultural and regional nuances.

Challenges in Implementing a GTM Strategy (and How to Overcome Them)

Creating a go-to-market strategy involves bringing together multiple moving parts and ensuring that the execution by the different teams involved is smooth and done with as few hitches as possible. It requires extensive research, planning, collaboration, and the flexibility to tweak or iterate if necessary.

Here are some of the commonly reported issues and pitfalls in GTM strategies that might impact how the go-to-market strategy is implemented or executed:

• Many companies fail to define their ideal customer profile (ICP), leading to misaligned messaging and wasted efforts, like launching a product for “everyone” without specifying key segments.
• Lack of alignment among teams as a result of which sales, marketing, and product teams work in silos create inconsistent strategies.
• Skipping competitive analysis or customer insights which results in poor positioning and insufficient differentiation or messaging about the competitive advantage .
• Unclear or generic messaging that fails to resonate and doesn’t accurately convey the power of the product and the value it will add to the target persona.
• Launching at the wrong time or without readiness, which might cause the entire program to fall flat and enable customers to swoop in and grab marketshare.
• Not outlining key metrics to measure the progression and success of the go-to-market strategy.

Here are some tips to avoid pitfalls and challenges with go-to-market strategy

• Use data and customer interviews to create detailed personas and refine them regularly based on market feedback.
• Create shared goals and hold regular syncs between teams to ensure everything is on track and re-strategize if necessary
• Regularly study competitors, industry trends, and customer preferences,
• Focus on customer pain points and A/B test your messaging across channels to find what resonates best.
• Set a timeline with milestones for all launch stages, using pilot programs to test market readiness before a full rollout.

Go-to-Market Strategy Template

• Step-by-step walkthrough of a customizable GTM template
• Downloadable resources

Setting Your Go-to-Market Strategy in Motion

A well-designed go-to-market strategy is only as effective as its execution. Turning plans into action requires precise coordination, continuous monitoring, and the ability to adapt quickly to changes. Here are the two key pillars of executing your go-to-market strategy:

Aligning teams for execution

The process of execution starts with team alignment. Ensure that sales, marketing, and product teams understand their roles and responsibilities, share common goals, and have clear communication channels. define key deliverables for each team and establish regular check-ins to track progress. Using GTM workflow platforms such as Highperformr help streamline workflows and make the process more efficient and easy.

Monitoring and adapting to changes

Even the most accurate and ideal strategies need fine-tuning as time goes by. It is important to regularly track performance metrics like leadgen, response rates, conversion rates, and product adoption. Also keep an eye on market trends and competitor activities to stay ahead of competitors. A good way to do this is to schedule monthly reviews and check-ins and implement changes when necessary.

Conclusion: Ready, Set, Strategize

You’re now fully equipped to start working on the go-to-market strategy for your organization or even your personal business. And when you start executing your GTM strategy, be sure to incorporate the use of platforms like Highperformr to make the process faster, easier, and more efficient. To learn more about how Highperformr helps with implementing your go-to-market strategy, schedule a demo with our experts today!