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For businesses wanting to expand internationally, a go-to-market plan will help them identify countries where there is the greatest demand for their products, and create marketing campaigns tailored to local customers. In this article, we will explore the main components of a go-to-market strategy, with guidance on creating one.

When do you need a Go-To-Market (GTM) Strategy?

There are three main scenarios when a business may need a go-to-market strategy:

1. Launching a new product in an existing market – For example, an established wellness brand adding a candle range to its product portfolio.
2. Launching an existing product in a new market – For example, a furniture business looking to sell to China for the first time.
3. Testing a new product’s market for growth – For example, a tech startup soft launching an app to limited users to measure demand and response.

In such instances, a go-to-market strategy will minimize their risks via in-depth planning and research into the market they’re entering.

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Go-To-Market Strategy vs Marketing Strategy

A go-to-market strategy focuses on how a business will introduce a specific product to the market and reach its target customers. It’s focused on immediate revenue and customer success.

A marketing strategy is a longer-term, ongoing plan for the wider business and covers messaging, content creation, and campaigns – essentially the touchpoints that make the brand memorable in a competitive market. It should be flexible to help the business adapt to demand and find the optimal market-product fit.

Go-To-Market Strategy Benefits

1. Establish potential problems: A go-to-market strategy ensures due diligence is paid to all the components of a product launch, identifying potential problems early on.
2. Know how to position your product in the existing market: Thoroughly researching target customers helps create powerful, effective, and tailored marketing messaging, defining your product’s value proposition in a competitive market.
3. Increase revenue: Emphasizing extensive research and planning before launching a product minimizes risks, ensuring the product reaches the most relevant audience for maximum sales. Understanding the target customer allows adjustments to enhance the product's chances of success.

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Components of a Go-To-Market (GTM) Plan

Each business’s go-to-market plan will vary, but general components include:

1. Market research and analysis
2. Product promotion
3. Sales and distribution
4. Logistics and supply chain management

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How to Create a Go-To-Market Strategy

Step 1: Market research and analysis

Thoroughly analyze the existing market, conduct competitor analysis, and define your buyer persona.

Step 2: Craft your Promotion Strategy

• Construct a value matrix mapping out buyer personas’ pain points.
• Identify where your target audience spends most of their time and allocate resources accordingly.
• Continuously track and optimize marketing content performance.

Step 3: Establish your sales and distribution channels

Define where consumers can buy your product and streamline the buyer’s journey for increased sales.

Step 4: Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Prioritize timely product delivery and consider aspects like inventory management, warehousing, and packaging.

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Product-led

Here, the product itself is the salesperson, empowered with all the information a buyer may need. A product-led GTM strategy involves analyzing customers’ behavior and interaction with the product to ultimately drive customer acquisition, retention, and growth. This strategy is well-suited for businesses aiming to scale fast at a low customer acquisition cost.

If your business is launching a new product or entering a new market, you’ll need support from the experts. With a DHL Express Business Account, you’ll join thousands of other businesses benefiting from the logistics leader’s international and e-commerce expertise.

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When my brother, sister and I took our brand Triarchy offline in 2017, we had one goal: Find a better way to make jeans. We gave ourselves 6 months; instead, we took 18-months collectively learning about all sorts of sustainable practices, tools and rigours we could apply to our brand. And that’s what we did. We relaunched Triarchy and set it off in a shiny, new, sustainable direction.

Fashion has always had seasons. And just like fast fashion that hits store shelves as quickly as it does landfills, the word sustainability became the ‘must-have’ accessory of the season. It turns out that the actual sustainability work Triarchy and other independently-owned fashion brands were doing ended up being lost in the pile. “Sustainability” was losing its integrity just as we were pivoting to our mission of responsibly and ethically made denim.

From rituals of self-care to limiting food waste, the pandemic made it clear that responsible consumption is here to stay. You’ve likely felt it yourself, especially when your customer asks about the origins of what you’re selling. Brands responded — either by doubling down on making their businesses better or by amplifying minimal efforts to look like sustainability is their entire ethos.

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Reveal the camouflaging of greenwashing by asking questions

Greenwashing happens easily because it’s labour-intensive to put a lens on every brand. It’s like seeing the ‘low-sugar’ sticker on a box of cereal — maybe it is! But unless you’re going to read the nutritional label, a lot of people, as well as the people making supply chain decisions, are going to take these claims as “facts” at face value. These get passed on to the buyers, and how we spend our dollars end up perpetuating this cycle by giving these brands a pass. We need to be asking harder questions.

If something is too good to be true, it probably is. I realized that by not asking tough questions. If I don’t know the truth behind what I’m passing along to our customers, then I can’t operate a business. With that revelation, I discovered that Triarchy’s entire sustainability journey would be a tasting menu to the regular buyer, but it’d be up to me to define it, shape it and tell that story.

Give your buyers a crash course in your responsible practices

There are few governing bodies or certified labels and certifications out there that buyers can rely on to do the hard work and measure a brand’s commitment to sustainability. Sadly, vendors often misrepresent themselves and tell designers one thing, which can lead to splashy marketing campaigns that attract a customer’s eye. Once someone sees this plastered all over their website or bricks-and-mortar store, the common thought is, “hey, this is amazing!” But we want to be pushing them to think: “that’s interesting, I want to know more.”

For example, when you see a claim that a fabric’s stretch comes from recycled water bottles, that’s great. But what’s added to it to give it a new life? Is the process still producing microplastics in our water? Is recycled plastic just making new garbage from old garbage? At its end of life, will this sit in a landfill for 200 years, just like regular plastic?

Why ask these questions? Well, I bought into the recycled water bottle stretch story at one point, but I knew something didn't feel right. I needed to do the critical work and suss out whether this technology I claim to be responsible and sustainable is actually responsible and sustainable! If I don’t, I risk damaging Triarchy’s brand, as well as my own commitment to being a responsible, professional and personal citizen.

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The responsible work.

The most sustainable thing you can do, as a small business, is hire a third party auditor. We work with Greenstory and Retraced to do just this. Greenstory investigates our manufacturing practices and Retraced, our supply chain. Businesses like theirs can vet your practices and your products and then report back to you how sustainable you really are. This does a couple things:

1. It puts your money where your mouth is when discussing sustainability
2. It provides a framework to work within that highlights where you can be better, giving you a clear understanding on how to improve your practices.

Seeing actual metrics for every product Triarchy makes in real time is inspiring to us and easy to understand for customers. It’s a win, win for everybody, even when you don’t like the report, because that’s the only way to make the report better. To me, that is running a business responsibly.

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Think responsibly. Think sustainably.

As small business owners, we have to work harder to maintain the integrity of the word, sustainability. At Triarchy, we did a simple exercise. We took the definition of “sustainability” (“Avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance”) and applied it to what we were doing. We took stock of our industry — a lot of brands were leaning into sustainability but all with very different comprehension of the word. This is where greenwashing comes into play. It’s also where we saw an opportunity to forge a new path — instead of touting our sustainability, we were leaning into our responsibility.

If we’re going to throw the word sustainability around, then we need to start thinking about its intended meaning. Start asking questions. And start acting responsibly. Responsibility is a word I want to stand behind because it offers a framework to operate a brand within when trying to make jeans better, and therefore, better jeans.

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About the Author:

Adam is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Triarchy, a sustainable denim brand whose mission is to conserve the planet's most important resource by reducing the massive water consumption of the planet's most beloved piece of clothing, jeans. Learn more about Adam and Triarchy here.

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I’ve been running my business and brand as a speaker and coach for the past 8 years. In the beginning, I thought I needed an agent or speaker’s bureau to help me get started and get my name out into the world. I didn’t have any of that, so instead I used something I was born with — my voice.

I pitched a television show, and ended up being on air for six seasons. From there, I started to deliver more talks and used my voice to show up on social media. I began telling event organizers that I was what their events needed. The more I networked and spoke, the more people were introduced to me and the more opportunities came my way.

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In 2015, I was invited to host a TEDx event in Toronto. I was excited for the huge opportunity and proud that my voice had taken me there. As we were preparing for the event, I was told the TEDx organizers needed to review my pre-written introductions. This request came from their public speaking coach (which I didn’t even know was a thing at the time) and I told her flat out: “No.”

I explained that my style is to speak in real time, from the heart. She told me that wasn’t how TEDx worked, and that they needed to see my content ahead of time. Instead of changing my style and approach for this event, I explained that it wouldn’t feel like me if it was scripted and prescribed. I showed her videos of my television show and other talks I had given — none of which had a script. She was so surprised to find out I had been winging it in everything I showed her. I was allowed to proceed without pre-written introductions and at the end of the event the speaking coach gave me her card and said: “This isn’t for you — this is for somebody who needs it. Pass it on to someone else.”

I trusted my voice and my ability to speak on the fly — which enabled me to be fully present and in the moment as TEDx’s host that day. Two years later, I became a speaking coach.

Your voice is the secret sauce of your business strategy. You use it to introduce yourself, reassure yourself, ask for what you need and negotiate. The beautiful thing about your voice is that it’s a renewable resource — you don’t have to buy a monthly subscription or a license or pay a fee — it’s yours. And the more you use it, the better it gets.

These are five of my favourite affirmations to help me feel more confident. When you feel stuck or scared to use your voice, I encourage you to take a couple minutes to say these words. Put your hand on your chest and say each out loud with confidence and conviction:

1. Every time I open my mouth I’m improving

This one is dedicated to the perfectionists out there who think that the first time they deliver their elevator pitch, introduce themselves or make a sizzle reel, that it’s going to come out perfectly the first time. Breaking news: it’s not always going to happen. Don’t focus on perfection, focus on growth. Every time you talk about your business, your ideas, or your brand, you’re getting better. And with every opportunity, you’ll be more connected and learn to trust yourself more. Allow yourself room to grow each and every time you open your mouth to speak.

2. My story is worth sharing

We’re not all tech CEOs with a heart-wrenching story about starting on the streets, surviving only on Goldfish crackers, and overcoming many obstacles to make millions. Your story is your story. You don’t have to go through something monumental or fight a dragon along the way for folks to find your story compelling. There is value in your story, people will resonate with it, and it is worth sharing.

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3. Can I wing this? Yes I can!

This one is especially for the people who think they need to write everything down or memorize every single word they want to say. You can wing it. Your audience does not know what you’re going to say. You are there to talk about you, your ideas and your brand. They are ready to hear what you have to say and receive it. The more you improvise or wing your talks, the better you’ll get. Show yourself that you trust your ideas and your ability to share them in real time. (Because every time you open your mouth you’re improving, right?)

4. I have the ability to captivate any audience

I don’t care who is in the room, what their title is, how much money they make or how many social media followers they have — you can wow anybody. And whether it’s the first year or the fifteenth year of your business, your energy, your presence and your story plays a role in how you impact others. You have the ability to captivate any audience just by being you.

5. No one will hear me unless I open my mouth

If you’re not talking about your ideas, introducing yourself or telling people why they should support your business, no one is going to hear you. People are not mind readers — they need to know about you, your brand or your business in order to seek you out. Now is the time to start using your voice.

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Eight years after starting my business, I still don’t have an agent and I’m not part of a speaker’s bureau. My voice has been the number one thing that has given me opportunities, opened doors, and put me on stages I never thought I’d be on. Your voice can do the same for you. Utilize that free resource that you were given, and believe in the power of your voice.

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About the Author

Jahmeelah “Jam” Gamble is an award winning media personality, sought out keynote speaker, and CEO behind “Slay The Mic”, a program that helps aspiring speakers, content creators, and entrepreneurs transform their voice.

Learn more about Jam at iamjamgamble.com or on Instagram at @iamjamgamble

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