It is more focused and developed for a specific product or market. A comprehensive Go-To-Market plan will compose of four components:<ul><li>Product strategy: to differentiate the new offering from those of competitors.</li><li>Promotion strategy: pricing promotions and cross-promotions at launch</li><li>Channel strategy: channels utilized not only to sell products but also to educate and support partners and customers</li><li>Marketing and communications strategy: entailing efforts to generate awareness with customers and employees who interact with customers for instruction, purchase, and or support.</li></ul>

The Go-To-Market Plan

<ul><li>New market entry — when extending an existing offering to a new market</li><li>New product development (NPD) — when launching a new offering in an existing market</li><li>Offering diversification — when introducing a new product into new markets. This is rather a high-risk strategy because it entails a lot of unknowns for the company. They need to learn a whole new market and tell a new audience, who it doesn’t know very well, how its new offering will deliver value.</li></ul>

Situations in which a Go-To-Market plan is needed

A Go-To-Market plan should include certain elements of research and action:<ul><li>Customer research: that probes buyer’s interest in your product, or otherwise to perform customer development</li><li>Trend research: such as whether the company is entering into a stable or growing market and how saturated the market is</li><li>Coordinated product development: get intimate with the product by bringing product managers into the research and market testing phases</li><li>Customer targeting: putting together a specific profile of your early adopters and, more importantly, why they would choose it over a competitor’s offering.</li></ul>

Understand the customer

Some goals of a Go-To-Market plan may include:<ul><li>Product brand awareness — high awareness or being easily recognized, helps drive potential prospects and sales.</li><li>Marketing to leads — leads, are qualified people who will be interested in the product.&nbsp;</li><li>Sales targets — this is the portion of the qualified potential prospects who will actually convert to a paying customer</li><li>Product adoption — high adoption rates will mean higher expected sales and economic returns</li><li>Customer satisfaction — the goal would be to decrease the number of defects and dissatisfaction at the launch and post-launch stages.</li></ul>

Set strategic objectives

Defining the customers’ problems and validating the offering that addresses them:<ul><li>Define the pain: customers do not think in terms of solutions, they only know what their pains are.&nbsp;</li><li>The urgency of the pain: Are they looking for an immediate solution?&nbsp;</li><li>The size of the pain — you will also need to think about how deep the problem runs.&nbsp;</li><li>Willingness to pay — you want to be sure customers will pay for the product.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Product-problem fit

<ul><li>Demographic factors — such as age, income, education, religion, marital status, occupation.</li><li>Geographic factors — urban, suburban or rural area</li><li>Behavioral characteristics — how relevant, consistent and frequent their behavior is toward a particular problem</li><li>Psychographic considerations — including activities, interests, the benefits sought, attitudes, and values</li></ul>

Segment the Market

<ul><li>Recorded data — obtained externally in the form of published sources such as competitors’ brochures, promotions, news articles, and annual reports</li><li>Witness or observed data — such as what you see when you go to a trade show and visit a competitor’s booth or the conversations you uncover through social media that customers are having about the competition</li><li>Ability to gather plan data — or efforts to set up opportunities to learn more about the competition.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Pinpoint your competitive advantage

<ul><li>Reduces the time it takes to get to the market</li><li>Lowers risk and the cost that may be associated with failed launches</li><li>Delivers the best experience for the customer</li><li>Invests on the right path with better direction for internal sources and external partners</li></ul>

The benefits of a Go-To-Market plan include

While a company’s marketing plan is a broad document that aligns marketing initiatives to the high level business goals and objectives, a G-2-M plan is more niche, focused, and developed for a product

Stashed ideas

The Ultimate Guide to the Go-To-Market Plan

Freelancing can seem fantastic and freeing. It allows you to travel whenever you want to. You answer to no-one, except your clients. It makes you feel important.&nbsp;However, it also has pitfalls.<ul><li>It does not carry the benefits of a full-time job such as 401k.</li><li>Not setting professional boundaries can cause clients to demand your time at any moment.</li><li>Without boundaries between yourself and work, you can fall into unhealthy lifestyles that can take their toll.</li></ul> While there are many successful and strong freelancers, it is not for everyone

Wait, isn’t it the other way around?

It was six years ago, when I jumped the 9–5 ship for the bright and shiny freelance life. Like the Titanic, nobody could have warned me of the icebergs I was steering towards, until I was already…

I quit ‘the dream’ of freelancing to return to a 9–5.

It's better to be first than it is to be better.
<ul>
<li>In marketing, the fundamental issue is creating a category you can be first in. It's easier to get into the mind first than to try to change someone's mind that you have a better product.</li>
<li>Not every first will be successful. There will always be first bad ideas that won't work.</li>
<li>When you're introducing a new category, try to use a name that can be used generically.</li>
</ul>

The Law of Leadership

If you can't be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in.
When you launch a new product, ask what category is this new product first in. This is contrary to classic marketing thinking, which is about getting people to prefer your brand. Don't think brand. Think categories. Everyone's interest is piqued when there is something new.

The Law of the Category

It's better to be first in the mind than it is to be first in the marketplace. Marketing is the battle of perception, not the product.
Be first in the mind as people don't like to change their minds. Once the mind is made up, it seldom changes.

The Law of the Mind

Marketing is not a battle of products but a battle of perception.
There are no best products. It's all an illusion. What exists are perceptions in the minds of the customer.
The logical way to think is that you'll succeed based on the merits of the product. But it is flawed. A better method is to study how perceptions are created in the mind and focusing your marketing programs on those perceptions. Customers often base their buying decisions on someone else's perception of reality.

The Law of Perception Marketing

The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect's mind.
The word should not be complicated or invented. Simple words are the best. The leader owns the word that stands for the category. 
If you're not a leader, your word must be available in your category. No one else should 'own' it. Once you have narrowed your focus and developed your word, you have to go out of your way to protect it in the marketplace.

The Law of Focus

Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect's mind.
It is futile to try and own the same word as a competitor. Yet, many companies continue to defy the law of exclusivity, thereby often reinforcing the competitor's position.

The Law of Exclusivity

The strategy to use depends on which rung you occupy on the ladder.
It is not all over if you fail to be the first in the prospect's mind. There are also strategies to use for No. 2 and No. 3 brands.
Not all products are equal. Your marketing strategy should focus on how soon you got into the mind of the prospect and which rung of the ladder you are on.
<ul>
<li>High-interest products such as toothpaste, cereal, automobiles, watches, cameras, have many rungs on their ladders.</li>
<li>Low-interest products such as furniture, luggage have fewer rungs.</li>
</ul>

The Law of the Ladder

In the long run, every market becomes a two-horse race.
A new category may have many rungs in the beginning. But, over time, the ladder has only two.
When you have a long view of marketing, the battle is often the struggle between two major players - the reliable brand and the upstart.
The customer believes that marketing is a battle of products. Their thinking is that the two brands must be the best because they are the leaders. This keeps the two brands on top.

The Law of Duality

If you're shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader.
Trying to establish a firm foothold on the second rung means you have to study the firm above you. Where is its strength? Can you turn it into a weakness? Discover the essence of the leader, then show the prospect the opposite. In other words, try to be different, not better.
Don't simply knock the competition. There has to be a ring of truth about the negative. Then present yourself as the alternative.

The Law of the Opposite

Over time, a category will divide and become two or more categories. Categories never combine.
A category starts as a single entity but breaks up into other parts. For example, computers became minicomputers, workstations, laptops, notebooks. Companies may erroneously try to take a well-known brand name in one category and use the same brand name in another category.
Timing is also important. However, it's better to exploit a new category early to get into the prospect's mind while waiting for it to develop.

The Law of Division

Marketing effects take place over an extended period of time.
Marketing moves often show the same phenomenon: Long-term effects are often the direct opposite of short-term ones.
In the short term, a sale increases business, but in the long term, sales educate customers not to buy at "regular" prices. Periodic couponing may keep sales on an even level, but it does not increase sales in the long run.

The Law of Perspective

There's an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of a brand. At one time, a company is deeply focused on a single product that is highly profitable, but the next moment the same company is spread thin over many products and making a loss. <ol><li>Marketing is a battle of perception, not the product. In the mind, the product and the brand name is one and the same.</li><li>Line extensions seldom work in the long run. The leader in any category is the brand that is not line extended. Management may believe that line extensions work, and it does in the short term, but it is a loser in the long run.</li></ol>

The Law of Line Extension

You have to give up something in order to get something.
If you want to be successful, you should sacrifice the following:
<ul>
<li>Product line. Where is it written that the more you have to sell, the more you sell? If you want to be successful, you have to reduce your product line.</li>
<li>Target market. Should you appeal to everybody? The apparent target of your market is not the same as the people who will buy your product.</li>
<li>Constant change. Do you have to change your strategy every year? The best way to maintain a consistent position is not to follow the twists and turns of the market.</li>
</ul>

The Law of Sacrifice

For every attribute, there is an opposite, effective attribute.
It's far better to search for an opposite attribute that will enable you to play off against the leader, instead of being similar to the leader.
Marketing is the battle of ideas. To succeed, you must have your own attribute or idea to focus your efforts on. Try to own the most important attribute. If your competition successfully takes your attribute, find a different attribute and dramatise its value.

The Law of Attributes

When you admit a negative, the prospect will give you the positive.
The most effective way to get into a prospect's mind is to admit a negative, then turn it into a positive.
Honesty works well in the marketing process:
<ul>
<li>Candour is very disarming. It may be necessary to prove a positive statement, but no proof is needed for a negative opinion. If your name is bad, change it or make fun of it, but don't ignore a bad name. </li>
<li>When a company starts to admit a problem, people tend to open their minds. The purpose of candour is then not to apologise but to convince.</li>
</ul>

The Law of Candor

In each situation, only one move will produce substantial results.
The only thing that works in marketing is a single, bold stroke, not the sum total of a lot of small efforts.
In marketing, there is only one place where a competitor is vulnerable. And that place should be the entire focus. Marketing managers have to be involved to find that singular idea, not hang around headquarters.

The Law of Singularity

Unless you write your competitor's plans, you can't predict the future.
Marketing plans based on what will happen in the future are usually wrong. One reason for marketing failure is the failure to forecast competitive reaction. 
<ul>
<li>A short-term plan is to come up with an angle or word that differentiates your product or business. Then build a long-term marketing program that maximises that idea.</li>
<li>Take advantage of change by getting a handle on trends without jumping to conclusions.</li>
<li>Build a huge amount of flexibility into your organisation and be willing to change quickly.</li>
</ul>

The Law of Unpredictability

Success often leads to arrogance, and arrogance to failure.
Objectivity is crucial. When organisations become successful, they tend to become less objective and often substitute their judgment for what the market wants.
The ego is helpful as a driving force in building a business, but it becomes problematic when the ego is injected into the marketing process. One way for a CEO to gather objective information is to go in disguise or unannounced to get an honest view of what's really happening.

The Law of Success

Failure is to be expected and accepted. Admitting a mistake and not dealing with it is bad for your career. So instead, recognise failure early and cut your losses.
Too many companies try to save the situation instead of dropping things.

The Law of Failure

The situation is often the opposite of the way it appears in the press.
The only time you need hype is when you're in trouble. The only revolutions you can predict are the ones that have already started.
The front page won't give you clues to the future. For that, you'll have to look in the back of the paper for the harmless stories. Hype is hype. Real revolutions come unannounced when it is least expected.

The Law of Hype

Successful programs are not built on fads, they’re built on trends.
<ul>
<li>A fad is a wave, but a trend is a tide. </li>
<li>A fad is very visible and gets lots of publicity, but a trend is almost invisible and powerful in the long run.</li>
<li>A fad is short-lived, and when it disappears, a company often goes into a deep financial shock.</li>
</ul>
If your business has all the characteristics of a fad, dampen the fad to stretch it out so that it becomes more like a trend. One way to maintain a long-term demand for your product is never totally to satisfy the demand.

The Law of Acceleration

Without adequate funding an idea won't get off the ground.
Marketing is a game fought in the mind of the prospect. You need money to get into a mind and money to stay in the mind.
Ideas without money are almost worthless. Use your idea to find the money. Marketing should come afterwards.

The Law of Resources

Ries and Trout share their rules for certain successes in the world of marketing. Combining a wide-ranging historical overview with a keen eye for the future, the authors bring to light 22 superlative tools and innovative techniques for the international marketplace.

James Craig
@jacrai

The Go-To-Market Plan

The Ultimate Guide to the Go-To-Market Plan

Wait, isn’t it the other way around?

I quit ‘the dream’ of freelancing to return to a 9–5.

The Law of Leadership

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

James Craig@jacrai

The Go-To-Market Plan

The Ultimate Guide to the Go-To-Market Plan

Wait, isn’t it the other way around?

I quit ‘the dream’ of freelancing to return to a 9–5.

The Law of Leadership

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

James Craig
@jacrai