4️⃣Day 4: Create your Go-To-Market Plan

What is a GTM strategy?

A successful GTM strategy not only helps bring a new product to the market but also plays a crucial role in driving demand for it. The core objective is to deploy a well-structured plan to launch the offer into the market with minimal risk involved. In short, it is a step-by-step plan designed to bring a new product to market and drive demand.

This strategic plan encompasses several key components:

1. Target Market Identification: One of the foundational steps of a GTM strategy is pinpointing the target market. This involves understanding who the product or service is for and grouping potential customers into segments based on various characteristics such as demographics, behaviours, and specific needs.

2. Understanding Customer Pain Points: Conducting a deep dive into the challenges and issues the target market faces is crucial. By identifying these pain points, the strategy can be tailored to highlight how the new product or offering provides a solution, creating a value proposition that resonates with the target audience.

3. Market and Sell Against Competition: Another vital element of a GTM strategy involves laying out plans for how the company intends to market and sell the new product in the face of competitive forces. This includes understanding the competitive landscape, differentiating the product from competitors, and articulating why customers should choose it over other options.

Collectively, these elements contribute to formulating a GTM strategy that not only facilitates the product's smooth entry into the market but also supports its long-term success by ensuring it effectively meets the target audience's needs and stands out amidst the competition.

Why is it important to have it?

Having a well-crafted GTM strategy can bring the following benefits:

• Create alignment throughout the product lifecycle.

• Establish your product market fit by helping you tailor the marketing and sales strategy to your intended audience.

• Discover gaps in the market, which will make it easier to hone down your niche and stress your buyer persona’s pain points.

• Understand your competitive advantage by knowing how you compare to your competitors and what makes your offer stand out through competitors’ research.

• Accelerated growth is achieved by understanding which markets to enter and why.

How do I fill the GTM section on Figma?

Startup Overview:

Here, you need to answer the following questions in 10-15 minutes to provide a clear and detailed overview of your startup.

What does your startup do in two sentences max:

Which industry/industries is your Startup in?

Who is your target audience (in general terms)

Key General USPs - What's unique about your product?

3 key competitors.

Customer Canva:

Pain:

Target customer pain refers to the specific challenges and obstacles our identified customer segment faces. For example, this may encompass struggles with inefficient and time-consuming processes, spiralling operational costs, and unmet needs for critical features in currently available solutions.

Understanding and addressing these pain points is essential for providing effective solutions and meeting customer needs.

Deep pain:

This is the most significant issue severely impacting the customer's operations or well-being. This profound problem acts as a major bottleneck within their workflow, effectively stifling progress or emerges as a principal source of frustration, severely undermining their potential for productivity.

It's not merely an inconvenience; it's a pivotal point of disruption that requires urgent attention and resolution to restore efficiency and harmony in their processes or lives.

Obstacles:

Obstacles are the barriers and challenges that stand in the way of customers reaching their desired outcomes or solving their problems. These can vary widely depending on the nature of the product or service being offered and the specific circumstances of the target customer segment.

Understanding the obstacles is crucial for developing effective solutions and crafting a unique value proposition that addresses these barriers. By acknowledging and addressing these challenges head-on, businesses can better tailor their offerings to meet the needs of their target customers, removing obstacles and facilitating a smoother path to success.

Ideal customer:

We must answer the question, “Who are we creating value for?”

You probably have at least, a checklist of the most basic attributes a customer needs to be successful.

An ideal customer profile is a great starting point for your persona development, but it isn't a persona. Ideal customer profiles identify a category of people, and within that category, there are usually subcategories, and that's where personas come in.

So, a buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on data.

If you're in B2B sales, your ideal customer profile will define which companies best fit your offering. Your buyer personas will define the people you need to work with at those companies.

If you're in a B2C space, your ideal customer profile will be a broad category of people, like prospective homebuyers or expectant parents. Then, your personas will describe specific kinds of people within those categories.

Even though every persona fits within your ideal customer profile, the needs and behaviours of each persona might be very different. So, to recap, your ideal customer profile will broadly describe your target market. And your personas will define the specific sorts of people in that market.

Here, you also need to identify who has the purchasing power and who the actual buyer is.

To create your buyer personas, we recommend making three hypotheses of different buyer personas/avatars that could be customers of your product by completing the categories of the table.

PS: The typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to ten decision-makers, who make up the "buying centre."

Each of those buyers typically fills one of the following roles (though it’s important to note some job titles might occupy more than one role):

• Initiator: Starts the buying process or shows initial interest

• User: Uses your product regularly

• Influencer: Convinces others the product is needed

• Decision maker: Gives final approval for the purchase

• Buyer: Owns the budget

• Approver: Final approver who pushes the initiative on a larger scale (typically someone in the C-suite)

• Gatekeeper: Blocker in getting a product implemented or approved

Solutions:

These are how your product is designed to address the customers' pains and obstacles.

It should have a matching solution for each pain identified. And one for the deep pain.

Unique value proposition:

A unique value proposition (UVP) is a clear and compelling statement that communicates the specific benefits a product or service provides to its customers, emphasising what makes it distinct and valuable compared to competitors.

It should effectively answer the question, "Why should customers choose this product or service over others?" by highlighting its unique features, advantages, and outcomes.

A strong UVP resonates with the target audience by addressing their specific needs, problems, or desires, making it a crucial element in marketing and branding strategies. It is a key differentiator that helps a business stand out in the marketplace.

You can create a good UVP by following this formula:

[Your company name] helps WHO to do WHAT with SERVICE.

For example:

Bigger helps early-stage founders to launch and pivot their MVPs at speed with startup specific software development.

The important thing is to portray who you are helping with your solution (try not to be too wide, for example, “we help people”), what pain you solve, and what your service is.

Competitors Analysis:

Are there any other companies out there with offerings that solve the same problem your product is looking to solve? Who are they marketing and selling to? Is there still a demand for your product, or is the market already oversaturated? Those are the questions you must answer while doing your competitive analysis.

The idea is to find two competitors of your product and note what advantage you have over them and what competitive advantage they have over your product. You can do it by completing the table.

Don’t forget to note the price each competitor charges for their product.

GTM Strategy Canva:

The objective here is to summarise the avatars you identified and define in what channels they can be found (for example, LinkedIn, in-person events, google or meta ads, etc.).

Then, for each avatar, describe your proposed strategies per channel and evaluate them using the ICE framework so you can easily understand which channels and strategies to prioritise.

The ICE framework is a tool for evaluating and prioritising ideas, tasks, or projects based on three criteria: Impact, Confidence, and Ease of Use.

1. Impact

Definition: Measures the potential positive effect of an idea or project on your goals or key metrics.

Considerations: How significantly will the idea improve the situation? For instance, will it drive substantial growth, increase customer satisfaction, or improve efficiency?

2. Confidence

Definition: Reflects how sure you are that the idea will have the impact you predict.

Considerations: Consider your data, past experiences, and evidence supporting the idea's success. High confidence means you have strong evidence or a proven track record.

3. Easiness

Definition: Assesses the effort, resources, and time required to implement the idea.

Considerations: Evaluate the complexity, cost, and time investment needed. An easier idea requires fewer resources and can be implemented quickly.

Scoring and Prioritization:

• Assign a score (usually 1-10) to each criterion for every idea.

• Calculate the ICE score using the formula: ICE Score = Impact × Confidence × Easiness.

• Prioritise ideas with the highest ICE scores.

By using the ICE framework, you can systematically evaluate and prioritize different elements of your GTM strategy to focus on the most impactful, confident, and easy-to-implement initiatives.

Value Proposition Canva:

Finally, you need to complete the Value Proposition Canva, which gives you a comprehensive and actionable overview of your business strategy. This will enhance your ability to execute and succeed in the market.

You just have to answer the questions portrayed at the table in Figma, using what you have worked on during the day.

Remember, this is the table you will include in section XX of your SCF Application.