Examples of Successful Go-To-Market Plans - Part 4

The success of every startup depends entirely on the people, process, and product it introduces to the marketplace. All too often, great products fail to find their place in the market because of the process used to introduce them.

In our Go-To-Market (GTM) series, we have discussed a process that has proven successful for countless startups. In our first installment, we discussed the discovery and assessment process, which analyzes the competitive marketplace and identifies how to target and communicate your ideal buyer personas.

In the second installment, we shared some marketing programs that must be included in every marketing plan.

In the third installment, we discussed setting up a winning GTM Sales program.

Today, we will drill down further on strategies and GTM initiatives we have rolled out for clients. We will share specific examples of a program we created that proved highly successful for our clients.

Introduction to Marketing Plans

I must begin any discussion about where we share a marketing plan that one size does not fit all. What we might recommend for one organization will be totally different for another. The factors that dictate are only ascertained after we go through our entire Discovery and Assessment Process and Buyer Persona Development Process.

We are sharing examples of a GTM strategy to demonstrate the type of engagement in terms of an omnichannel approach and the level of engagement necessary to get traction. Too many companies fail simply because they are too slow in scaling the company. Eventually, problems outrun the limited funds that they may have. We have highly aggressive programs because that is the level of activity to achieve viability.

Disclaimers: We want to be very clear: these documents we are about to share are unique to the company and industries they were designed to support. While much of the work is highly detailed, it is dangerous to assume it can be lifted and applied to another company, even in the same space. As with much of marketing, there is a temporal component. Marketing is unique to every circumstance and will evolve. Marketing budgets, new tools, platforms, and strategies are constantly updated and implemented. We offer this as guidance.

Some have questioned why we share documents that include some of our secret sauce that drives our clients' success. The answer is simple: nobody is willing to put in the work outlined in the documents. Knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things.

Create a Business Plan

Of course, before we can create a comprehensive marketing plan that has any possibility of achieving marketing/sales success, we must build it up by the foundation. This means much more than simply following our standard discovery and assessment and buyer persona protocols to determine the correct marketing mix. Here are the precursor steps we take before we consider what the mix of the marketing plan should be:

Precursor Steps Necessary Before Creating a GTM Plan

• Discovery & Assessment

• Well Defined Marketing Plan

• Tracking KPIs and Adjustment

• Proforma

• TAM

• Ideal Customer

II. Develop Buyer Personas

• Pain points, Interests, and Concerns

• Where do they go for information/third-party verification

III. Branding Guidelines

IV. Messaging Guidelines

• Branding is for each persona at each stage of the buyer's journey.

V. Social Media Guidelines

VI. Marketing Automation Tools

VII. Investor’s Deck

VII) Optimize Website

• Best Practices

• SEO

VIII) Identify Influencers

IX) Register at Referral sites

• G2 Crowd, Capterra, etc.

X) Identify Associations with targeted Buyer Personas

XII) PR Program

XIII) Roll out Marketing Program

EXAMPLE 1 - B2B SaaS E-commerce Platform

This client came to us when they had created an E-commerce platform that would disrupt an entire industry. This founder was a very bright programmer and a few international developers. She had built the model while in school and had not yet sought any financial investors. So, part of the engagement was to create an investor's deck and introduce her to investors inspired by her and her idea that they would be willing to invest. Because this was a pre-revenue startup, the funds would be secured through a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE). A SAFE does not provide equity but is a flexible agreement providing future equity rights without immediate valuation. The point of explaining this is that she had no marketing budget, and until funding was obtained, all marketing activities needed to be organic.

B2B SaaS E-commerce GTM Plan

Example 2 - B2C App

This client had quite a unique platform that was designed to appeal to adults with an age demographic of 35 years and younger. This app allows others to view an image you post and provide feedback before you go on a date, job interview, or any other time you want a third party to weigh in on your appearance. (What could go wrong....right?). Despite this potential drawback, the app was getting some adoption in Eastern Europe, and the company wanted help in introducing it to the United States marketplace.

The first step we performed was to ensure that all the foundational activities shared above were set up according to best practices. Because this was also a pre-seed startup with no money for paid-demand initiatives. We crafted a marketing engagement that strongly emphasized leveraging the following:

Five themes describe the marketing plan for this B2C app. These included inbound marketing, influencer marketing, Public relations/earned media marketing engagements, using a B2B approach to grow a B2C company, and growth hacking.

When you examine the go-to-market plan, you will find that the program provides ground-up multichannel engagement. Every month, we build upon the previous month's efforts. After completing the website, we begin a traditional (but aggressive) inbound marketing program that includes daily long-form (over 1500-word) blogs and a daily omnichannel social media program. While neither of these activities will provide immediate results, they set up the framework to generate organic traffic in the future.

A part of the inbound effort will be a 25-page gated ebook promoted across the internet where their targeted buyer personas go for information, dedication, and entertainment. When they engage to download the ebook, they will find they are recipients of a drip nurturing campaign that includes original content in the form of:

• Infographics

• 2-4 Page guides

• Checklists

• Case Studies

• Videos

In month 2, we begin our PR outreach program. This is much more than just issuing press releases for major milestones. This is an active campaign to have the stakeholder's interviews published in national publications and appear on national cable news programs. Not only does this help comfort potential clients, but it also provides legitimacy for potential investors.

In month 3, we roll out an account-based marketing initiative that, each quarter, targets a new set of 15 high-valued companies that represent our ideal customer. Probably the most impactful part of the program is where we leverage the time, effort, talent, social reach, and reputation of third parties through referral and partner programs. We further capitalize on these relationships by having the referral partners invite those in their social reach to monthly webinars and podcasts where they will also share the stage.

In month 3, the marketing program undergoes another major transition. We implement a growth hacking strategy that will focus the entire organization on prioritizing any activity that contributes to the company's growth.

Example 2 - B2C App GTM Plan

1. Inbound Marketing is not the same program that was introduced by HubSpot in 2005. The new and improved inbound marketing approach is better described as full-service marketing that incorporates all of the following elements:

Rolling out the Marketing Plan - Marketing Campaign Template

Marketing Campaign Template

Conclusion

2. Influencer Marketing - Since one of the major targeted personas for this client was college students, we built our influencer marketing program to capitalize on the reach and influence that college fraternities and sororities have on their campuses. All collegiate fraternities or collegiate sororities have a built-in component where they raise money for the charities they support. We tapped into these programs by contacting their national councils and offering them a way to earn money by promoting our client's apps. To further incentivize them, we introduced a gamification program where they compete with the organizations on their campus and sister (or brother) organizations on other campuses.

3. Public Relations & Earned Media: Our approach to PR and Earned media is to get the founder and spokesperson in front of business news, tech shows, and influential publications. We start with organizations that we have had success with in the past, including:

a) Television (business news & tech shows):

The key is to have a spokesperson being interviewed (e.g., founder)

Squawk Box

Bloomberg Technology

Morning Brew

CNN Business Tech

Cavuto - Coast-to-Coast

Varney and Co

b) 1st Tier News Outlets (Tech/Business/Life Style Sections)

We prepare unique articles for each publication, with the byline being attributed to the reporter.

New York Times (lifestyle section)

Los Angeles Times (technology section)

Chicago Tribune (business section)

Wall Street Journal (personal technology section)

USA Today (life section)

4. B2B Marketing for a B2C App - For B2C businesses seeking rapid growth and scalability, adopting a B2B mindset and targeting businesses as customers can be a transformative strategy. We identified several B2B companies with a target market similar to ours and who could substantially increase their value proposition if they incorporated our client's product. We then engaged in an aggressive account-based marketing approach to partner with these organizations.

5. Growth Hacking—If you have a startup or early-stage company and are not utilizing growth hacking, are you truly serious about scaling your company? Growth hacking is about finding the most effective way to grow your business through experimentation. You seek to continuously improve the performance of every aspect of your marketing and sales program. You are never satisfied, and you eliminate it if something is not contributing to growth.

We are often asked how we coordinate the high level of engagement and all the activities that must be done to roll out seamlessly. It is quite simple: we utilize a marketing campaign template that details all aspects of every marketing program we will be engaging in over the next 4 to 6 months. Once the elements of each initiative are added to the sheet, it will live in the cloud and be accessible to our clients and staff whenever they need to review the information.

Every aspect of every campaign is set forth. This ensures each person contributing to the campaign understands what is expected and when it is due. One of the key elements that most campaign planners fail to include is the anticipated results. We set forth the outcomes in advance and then compare the actual results. We have become very accurate, so if there are any significant differences (positive or negative), we need to drill down to figure out why the delta was different.

We have now concluded our series on creating a go-to-market planning process for startup or early-stage companies. It combines the methodical with the aspirational. It is steep in metrics and driven by a growth hacking mentality that will propel any company to record growth. Most of the time, we find that there is very little capital for any paid demand efforts, so we have found ways to jumpstart success by leveraging the time, energy, talent, reputation, and social reach of third parties who influence our targeted personas or who already have them as customers for a product/service that aligns with our clients.

The reason these programs have proven to be so successful is the preparation done before the plan is even formulated. We understand the industry, your competitors, and those personas who will make or influence the buying decisions. There are not shortcuts. If you want to achieve marketing/sales success it is always about the process and the skills of those implementing the plan.

If you are curious about your company's go-to-market plan, ask us. We will detail what needs to be done and provide an accurate analysis of the outcome of those activities.