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How To Craft A Successful Go-To-Market StrategyThe following process can be used to increase the probability of success of developing a successful go-to-market strategy. For context, this will assume introducing a new product into an existing market.Define Your Position In The MarketplaceThe first phase starts out with identifying who you are and what you are trying to achieve. Although this can be done internally, it usually is best to get a third-party to minimize the politics of the discussion. Some of the questions to be answered are the following:What are our core strengths? What are our major strengths? Major weaknesses?What information do we know? What do we think we know? What information do we need to make a decision?What resources will be used, both capital and manpower?How will we market ourselves?Will this product/service go through our salesforce? (some products may require a different salesforce) What training will they need? What support materials do they need?Who is the competition? What are their perceived strengths and weaknesses?What is our point of difference versus the competition?What price is the product or service? How does this compare to the competition?Describe in as much detail as possible your ideal customer? (Geography, industry, application, size of company, job titles, other)What are the revenue expectations? How much by when? Secondary ResearchBefore spending money on primary research, you need to get a lay of the land in terms of market size, growth rates, major players, competitive shares, any segmentation data, pricing and other issues.Use the internet to obtain relevant publications and associations. Data may be on line, or you may actually have to call editors. Obtain the last issue of the publication and possibly the year end issue.See if there are any secondary research reports from sources such as Frost & Sullivan, International Data Corporation, Euromonitor etc. These reports can range from $2500 to $4500 each. Typically they lay out the market size, growth rates, and competitive shares. There are way too many providers of secondary research to cite here. Do not try to pinch pennies here.The data found can range from being overwhelming so you have to prioritize what to purchase, to having very little being out there. In rare instances, the information is available free rather than having to pay for a syndicated report.Market AssessmentCustomer AssessmentWhere the rubber meets the road, is determining customer perception on the company, the product/service and the likelihood to buy. Employ the 20/20/5 rule: speak to 20 of your customers (the low hanging fruit – more likely to buy than random prospects), 20 prospects who fit with your ideal profile and visit 5 customers to see how they are using the product/service on site. The visits can be beta sites for your product or service, or using a competitor’s solution. For the onsite visits, it is recommended that you use both marketing and engineering. Some of the issues to probe are:What companies are they aware of (unaided) that sell this product/service?What comes to mind when your company and other companies are mentioned?Why purchase from a vendor rather than do internally? What other technologies are available that do the same thing? What are the pros and cons of each technology?Who do they use? Why did they win? How loyal are they to this vendor?How long have they used this company?Why did the other suppliers lose?What are the strengths and weaknesses of each of the player they are aware of? Of the company they are using?How did they find the names of these vendors? (websites, publications, word of mouth etc.) Get specific if possible i.e. publication A, association B.How likely would they consider using the new company? Why? Why not? This may be the most important question to ask.What type of hurdles/risk are there in switching vendors? This could be parts, training, risk of the line going down, political risk etc.Who are the decision makers and influencers (titles and functions)? What criteria do they use to make a decision? How important are each of the factors? How well does the supplier used perform on each of these criteria.Do they prefer to buy direct or from a distributor? What type of distributor?How does a new firm prove its credibility? (Other big name respected companies using, test data, beta testing etc.)What support do they need before, during and after the sale?What pricing does the current vendor have? (Could be product price, project price, labor rate by hour)You may also want to use an e-survey method like Survey Monkey or other platform, to measure broad awareness, satisfaction and loyalty with the current supplier, as well as the likelihood of seriously considering using a new company at various pricing levels. We have found that leveraging your advertising department to have a magazine sponsor the study is an effective way to conduct an e-survey. Note in a b2b environment where 20% of the companies make up 80% of the revenue, this step could be omitted.Channel AssessmentA channel is defined as a third party who sits between the manufacturer/service provider and the end user. Examples of channels are distributors/wholesalers; retailers, Value Added Resellers (vars), and independent reps (rep firms who are not employees), etc.Issues to understand are:Does the organization cover the desired geography?Do they call on, or sell to, the end user job function?How are these products bundled into a typical sale?Is there a sales cycle i.e. a commercial building project could be 18 to 24 months, and a MRO item (maintenance, repair, operation) could be the same day.Do they carry complementary products?Do they carry competitive products? Note, this is not an automatic knockout as these distributors could be the very large ones who you need to build market share.What specific competitors do they carry?What margin do they need?What are their target inventory turns?How much will they stock?How does the product line fit within their business? If it is an important product like conduit to an electrical wholesaler, or power tools to a specialty distributor, they will actively sell it. If it is a small product within their business, say light bulbs in a big box store, it is not reasonable or logical to expect they will spend selling time on these products. The manufacturer will have to generate the demand.What training and support do they need? (sales training, joint calls, collateral material etc.) What other support do they need?When does the catalog come out? When is the closing date for this line of products? When would the product be in the system?Is there a catalog placement fee? Shelf stocking fee? Other fees?How long does it take for a new vendor to be approved?What is the process for evaluating and selecting a new supplier?Other issues may include rebates, (VMI) vendor managed inventory, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) programs where the manufacturer’s software talks to the channel’s software to anticipate when the product will be available petitive AssessmentThe last step before implantation is assessing the competition. This is in two parts; secondary research and primary research. Secondary researchCompany websites to review products, pricing, and customers. Try to obtain their catalog.If publicly owned, use Edgar (online government database) to review annual reports, and 10k’s for insight on how competitors view this product and go to market.Search for articles, white papers, presentations which give further insightPrimary researchOne needs to be very careful here so as not to signal to the competition that there will be a new market player so they can take aggressive countermeasures. You may want to verify the market size, growth rate, players in the market, and market share.ImplementationAlthough the above is complicated, implementation is even more complicated.How is success measured? What are the metrics?When is the product/service ready for commercialization launch?Who will be the first beta sites?What training does our salesforce and internal employees need?How do we generate a “buzz” in the market?A senior executive sponsor needs to be assigned the initiative Middle management personnel are assigned for each of the major activities to be completed. Resources need to be assigned along with expectations for completed timeline activities. Cross functional teams are critical here.Timelines, milestones, resources, are required for the followingBeta site testing and monitoringTraining of salesforceTraining of front line employeesRoll out to employees world wideCollateral informationAdvertising and publicityWeb site updateTrade showsDocumentation to prove credibilityBecause this is so complex and time consuming, it is highly recommended to use a war room approach for senior management to monitor progress. In the war room there should be a dashboard for the key activities.The most critical issue is to develop a deep understanding of customer needs and how they buy and want to be serviced. Most people call this being customer centric, others call it Marketing 101. The following graphic shows the elements discussed above.If you would like to understand how to work with Consight Marketing Group to implement a go-to-market strategy in a b2b environment, please contact Alan Hale at 847.800.1685 or email at alan.hale@. Please visit our website: to download white papers and read our blog. ................
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