Is your product ready to launch? Are your new versions fit for purpose? Is sales team committed, enabled and willing to enthusiastically take it to market?
Successful “go-to-market” relies on a proper preparation and clear understanding of who your users and buyers are. Having secured the investment from stakeholders to build a new product or a new version of an existing product you would hope some simple questions were well understood. Many of which are elements of the pragmatic product marketing framework – unfortunately many busy product managers are too consumed working with development teams to focus on this until it too late. Getting the right support early can make all the difference to a successful launch.
Good “go-to-market” plans consist of a clear target market, customer segments, buyer and user personas, differentiated value proposition, a pricing strategy (not just a price), product narrative, marketing objectives and a channel strategy. Pulling these assets together is often harder then you would expect. Most of these plans need to be considered up front, before the product or new version even started to be built.
In the true Agile, focused business, where cross-functional teams and growth hacking is commonplace, these kinds of consideration are built into the product management process upfront, not just bolted on at the end. Getting an early start on your plan is vital if you want to get your customers, prospects and sales teams ready to go.
I also love this definition from Yams Yurayhi who defines it from the perspective of what, why, how, when and where. “However, you describe it getting your go-to-market right is critical to driving product revenues and performance. In addition to our own skills, we work with a range of best in class partners in order to help you get the right pricing strategies, nail your sales enablement process and provide you with the tools that will get you ready for success.