The Revenue Engine Newsletter

Hey, it’s Alex from T.A. Monroe.

Recently, I noticed that companies often make the same 7 crucial mistakes in their go-to-market strategies. So, I created a complete guide showcasing my biggest learnings and best practices on nailing your go-to-market approach.

Over the next 7 newsletters, I'll dive deep into each of these 7 make-or-break steps. But if you want the full strategy right now, I suggest downloading the comprehensive go-to-market guide - it's free.

Let’s get started with:

Go-to-Market Mistake #1: Targeting the Wrong Audience

Getting your target audience right is paramount. I know every company has their ideal customer profile documented. But how confident are you that it's really the optimal ICP for your business?

Have you tested and refined it exhaustively until you deeply understand their:

• Innermost desires that they'd never admit to
• Biggest fears (personal and professional)
• Current trends that affect their businesses and lives

Or did you just slap together an ICP checkbox for the sake of having one?

An unclear or incorrect target audience leads to wasted efforts and lackluster results. Here are 4 critical questions to answer:

1. What overarching business goal will this target audience help you achieve?
2. How do supply and demand dynamics factor into your audience definition?
3. What are the best B2B/B2C segmentation tactics for your situation?
4. How do you accurately size and quantify your total market opportunity?

Before you select an audience, set a clear numeric goal.

The entire point of a strategy is that it's a means of achieving an objective.

Without an objective, your go-to-market strategy is aimless.

Let’s explore 3 possible scenarios:

Scenario 1: NO DEMAND

First, you have a product where there truly is not enough demand to support the primary goal.

Let's say you're launching a new pet insurance product specifically for retired racing greyhounds.

You can probably create a value proposition and messaging that's hyper-relevant to your target customers.

2 million retired greyhounds

You need 4 million to achieve profitability.

While your product might be great, there just isn't enough demand there to make the product work.

You need to pivot to serve a larger target audience.

Scenario 2: NO DEMAND… YET

Currently, there's no market for their solution, but the potential market is huge, and they're going to crack it wide open.

This is called category creation, and if executed correctly, it can be extremely effective.

You tend to get the first-mover advantage and all the perks that come with it, including brand awareness, thought leadership, and zero competitors.

CATEGORY CREATION is extremely difficult.

There are years of zero or no profit and revenue, and you are usually required to spend huge sums of money on demand creation.

Only then can you start the process of demand generation and start to see returns on your marketing spend.

Category creation is a long-haul play.

If your product isn't sufficiently unique, you may find that your years of creating demand can be stolen by a newer, faster-moving competitor who swoops in once you've done the hard yards of category creation.

Scenario 3: A LOT OF DEMAND… BUT A LOT MORE SUPPLY

CHOOSING A TARGET MARKET?

This is more involved than simply finding the ideal buyer. It requires studying the overall market and determining whether that is a space in which you want to participate.

A particular market may seem unattractive because it has a lot of competitors, but if you happen to have collaborators with a lot of clout in that market, then it could be strategic.

Segmentation

WHO'S GOING TO BUY THIS?

There are dozens of different ways to define your target audience. Which strategy you choose will depend on your specific circumstances, but here are some tactics you can use to define your ideal client profile or ICP:

• Firmographically: In business-to-business marketing, it is common to divide customers based on their industry because, in this case, your 'customer' is actually an entire business.

• Behaviourally: That is, you divide customers based on certain behaviours such as how much money they spend or how much time they spend using your product. It is very important to focus on your most profitable segments.

• Motivationally: Overall, we would say that the best approach to segmentation is motivational. That is, you separate your customers based on their motivations for using your product.

• Demographically: Segmenting based on demographic information like gender and age.

These approaches to segmentation are not mutually exclusive. You can actually combine them or use different ones for different purposes for strategy and another for media buying.

To learn more about the best go-to-market strategies, I highly suggest downloading our in-depth guide.

And if you need an expert partner to bring your ambitious go-to-market vision to life, book a free strategy session with me today. I'll help you navigate this make-or-break journey.