Create an Effective Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy Template (Or Use Ours)

‍Every year, tons of products are introduced into the market. But many fade away just as fast as they appear. This exact scenario is what every business works so hard to avoid.

‍That’s one of the reasons why (almost) every successful company out there invests lots of time and resources into creating go-to-market strategy templates. In fact, this is a must for many before they introduce their new product, launch a serious update, or enter a new market.

‍But here’s the thing – while GTM frameworks can help with market penetration and revenue increase, the wrong ones can be a drain.

‍So, how do you make sure yours will actually help you achieve your goals?

‍Now, that’s a great question. And this is exactly what we want to share with you in this guide. Besides, of course, we’ve prepared a GTM template you can just use.

‍You can view a go-to-market strategy template as a map. Why so? If you think about it, it totally makes sense, as it helps your marketing and sales teams understand how they can reach and connect with the target customers without any guesswork.

‍It breaks down any complex launch into an easy step-by-step process that just makes everything more organized. Your people simply know what information they need to add and where to add it.

‍Having one means improving the chances of your offering aligning with the needs of your target market. Needless to say, this directly affects your product’s success.

‍Of course, you can create your strategy without any framework. But having one helps you:

• Minimize the chances of product failure. That’s because it’s hard to forget anything when you have a detailed framework. So, you’ve basically planned ahead for your market entry, and you’ve already made provisions for challenges that you anticipated.
• Increase success rates. The companies that are using this kind of template are actually more likely to meet their revenue target. Why? Because they clearly see what they’re doing.
• Maintain a consistent experience. Having frameworks helps you create the same consistent customer experience across all your marketing channels. From the messaging to the ongoing support – during all stages of the buyer’s journey, clients see your brand.
• Set clear goals. A GTM strategy ensures that all your team and resources are aligned towards a common goal, and the company’s business objectives are clear. And a framework simply speeds up the product launch process and reduces waste.
• Control your messaging more easily. When you don’t have to think about the structure, you can focus on the right message to connect with the right audience. As a result, you have more time and clear steps to analyze your positioning.
• Focus on your unique features without stressing too much. A big part of any template is helping you concentrate on your unique value proposition. This makes your offering appeal to your target customers, giving you a competitive advantage.
• Make scaling less painful. A GTM strategy template gives you a repeatable process that you can adjust later for future launches and expansions. This saves you the stress of starting from scratch, and you can work more efficiently.

‍All in all, it is more accurate to think of this framework as the foundation of a plan that turns ideas into a successful launch.

‍It combines all the elements you will need, including your teams, the product development process, and all the resources. It unifies them to achieve the common goal and succeed.

‍After all, you have everything in one place, from the idea and distribution channels to sales strategy and risk management. That’s why having a detailed framework gives you peace of mind, as you know exactly what to do without spending much time organizing all those insights.

‍Yet, even if several companies use the same framework, they’ll end up with different documents.

‍That’s because you can adjust the structure and content as much as you need. So, don’t hold yourself back. Include everything you think makes sense. Whether you want to add to-do lists for every team member or specify what backlinks and media mentions you want to purchase.

‍Everything works as long as you understand why you need it.

‍But what are the essentials that should go into your go-to-market template? That’s what we will talk about next.

‍So, if you are ready for your product launch, you probably know that to pull that off, you will need a go-to-market plan that covers all the basics. One that helps you merge the line between strategy and realization, making it easy for you to coordinate everyone and everything.

‍Well, here’s what should be on that plan:

#1 Clearly Defined Problem of Your Target Customers

‍You want a framework that reflects the reality of your target market. That’s why the very first step for any launch is to understand the genuine user problems your product/service is supposed to solve.

‍Source: Hubspot

‍This is the only way you’ll be able to know if your offering fits your target market or if you need to go back and rework it.

‍We’ve added this as a separate section simply because the first step you need to make before introducing anything to the market is to know whether it’ll be useful for your target audience. That’s why this should be at the very beginning of your framework.

#2 Target Market Research

‍A big part of your go-to-market plan template is focusing on who your product is for, rather than the product itself.

‍So, of course, you have to know the people your offering is designed for. This is where market research comes in. It is an absolute must to come up with realistic customer segments.

‍Thanks to this process, you get to discover the individuals who make up your target market, how and where they shop, what they need, why they need it, and when they need it.

‍Ideally, you want to develop clear buyer personas and your ideal customer profile (ICP) here.

‍What’s the difference between the two?

‍ICP

‍The ideal customer profile (ICP) gives you a more detailed look at the companies or a customer segment your product/service is designed for. That means your ideal clients. This is a more generic profile that includes info on:

• Industry,
• Company size,
• Location,
• Technologies used.
• Specific pain points, etc.

‍Source: The Smarketers

‍Buyer Persona

‍The buyer persona is a more specific portrait (like a decision maker) with their human headaches and issues. So, here, you want to paint a clear picture of the exact person you’re targeting with your messaging.

‍It’s useful to get the details from your already existing customer base, focusing on behaviours and emotions:

• Demographics,
• Motivations,
• Challenges,
• Triggers,
• Preferences,
• What their decision-making process looks like, etc.

‍Source: Social Media Today

‍These profiles help you understand your target audience’s buying process and what triggers their buying impulse.

‍Of course, the ICP and buyer persona will look different depending on whether you are a B2B or a B2C:

• For example, a B2B buyer persona and ICP will likely include info like company size, annual revenue, and decision-making processes.
• On the flip side, the B2C will probably cover age, income, lifestyle, etc.

‍Still, whether you’re in the B2C industry or the B2B niche, having both is essential for a successful product launch.

#3 Your Messaging and Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

‍Your go-to-market plan template should also clearly highlight how your product/service is different from your competitors.

‍YBesides, you have to show how it solves the customer’s problems better than other alternatives out there. This is what helps you stand out in a saturated market.

‍YThis could be the fact that your company invests in social causes, unlike your competitors. Or your value proposition could be that you use only ethically sourced materials for your products.

‍YFor example, Apple prides itself on being the most innovative and user-friendly ecosystem with seamless integration.

‍Source: Marketing Babylon

‍On the other hand, Lululemon is all about feeling good and free while becoming a better version of yourself.

‍Source: YouTube

‍So, your UVP could be anything. Maybe your pricing strategy offers a more affordable option without compromising quality. Ot maybe it’s the fact that your products do not add to the carbon footprint, and you’re working to eliminate unnecessary waste.

‍Part of coming up with a winning GTM strategy is also defining your brand’s core marketing messages. This will highlight your:

• Brand promise,
• Key benefits,
• What your main values are.

‍Plus, you’ll need to explain how you intend to generate demand and keep the customers moving down through the sales funnel.

‍This way, you end up with consistent messaging across all your marketing channels and all your marketing materials.

‍Source: LinkedIn

#4 Competitive Analysis

‍Apart from understanding how your offering compares to the one your competition has, you want to know more about your rivals.

‍Ideally, try to analyze both direct and indirect competitors and include them in your GTM plan template. Don’t know where or how to start? We got you. We’ve created a list of all the tools and strategies for competitor analysis to make it easier for you.

‍But one thing – don’t just try to learn who they are. Instead, explore their strengths, positioning, promotional tactics, market strategy, and anything else you can.

‍Source: Bplans

‍Why does this matter? Well, the more you know about other players, the easier it will be for you to position your brand in the best way. After good research, you’ll be able to see what gaps they are not filling and leverage that as an opportunity to gain an edge.

‍So, your plan needs to clearly outline how your team can quickly spot the competitors and their tactics, whether it’s an old or a new market.

#5 Business Objectives & KPIs

‍Your business goals and metrics that measure how well you’re reaching those objectives are essential for your GTM plan. You have to clearly understand what you want to achieve with your launch and how you can know that you are on track.

‍A quite typical approach is to set KPIs for your marketing, sales, and customer support teams according to your goals. You can specify all these metrics in your template as well.

‍Often, many choose the same ones for all the launches to clearly see what offerings are the most successful.

#6 Customer Journey and Sales Strategy

‍Your strategy framework should also include guidelines to map out all the customer journey stages, like:

1. Awareness
2. Consideration
3. Decision
4. Purchase
5. Post-sale

‍For each of these, you should have key touchpoints and their motivations. But more than just mapping out the buyer’s journey, you want to include guidelines on how your sales reps can match their marketing efforts and sales strategy to each stage effectively.

‍It should also include the various marketing and sales channels that they can use to reach their potential customers. This could be social media platforms, blogs, emails, etc.

‍Ideally, here, you want to include:

• Examples of buyer behavior at each stage;
• Clear sales actions for your team;
• Content that your sales reps can use;
• People responsible for each step.

‍But more than anything, your GTM strategy template is not complete unless it highlights one important fact.

‍All marketing and sales efforts must provide a consistent, seamless customer experience. It is that constant hassle-free impression that helps you retain existing buyers.

‍This allows you to build loyalty, which leads to more people spreading the word about your brand and helping you attract clients over and over again.

‍One of the brands that has perfected this hack is HubSpot. They have mastered the art of matching their marketing content to each stage of the sales funnel:

• Those in the awareness stage get free blog content.
• By the time you go further along the funnel, you get free reports, tools, and courses.
• All that warms you enough to get the paid software.

‍Source: HubSpot

#7 Pricing Strategy

‍Every go-to-market template has a pricing model for the product/service that is about to be launched. This should not just state a random price but also include the perceived value of your offering, competitive pricing, and answers to questions like:

• Are you using a tiered pricing model?
• Do you go for the lifetime subscription option?
• Is there a discount?

‍You want to indicate all that in this section of your framework. Whatever you do, make sure that your pricing reflects market reality and isn’t just made up based on an internal memo or your expenses.

‍Source: Zapier

#8 Product Launch Plan

‍This step is where you lay out your launch events as well as pre- and post-launch strategies. This includes the ads, emails, any gatherings, content, etc. Planning this step is necessary if you want a successful launch.

‍What this section looks like will depend on your budget and capacity in terms of resources.

‍Some companies decide to start with gradual rollouts to a smaller audience first instead of one huge launch event. One advantage of this is that it allows you to closely monitor performance and address issues on time.

‍This way, you end up with a plan that allows you to finesse the final product to meet real market needs. Plus, you have a better chance of getting launch strategies that are scalable as needed.

‍Source: Gembah

‍How do you measure the success of your plan afterwards?

‍That’s what key performance indicators are for. This can be anything: the number of demo bookings, recurring revenue, sales conversion rates, churn rates, return on ad spend, etc.

‍Monitor everything that helps you keep track of how well your marketing plan is working.

#9 Distribution of Resources & Marketing Channels

‍Your go-to-market process should show a cross-functional team arrangement, from project management and sales to finance and customer success stories.

‍Besides, your framework should identify the key resources needed to successfully launch your product/service. Think of things like budget, technology, personnel, and so on. The idea of this whole document is to make it clear who is responsible for what.

‍Well, you shouldn’t just list the resources you need to bring the product/service to market. It should also indicate why you need each of these resources.

‍When it comes to marketing channels, many businesses spread themselves too thin trying to target everyone through every platform. But more often than not, it doesn’t work. And a decent template can help you avoid that because you’ll have a clear view of your goals and resources.

‍Source: Marketing Minds

#10 Timeline

‍By now, you have your marketing goals, customer segmentation, competition analysis, and messaging figured out, but that’s not all. You have to make sure your team knows what happens when.

‍Any effective product marketing template needs to show a clear timeline for your launch plans. This could cover a few weeks, months, or even years – everything depends on your scale.

‍Either way, you’ll need to add the milestones for your marketing campaigns and sales efforts. This will help keep you and your team on track till the project is completed.

#11 Risk Management

‍Things can go wrong at any time. We all know that.

‍But in order for this not to turn into a disaster, you want to be prepared. In fact, as prepared as you can.

‍Source: Brain Kraft

‍So, start by spotting potential issues that could pose a risk to your go-to-market strategy and further product development. Then, list all those challenges (even if minor) and think about how you could tackle them. Having a backup plan here is a must.

The effective go-to-market strategy templates do not come about by accident. They are always the work of a carefully planned system that balances practicality with thoroughness. The best part is that it makes even the most complex process easy to understand and execute.

So, how can you do this well? Here are our top tips:

#1 Get the Foundations Sorted Right

This part is very important. Just like you wouldn’t build a house on a bad foundation, your framework must start with a strategic basis. Otherwise, everything else goes wrong.

So, how to do this?

Make sure you’ve clearly defined your marketing objectives. You might also need to research whether this particular launch supports your market expansion efforts, revenue growth strategy, or whatever your bigger business goals are.

For instance, are you…

• Entering a new market?
• Launching a new product to new customer segments or existing clients?
• Doing a brand makeover?

Deciding on your priorities at the very beginning helps you align your template with your business goals without too much hassle.

You will also need to consider market timing. What is the competitive landscape like? How about your resources or budget – got enough? Once you have these issues sorted out, the next steps become easier.

#2 Carry Out Thorough Market Research

We’ve already discussed the importance of thorough market research, so you can’t skip this part. You want to look at the data you have and what it tells you about:

• The market size in your industry,
• The latest growth trends,
• The competitive landscape,
• Customer behavior patterns,
• Buyer journey,
• The key decision-making factors that affect your buyers,
• The market saturation levels,
• The opportunities for new innovative products/services.

Why is all this information important?

The more you know, the better your planning process will be. Besides, when you are in a niche with cut-throat competition, it’s harder to succeed. Simply having the best product features or the lowest price is not always enough.

Usually, what helps to stand out is being able to find gaps that are not being filled, or somehow outranking everyone else in providing a better customer experience.

This is how you improve your brand loyalty and get better returns on your sales efforts.

For instance, Notion understands that a large part of its users are students who are tight on cash (and not just enterprises). So, they created a freemium pricing model to appeal to people who are price-sensitive and added special offers for students.

‍Source: Notion

‍This helps them build trust. Eventually, these customer segments finish school and go on to become professionals who then transition to the more expensive tiers.

‍Maybe they even become the decisio- makers in their workplaces. If that’s the case, choosing Notion for them will be easy. After all, they’ve been working with it for years.

‍So, often your market research can help you build a solid foundation for your brand for years to come.

#3 You Have to Know Your Customer

‍Okay, so you probably know the term KYC – this stands for Know Your Customer. Most likely, you’ve seen it used somewhere in the finance industry. But really, everyone, even a small business, can benefit from this approach.

‍Whether you want high sales volume or more visibility, if you take the time to know who your clients are, you can achieve that.

‍Of course, when it comes to sales and marketing, you won’t ask your audience to fill out some random form with their personal details like a bank would.

‍Instead, what you want to do is look at your data about your existing clients and then, based on that and your market research, create your buyer personas.

‍Try to go beyond the basic information, such as age, income level, location, and include more nuanced details about:

• Their behavior,
• Customer loyalty patterns,
• How sensitive they are to prices,
• Their preferred communication channels,
• What kind of messages they respond to,
• Specific use cases where your product/service might fit into their life,
• What kind of technology they prefer to use.

‍Source: Hop Rocks

‍Understanding these details can help you come up with a comprehensive go-to-market plan. Besides, you will be able to craft marketing messages that have the best impact and shorten the sales cycle.

‍It’s a great way to help your sales team know exactly what marketing channels to use to ensure they can reach your target audience. So, if you want to have your sales reps and your clients on the same page, don’t skip this step.

‍After all, any successful business model starts with great customer research.

#4 Use an All Hands on Deck Approach

‍It’s a big mistake to leave everything to your sales alone.

‍A better approach would be to make sure that the entire team is involved. Well, at least, you want to collaborate with marketing, customer support, customer success, and the product team. At least.

‍When different deps work together, it becomes easier for them to share what they learn about your clients. This insight will help you build a better picture of what your buyers need throughout the different stages of the sales cycle.

‍This is the first step to a so-called consistent customer experience. Ideally, you want to reach a moment when every point of interaction, from your Instagram post to a customer support chat, will “scream” your brand.

‍Here is a real-life example of how you can organize your collaboration:

1. Your CS team can collect customer feedback that can help you improve your product/service.
2. Your product team can launch an update or release a new version of an item based on that input.
3. And then, based on this improvement, the marketing team can craft content that highlights these new bug fixes or features and how they show your ability to listen to your clients.

‍Why is this important?

‍For one, you show that you care, which is already more than most do. Besides, you’ll end up with a better sales model that improves demand generation. And, of course, you’ll lower customer acquisition costs if there is a positive word of mouth about you.

#5 Make Sure Your Plan Is Measurable and Scalable

‍We’ve already mentioned some of the metrics that you can use in your GTM strategy for tracking performance. Most likely, you already know what KPIs to keep an eye on. And probably, you are already doing that.

‍This is cool, but there is one thing you want to consider – your metrics should balance each other, and you have to align different teams (yes, again).

‍For example, imagine that the traffic is high, but the customer acquisition rate is reducing instead of increasing. Then that means that something is wrong somewhere.

‍And your task is to find the issue, not just say that someone isn’t meeting their KPIs.

‍You have to quickly find out what the problem is and fix it ASAP. For this, you need a clear process of how you tweak things and who is responsible for what.

‍While you’re measuring your performance and looking for ways to improve it, you also want to make sure that your template is reusable for any future launches. Take note of what works in your current version and what needs to be tweaked.

‍This will help you adjust and improve the present framework so it matches current market realities and your business goals.

With us so far? Awesome! There are so many useful marketing templates out there for all kinds of use cases, so you’ll probably find tons of GTM ones as well. Still, the many choices can easily overwhelm you. So, we have some good news for you.

To save you the hassle of starting your own frameworks from scratch, we’ve created a go-to-market strategy example in PDF and Word formats that you can easily download and customize with just a few clicks.

Use it as you like. We have only one suggestion – make it a teamwork to hear and note the input from different departments.

(Download your framework here)

PDF link & Docs link

It takes a lot of planning, research, sweat, and tweaks to come up with a perfect go-to-market plan template. We have shared our best tips to help you create one that gives you the edge in your niche and makes your product stand out.

You can check our framework first and take it from there. Tweaking a document a bit is much easier than structuring it all from scratch.

It’s true that Rome was not built in a day, but if you follow our expert process, you will be able to make sure your product launch is a success.