10 elements of a successful go-to-market strategy
A strong go-to-market strategy needs to create brand credibility and differentiate your business as the preferred provider of choice. After you’ve established your brand strategy, you are ready to start running away from the pack and toward greater business growth. Here’s a look at ten pillars of a successful go-to-market strategy you should keep in mind to generate the most leads in your vertical market.
1. Brand (Brand Story)
How does your brand look and feel. What story does it tell? Visual elements and core messaging should carry over from piece to piece for cohesiveness. Consistency will be most effective in driving leads as prospects continue to discover and learn about your brand and offerings.
2. Buyer’s Journey
Your go-to-market strategy should take the consumer from visitor to customer through all the stages of the buyer’s journey. The most effective way to track leads through this trip is by using a customer-relationship-management (CRM) platform that integrates with other leading marketing platforms like HubSpot, Marketo or others. The granular insight will be incredibly helpful to the sales team’s efforts.
3. Outbound Marketing
With digital and traditional, opportunities to reach consumers interested in your company’s offerings, it’s best to research options to form a multi-phase campaign that will reach your target audience and make the most of your budget. Including a landing page to convert leads and then holding someone accountable for measuring campaign success is also critical.
4. Inbound Marketing
Next to referrals, inbound marketing generates the best leads with the highest conversion rates. Inbound marketing like social media posts and emails is a longer tail tactic but when implemented properly it pays off in highly interested leads at no external cost.
5. Content Marketing
Good content marketing involves the creation and distribution of valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and ultimately drive a profitable customer interaction. More than 70% of companies use content marketing. When done strategically, this marketing approach can create noticeable sales increases to help grow your business.
A content marketing strategy should be developed for social, blog, SEO, lead nurturing workflow and more.
6. Public Relations
As part of your overall marketing, Public Relations can increase brand awareness with prospects, customers, partners and the media, drive traffic to your website, pave the way for entry into new markets by generating visibility, drive referrals and more. Your public relations team will use key tactics and tools to help you maximize your marketing efforts.
7. Marketing Automation
Not all leads immediately turn into sales so it’s important to nurture longer-term leads. The content pieces you share with each should align with where they are in the buyer’s journey to move them along toward deciding to purchase.
8. Website Conversion
Don’t minimize your go-to-market strategy efforts by having a website that’s not optimized for lead generation. Make sure it’s responsive and user friendly with SEO capabilities. A good platform will provide marketing automation advantages too.
9. Referral Program
A consistent referral program should be part of your sales strategy. Referrals are the best form of lead generation with high conversion rates. Remind customers of how they can earn incentives for referring prospects.
10. Reputation Management
Reputation Management is critical for your company. Implement a program to manage reviews. Platforms like Bird Eye and Podium can be helpful allowing you to aggregate and solicit reviews.
Although this is an ebook on residential solar methodology it will work in your vertical market also.
