What is a Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy?

Launching a new product or service can feel like a high-stakes gamble. You have a great idea, but how do you get it in front of the right people, at the right time, and with the right message?

The answer lies in a well-defined go-to-market strategy. A GTM strategy is a comprehensive plan that guides every step of a product launch, from initial idea through campaign development to the eventual release in-market. It aligns your sales, marketing, and product teams and absolutely requires that all three of them are on the same page and working toward the same goals.

Learn what goes into a winning GTM strategy and how the right visual collaboration platform can help you create one your CMO will love.

Key Takeaways: 

• A GTM strategy is your launch blueprint.
• Alignment is everything.
• Visualizing the plan matters – and visual collaboration tools can help.

What is a go-to-market (GTM) strategy—and why does it matter?

A go-to-market strategy provides a clear, actionable roadmap for bringing a product to a specific market. It ensures all teams involved in a product launch have a shared understanding of the target audience, messaging, and channels. Without a strong GTM plan, even the most innovative products can fail to find an audience. This strategic framework is crucial for reducing time to market and minimizing the risk of a failed launch.

What does “go-to-market” actually mean?

Put simply, "go-to-market" is the process of defining how a company will bring a product or service to a specific market to achieve a competitive advantage. It’s an action plan that outlines how you’ll attract customers and deliver a compelling value proposition. A strong GTM approach involves detailed research, cross-functional collaboration, and a clear understanding of your ideal customer. It’s a core business function that can significantly impact the long-term success of your offering.

GTM vs. other strategies (marketing, sales, market entry)

While often confused, a GTM strategy is distinct from other common types of business strategy such as marketing, sales, and market entry strategies.

• A marketing strategy focuses on generating demand and communicating a product's value to a broad audience.
• A sales strategy outlines how your sales team will convert prospects into customers.
• A market entry strategy is used to bring existing products or services into a new market (geographic region, industry, etc.).

A go-to-market strategy encompasses aspects of all of these for a specific product or service launch. It involves plans for branding, content creation and distribution, audience identification and targeting, and the identification of KPIs for measuring success post-launch.

Why developing a GTM strategy is crucial

No business should ever consider launching a new product without a solid go-to-market strategy for several reasons. A GTM strategy helps internal teams gain a shared understanding of their target audience, ensuring a consistent message across all communication channels. Without alignment around a GTM approach, teams can struggle to present clear reasons to buy for leads at all stages of the sales funnel. If communications are inconsistent throughout the buyer’s journey, you may struggle to find a return on the extensive resources your team spent on product development and campaign creation.

Core components of a GTM strategy

While no two GTM plans will be identical, successful ones often share a number of key characteristics. Account for these GTM strategy components when crafting your plan will get you moving in the right direction toward a seamless launch.

Key elements: target market, value proposition, distribution channels

The target market defines who your ideal customer is, from their demographics to their specific needs. Your value proposition clearly explains what your product is, why it's better than the competition, and what makes it essential for your customer. Finally, your distribution channels determine how you will get your product into the hands of your customers, whether through a direct sales team, ecommerce through your own website, online stores, or traditional retail.

Ideal customer profiles & pain points

Understanding your ideal customer is a core foundation of a successful GTM strategy. This goes beyond basic demographics to include their specific problems, frustrations, and goals, as well as characteristics like industry and role for B2B sales. Don’t forget to pay close attention to your ideal customer’s pain points – these will help you package your messaging and product features into a solution they actually need.

GTM strategy types (product-led, sales-led, account-based, AI-driven)

There are various GTM strategy types to choose from, each suited for a different kind of business and product. These include:

• A product-led GTM strategy, for example, relies on the product itself to drive growth and user acquisition.
• A sales-led GTM strategy depends on a sales team to generate leads and close deals.
• An account-based GTM strategy targets specific, high-value accounts either among your current customer base or via account-based marketing.

More and more in the current environment, these strategies are informed at least partially by AI. AI-driven strategies optimize the customer journey by leveraging data and automation to zero in on strong potential leads and respond with agility to market changes.

Build your own go-to-market strategy with collaborative visualization software

Building a go-to-market strategy from scratch can feel overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. An incredibly effective place to start is by visualizing the plan in a shared digital space where your team can collaborate.

A visual framework helps to clarify roles, connect different workstreams, and keep everyone aligned around a cohesive plan. It simplifies the complex process of building a cross-functional strategy by making it interactive and transparent from the start.

Try a GTM template

A go-to-market strategy template provides a structured way to outline every key element of your plan on a shared digital canvas. The Mural GTM template helps you and your team visualize complex plans, from defining your target market to outlining distribution channels.

By co-creating the plan together, cross-functional teams gain a shared understanding and alignment from the start. A template on a Mural board is a living document that can be easily revisited and updated throughout the launch process. It’s a powerful tool for assigning ownership and tracking your team’s progress in real-time.

Visualize classic and leading-edge GTM strategies

Visualizing a go-to-market plan on a shared digital canvas helps bring it to life and make it accessible to everyone. With Mural, you can chart out a classic B2B GTM strategy, which might involve a sales-led approach, and compare it to a modern, AI-driven strategy that leverages data to personalize every step of the customer journey.

One illustrative example: Mural’s AI-powered stakeholder mapping is the simplest and most accurate way to create a shared network of key players from your marketing, sales, and R&D teams. By charting these relationships out, teams can see how different subject-matter experts and contributors interact and identify potential gaps, all within a single collaborative space.

Want more tips for how to align teams? Check out go-to-market strategy insights and how GTM teams learn.

Transform your GTM strategy with Mural

A go-to-market strategy is only as good as its execution, and effective execution relies on cross-functional alignment. Mural’s recent study on GTM alignment gaps highlights how poor communication and fragmented workflows hurt launch outcomes. Whether you're a startup developing a market penetration strategy or a large enterprise launching a new product, a visual collaboration tool like Mural can bridge these gaps with a shared space for brainstorming, planning, and alignment.

Want to see Mural in action? Try our go-to-market strategy template with your team.

FAQs

Q: How does Mural help my team distinguish a GTM strategy from other strategies?

A: A go-to-market strategy is a specific plan for launching a new product or service. A marketing strategy, in contrast, is an ongoing plan to promote your brand. With Mural, teams can visually map out both strategies on a shared digital canvas to see how they connect, preventing confusion and ensuring alignment. This makes it easy to understand the tactical nature of your GTM plan versus the long-term scope of your marketing efforts.

Q: How does a visual platform like Mural help align my team on our GTM plan?

A: Alignment is crucial for a successful product launch, and it often breaks down without a shared visual framework. Using a platform like Mural helps you and your team co-create a GTM plan on a single canvas that everyone can access and edit. This creates a shared source of truth and helps ensure all cross-functional teams, including sales, marketing, and product, are working from the same playbook.

Q: How can AI assist in my GTM strategy, and how does Mural support this?

A: AI can help streamline a GTM strategy by providing data-driven insights, automating tasks, and helping to identify new opportunities. For instance, AI can assist in everything from competitor analysis to creating ideal customer profiles. Mural's AI features can support this by helping teams quickly generate ideas, summarize research, and turn unstructured data into actionable insights to use when building their GTM plan.