6 STEPS TO CREATING A GO-TO-MARKET PLAN

Your business plan represents your long-term goals and your strategy for achieving those goals. Your go-to-market strategy describes how you’re going to take your product through its life-cycle.

Step 1: Create Your Business Plan

Creating a business plan isn't something that can (or should) be done alone. Make it a group activity, so everyone on the team is involved and has a voice in the process.

Your business plan begins with your vision statement. Everything that follows is about how you make that vision happen. Typically, you keep your business plan high level, and your team aligns to it by providing details on how they’ll contribute to meeting goals.

Your business plan can take many forms. For example, at Salesforce they create V2MOM.

V2MOM stands for Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures

As Salesforce founder Marc Benioff puts it:

The  vision  helps you define what you want to do. The values established what is most important about that vision; it sets the principles and beliefs that guide it. The  methods  illustrate how you would get the job done by outlining the actions and the steps that everyone needs to take. The  obstacles identify the challenges, problems, and issues you would have to overcome to achieve your vision. Finally, the  measures  specify the actual result you aim to deliver; often this is defined as a numerical outcome.

Step 2: Build a Go-to-Market Plan

Your go-to-market plan helps you with everything from ensuring that you’re building the right product for the right customer, to supporting that product after it’s launched.

There are many templates available online that include some versions such as:

·        Target market segment

·        Key customers attributes

·        Value proposition

·        Product Offering

·        Sales and customer service channels

·        Financial model and budgeting

·        Marketing and awareness plan with a complete sales kit

Step 3: Create Your Value Proposition

How would you like your brand and product to be identified in the market? How does your offering stand out from your competitors? Your value proposition articulates the answers to those questions. Create a simple and straightforward statement that describes what you’re offering to the market. Don’t get too technical — the simpler, the better.

Step 4: Develop a Distribution Strategy

Where will customers go to purchase your offering (brick & mortar) or how will they receive it (online)? And how will you provide customer support to them after they’ve purchased it? The answers to these questions define your distribution strategy.

Step 5: Build and Execute Your Marketing Plan

One of the critical items in your go-to-market strategy is your marketing plan.

·        Create Brand Awareness. This isn't just about the corporate theme or an eye-catching logo. It’s about articulating your value proposition and company vision into sticky words or phrases for your target audience.

·        Build a Marketing Timeline. Your marketing calendar is a great way to organize all the events, campaigns and social activities you want to pursue to get your offering in front of customers.

·        Sales Toolbox: Create a sales kit so that everyone in the organization knows how to engage your customers at different channels, different levels, and events. The toolbox ensures best practices and a consistent message every time.

Step 6: Don’t Forget to Align Your Teams

So many plans to execute, but how are you going to implement them all? If you don't take time to build alignment with your team failure is more likely. Discuss your plans with your team and get their feedback. This practice provides extensive feedback on how to execute those plans.

It’s proven that if you take time to build a strong business and go-to-market plans and create cohesive alignment with your team, you have a better chance of success.

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