Some reduce the Go-To-Market to a simple marketing question. That’s a big mistake! It's a strategy that requires a lot of thinking before the official launch of a product or service. In this article, discover how to create a launch strategy for a successful market entry.
In a Go-To-Market strategy, it's important to distinguish between two things: Product release and Product launch. It's a strategy where you need to take the time to think about a well-targeted audience, a precise marketing strategy, and a plan for all the content that will maximize the impact of the launch.
I - Identifying the relevance of the launch
II - Defining objectives and associated metrics
III - Identifying the target audience
IV - Defining the storytelling: Crafting the right message
V - Co-building a plan with business teams
VII - Monitoring the launch in the market
I. Identifying the relevance of the launch
Before spending money without confidence in the new product of service performance, it's essential to determine if it's really necessary to create a launch strategy. To decide on the relevance of market entry, ask yourself about the potential business impact: Does it align with the overall company strategy? Or, is it the right timing based on the needs of the target market?
Prioritization is also important: Some launches may be urgent due to their immediate impact on revenue or growth, while others may be planned for the longer term.
II. Defining objectives and associated metrics
A GTM strategy implies asking yourself 1000 questions at once! But the important one here is ‘why was this product designed?' To capture a new market? Strengthen your position? Retention, acquisition, or upsell? Whatever your goals are, it's important to make them measurable.
Then you need to identify the metrics associated with each objective to effectively evaluate the performance of your product launch and adjust your strategy if necessary.
III. Identifying the target audience
The product or service you're launching may not relate to the entire market! This is where thinking about a detailed profile of the ideal customer is important. This will help you personalize your communication and effectively target your market.
If you're unsure about your messages or the communication channels used, then opt for a soft launch! It's a small-scale launch, with less risk, aimed at gathering the latest key insights before a hard launch (the official launch).
IV. Defining the storytelling: Crafting the right message
Storytelling is a key element of the Go-To-Market strategy. What do you want to tell your target audience? What messages will resonate? Create a captivating story around your product or service, highlighting its benefits, uniqueness, and alignment with the needs of the market.
The storytelling must be consistent across all communication channels to reinforce the impact of your message, engage the audience, and differentiate you from competing products and services.
V. Co-building a plan with business teams
Today, we don't want to see siloed strategies anymore. It's important to involve marketing and sales teams from the beginning of the process to identify all opportunities and insights that will enable an impactful launch.
Depending on the business impact of the launch, marketing and sales efforts will vary. Based on the resources these two teams decide to dedicate to the GTM strategy, you can co-build an action plan and define responsibilities.
Once the action plan is drafted, how do you ensure that nothing is overlooked in your Go-To-Market strategy? You MUST prepare a check-list.
VI. Executing the launch
Involving relevant teams
To ensure the effective execution of the various launch tasks and avoid engaging resources unnecessarily, it's important to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each team involved in the launch. The right method? Use the RACI model:
- Responsible: Who is in charge of completing the task?
- Accountable: Who has the authority to validate?
- Consulted: Who can help, provide an opinion, or expertise?
- Informed: Who needs to be kept informed of the task's progress?
Organizing internal training
Preparing the teams involved at the time of product launch is necessary to maximize its impact. To create a training plan, several questions arise: Which teams to train? What content to push? Through which communication channels?
Setting up a Learning Management System (LMS) can facilitate access to training resources, enable feedback collection, and track team progress.
VII. Monitoring the launch in the market
You shouldn't abandon your product once it has been launched! Evaluating performance in real-time allows you to adjust the strategy with the teams if necessary. And it's better to realize this early enough!
For instance, it's interesting to look at the way your users behave towards the first version of your product they interact with. Cohort analysis is a good method for measuring user engagement over time. It facilitates the evaluation of the impacts of changes, anticipation of future behaviors, customization of offers, and segmentation of users according to their common traits.
As you can see, the Go-To-Market strategy is not just a simple marketing question. It's the common denominator between Product and marketing strategies. It must be thought about at the same time as the Product strategy to keep the company's vision in mind and achieve alignment among teams: That's the key to a successful launch strategy!
For more information: Download our Product Management Toolkit
