Go-to-Market Strategy vs Marketing Strategy: The Difference in Successful Product Commercialization

Most business owners have heard that 90% of startups fail within 3 years. The failure of startups can be due to a wide variety of reasons. But one-way scaling product manufacturer can greatly reduce their chance of being a part of that 90% is with a rock-solid go-to-market strategy. 

Here we will give some insights into what makes a go-to-market strategy unique and how to get started. But if you want to see large-scale commercialization success, reach out to us at Vessel to get the force of our experts behind your product.

Go-to-Market Strategy vs Traditional Marketing Strategies

You must think about your go-to-market (GTM) strategy differently than a general marketing strategy. 

While your company's general marketing strategy should focus on growing the brand over a long period, a GTM strategy is carefully mapped out to focus on introducing your product to a new market or customer base. Your marketing strategy might be guided by principles or long-term goals, it should have a level of flexibility built in to respond to changing audiences or platforms. Whereas your GTM strategy should be a step-by-step guide that is intended for the short term. 

In short, your marketing strategy is your plan of how the brand will keep up with changing times, succeed through new channels, maintain repeat customers and attract a larger audience. Your GTM strategy is hyper-focused on reaching a segmented audience that will be interested in specific products.

Starting a Go-to-Market Strategy

Many product manufacturers bringing a new product to market believe the solution they are proposing should be self-evident to their potential customers. But this is often not the case. Just because we can see it does not mean that buyers can.

That is where a GTM plan comes into play. Your plan should include a framework for how to expose the need to potential customers and position your new product as the ultimate solution. To achieve this successfully, it is important to dedicate time early in the process to researching your prospective customers and understanding how they prefer to be communicated with. 

If you have a game-changing B2B product, then investing a great amount of time into an Instagram page might not be the best tactic. On the other hand, direct mail might be incredibly effective at reaching your target audience even though it’s losing its mainstream popularity. 

We recommend you start your planning and research process with these few questions:

1. What problem does your product solve?
2. What impact does that problem currently have on your target customer?
3. What will solving this problem allow your target customer to achieve?
4. Is this problem significant enough that a solution would be appealing?
5. Is this something that my target customer is asking for?

Once you have answered these questions, then you can confidently say that your solution is worthwhile and that the market is likely ready to embrace it. These 5 questions are just the first steps in a long process of research before you launch your product. 

Go-to-Market Partnering for Success

We believe the best decision a growing product manufacturing company can make is selecting a GTM partner who will position your product for success. A typical marketing agency will not be familiar with the unique challenges and characteristics of launching a new product. Having a partner who will lead your product through branding to sales optimization can make a world of difference in your commercialization success. 

We set ourselves apart by bringing SCM (supply chain management) and GTM under one roof. We will support your product from sourcing through sales, aligning your entire processes towards your ideal customer, and providing expertise without the overhead of internalizing. Reach out to us at Vessel to learn how we can help with SCM + GTM.