Developing a go-to-market strategy is essential for the success of B2B companies. It helps you position your product or service to the right audience and plan the best way to reach the target. The quality of your product is not everything! 

The go-to-market strategy brings together all the key elements of your business: sales, distribution, costs, awareness, competition, etc. It helps you build a strategic action plan to reach your target and face the competition. It is therefore essential to draw it up before setting up your prospecting actions, so that they are effective.

What is a go-to-market strategy?

The go-to-market strategy is a plan allowing companies to shape their sales message and brand image to their target audience. It can play a key role in a company’s ability to close new deals in a reliable and sustainable way. This strategy is therefore essential for all companies seeking to grow and differentiate themselves from their competitors.

It usually consists of a study of its market and potential customers, a sales or marketing action plan, the sales pitch and performance objectives. Before developing a go-to-market strategy, it is therefore essential to create an Ideal Customer Profile, in order to get to know your potential buyers as well as possible and to create a targeted and coherent strategy.

How to build your go-to-market strategy?

As mentioned earlier, the B2B go-to-market strategy consists of five essential elements, from which arise these five building blocks:

Identify your market

Before you start, it is important to understand how your market is structured, who your competitors are and where your business fits in. Competitive research will help you to identify the main players in your market, and to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.

This research will allow you to identify areas of your market that are not being addressed by your competitors. These will become the pain points that your product or solution will solve. 

To carry out this analysis, we advise you to use an analysis tool such as the S.W.O.T. (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to help you clearly identify the actions you need to put in place. 

Identify your audience

The second key step in building your go-to-market strategy is knowing your ideal customer. As we have seen in previous articles, créer son Buyer Persona is an important step to better target your product and messaging. 

The B2B market is extremely competitive. In order to compete, it is therefore essential to know your potential customers inside out, thanks to a detailed analysis of the people involved in the buying process. It is not only important to define your target group, in order to adapt your sales pitch and actions, but also to determine your positioning and your offer. 

Determine your positioning and offer

Understanding the key features and benefits of your product or service is an asset in successfully positioning yourself in your market. Determining your positioning in relation to your competitors and what makes your brand stand out can guide the creation of your business development strategy.

It is important to always keep your Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Persona in mind when determining your positioning, to ensure that each of these elements is a direct representation of what you have identified about your potential customers’ behaviour.

Identify your KPIs and key performance indicators

These are the measures that will be used to identify the success of your go-to-market strategy. They should be aligned with your sales objectives. For a product launch, for example, an important indicator is conversions (which indicate that a purchase has been made).

Monitoring your key performance indicators will help you to assess how your market entry is performing against your objectives, and will highlight areas where there is still room for improvement. 

Select your sales channels

If your message is perfect but you use the wrong sales channels to market your product, you won’t generate as much attention as expected. In B2B, the most recommended channel for your go-to-market strategy is sales prospecting. This model allows you to go directly to the prospects you are interested in and engage in a privileged discussion with them. 

To sum up, working on your go-to-market strategy is an essential step before you launch. This strategy will need to be reviewed and adjusted as your products and services develop, so that your strategy for approaching the B2B market evolves according to your needs.

The go-to-market strategy is a long-term strategy that creates the foundations for your company’s development. It needs thorough analysis and planning to ensure that your company achieves its development and performance goals.

Visit our blog to learn more on topics such as business development, sales and cold calling, and find out how to help your business grow! Make sure to check out our use cases to see what B2B technology companies have achieved through business development with Suxeed. 

Any questions on the topic? Need to know more? Write to our CEO Ephraïm Bismuth to find out how to adapt the business development model to your company!