Planning is everything. It’s always a race. In order to gain advantage in a saturated market you must first measure, plan and present your brand and your product or service in the best light. Your unique value proposition (UVP) should be delivered smoothly to an audience that needs it, and so ensure returning customers — who will effectively be your brand ambassadors.
“Not planning enough is like preparing for failure even if you are extremely passionate about your idea.” — Pooja Agnihotri, 17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail
So what is a go-to-market strategy exactly and how should it be approached? It's bringing your offering to an available and suitable market, in the least time, seamlessly.
Get it wrong — assume a market need without testing or investigation — and you might find your new product launch tanks before it even stands a chance. That’s risking hard-won investment and losing face.
Get it right and you will master not only what is a go-to-market-strategy but achieve competitive advantage, coming from the starting blocks straight into first place.
There are steps to follow, as with any plan. Let’s take a look and see what’s the best way to launch a new product in an existing market — or in a new European market — and still make your mark.
So who do you want to sell to? Who are they, exactly? Two facts need to be established. You must define your ideal customer profile (ICP) — who are the companies that you will target, and secondly identify the buyer persona who actually holds the money in that company — before anything.
If you cannot identify the exact companies who need your solution, whether they know it or not, as well as the person with the buying power, then you will fall and fail at the first hurdle.
If you know that these are the type of companies that are most likely to:
Why would you NOT spend time and effort getting to know who they are? This is the first and most important step if you really want to know how to have the best go-to-market strategy.
Who is selling well, and why are they the market leaders? Get down and discover the competition. SaaS is becoming ever-more increasingly competitive. Be aware that if you plan on making waves in your industry sector then they will be keen to know all about you. So, explore who they are, what they do and get to know their habits. You can invest in tools to do this for you but there’s a lot of information available for free — and loads to gain from talking to experts on the ground.
If they are obviously doing well then it’s because they are doing it right.
Competitive analysis is intelligence for your go-to-market strategy. So, be prepared to identify, track and mostly gain knowledge. And don’t forget to learn from the locals!
Clear navigation is essential so every member of your marketing, B2B lead generation and sales representatives is involved and on board with your go-to-market strategy. Communicate with clarity and everyone involved will deliver on your business goals. This is an important rule whether you are delivering everything fully in-house, partnering with European lead gen and sales outsourcing partners, or a blended approach.
Check out our free ebook on How to Build Your International Go-to-Market Strategy!
Using the services of a partner, such as a reputable and trusted outsourced sales agency, will assist in saving you time and speeding up a go-to-market strategy. That trusted boots-on-the-ground partner can accelerate your sales into Europe and other international regions using an acclaimed accelerated sales portfolio. Our European expansion service offering includes:
It’s a link that will lead to other partnerships too. They will have their own network and will be able to introduce you to other tech-focused organizations and local channel sales avenues, furthering your go-to-market strategy and your overall tech strategy. A good partnership will complete all the background work and provide you with a full end-to-end team that is ready to sell with a go-to-market strategy already in place. Of course working with you every step of the way.
Our CEO and founder, Rick Pizzoli, in an interview for TBK Consult by partner Hans Peter Bech, said:
“We spend time understanding our clients' business. So that can be a couple of calls of really digging deep, understanding their target countries, their target verticals, the positioning of the product, and then we spend time qualifying the right resources on our team to represent the client in the market. Then we present a team to the client. We have another series of calls, and if there’s a good fit, we agree on objectives in terms, and the client then on-boards that team. They become an automatic extension of the client’s team, completely transparent to the outside market.”
Whether you choose to use the services of a partner or go it alone, never stop measuring. Metrics are the only way to continually move forward and improve. Technology by its very nature is continually evolving and so is your competition.
Measuring marketing is no longer optional. If you can measure then you can forecast as accurately as possible. If you can forecast then you can budget ahead, and make business decisions based on that, whether you scale up, scale down or scale wider across geographies and verticals. Answer: Are you ready to invest further or do you need to pull back? Done right, you will increase your win rates and eventually shorten the overall sales cycle, and so your go-to-market strategy will be working and effective. No matter where you’re building your business from, this focus on metrics and continuous feedback means you will have transparency and understanding of your European expansion.
We think that these are the go-to-market insights you need to make smarter business decisions and get to market fast. Don’t waste time and resources targeting aimlessly, or launch an unprofitable product in an over-saturated market, just because you didn’t put in the groundwork, advises HubSpot. Sell smarter, better and faster by knowing what is a go-to-market strategy, using the tools you have and consider leveraging the expertise of a trusted outsourced sales agency partner to assist you to achieve it.
And this is never an effort wasted. What is a go-to-market strategy if not a health check for your new business? Get into the best shape to catapult your product into a new market, drive revenue and be as competitive as you can be, wherever you want to go!
And now that you know what it is, please check out our new offering: Your European Go-To-Market Plan!
.png)
