GTM strategies aren't just for introducing new products - they can also be used to guide customer interactions with existing products. Without careful planning, it's easy to waste time and resources on a product that doesn't have a profitable market. That's why it's important to come up with a solid GTM plan that's both effective and actionable.

There are two main types of GTM strategies: product-led and sales-led. A product-led GTM strategy relies on the product itself to attract and keep users. This approach involves making the product valuable to the point that users can't help but upgrade to a higher package. On the other hand, a sales-led GTM strategy uses marketing to generate interest in the product and converts prospects into customers through sales efforts.

The objectives of a go-to market strategy include:

• Getting the word out about a specific product or service
• Turning leads into customers
• Growing market shares by entering new markets, engaging customers, and outperforming competitors
• Keeping your current market share from competitors
• Building your brand's reputation
• Cutting costs and increasing profits
  

Identifying buyer personas: Before you start crafting a GTM strategy, the first thing you need to do is figure out who your ideal customers are. This process, known as identifying buyer personas, involves identifying your target markets and understanding your customer base. You'll use this information to figure out how to reach your target clients and achieve your long-term goals.

Creating a value matrix: After identifying your buyer personas, the next step is to create a value matrix. This is a tool that maps your product or service to business needs and defines what success looks like. The value matrix helps communicate the purpose and value of your product or service to everyone involved, including which customer needs each feature or process is fulfilling.

Defining the marketing strategy: When it's time to create a marketing plan, you'll need to figure out where your product or service fits in the market and come up with a strategy for getting the word out to your target audience. This might involve testing different advertising methods on various marketing platforms. Here are some key things to consider when defining your marketing strategy:

• Branding
• Lead generation
• Additional content
• A marketing website

Understanding the buyer's journey: After you've figured out your marketing plan, it's important to understand the buyer's journey. This is the process that leads a customer from product awareness to making a purchase. It's made up of three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. To create an effective GTM strategy, you'll need to identify the different paths a customer might take during the buying process and see things from both the company's and the customer's perspective.

Specifying the sales strategy: This step consists of creating a plan that will introduce the product or service to the market. Some elements to include in the sales process include:

• Training support -- How to train the sales team so they have enough knowledge to confidently sell the product or service.
• Tools and resources -- This includes anything the sales team needs to identify, engage with, and sell to customers as well as manage these relationships and demonstrate the product or service.
• Client acquisition -- Identify the best approach for finding customers.

Syncing with support: Next, organizations must align their sales and support teams to determine how assistance will be provided to customers with questions or issues. This step includes determining:

The tools needed to build and manage relationships with customers, such as customer relationship management (CRM)

All onboarding and support processes involved in helping users understand how to use the product or service

Retention strategies that will be used to ensure customers remain loyal to the company

How to measure satisfaction and determine if the product and associate support is successful

Understanding where the product fits in the overall roadmap: This step involves determining the priority that the specific product or service takes over others within the company. This also includes identifying whether the product needs continued attention once released to the market or if the teams will move on to a new project. Identifying how the product fits into the overall roadmap involves understanding the priority of the development team, addressing how market feedback will be handled, and identifying how stakeholders will stay notified of project progression.

Determining the success metrics: In this step, an organization must identify the primary purpose of the product or service and define how its success will be measured. The metrics used to measure success should be meaningful, measurable, motivational, and easy to track.

Determining ongoing budget and resource needs: Once all the previous steps have been completed, the company must identify any ongoing budget and resource needs that will continue after the product or service has entered the market. This includes time and money spent on product or service maintenance as well as any other factors that will impact the day to day lives of stakeholders.