What Is Go-to-Market?

The oldest use as a sales term that could be found is by Rowland Moriarty and Ursula Moran, in "Managing Hybrid Marketing Systems" (Harvard Business Review, November-December 1990). They write that companies add channels without a clear vision of their "go to market" architecture. It may not be the first, and this glossary does not name an origin. In 2002 Lawrence Friedman published the book "Go To Market Strategy". According to the publisher's table of contents, it covers targeting markets, aligning with customers, choosing channels and partners, and rethinking products and the value proposition.

The misreading is to take it for the launch plan or the marketing plan. That is understandable, because widely read guides define it that way. Asana calls it a roadmap for launching a product or entering a market, and Coursera a plan for launching a new product. But the case in Moriarty and Moran involves no launch at all. It concerns an established company changing the way it sells. The description of Friedman's book speaks of taking products, services, divisions or an entire company to market, and Salesforce includes relaunches and new target audiences.

The three documents answer different questions: - Go-to-market: who you sell to, what you offer them, how it reaches them and at what price. - Launch plan: what happens and when on the day the product comes out. Without the decisions above, it is just a calendar. - Marketing plan: according to Coursera, the action plan with the concrete steps of a marketing strategy. A go-to-market can include one, but a marketing plan does not contain a go-to-market.

This glossary sums it up in four decisions. The summary is ours, because the sources do not agree on the list. Asana asks what, who, where and how. Salesforce adds sales preparation and metrics. Price does not appear in Friedman's chapter titles: - Market: which segment or country to go after first, and which not. - Offer: what you sell to that market and what problem it solves there. - Channel: direct sales, distributors, an online shop or a combination. - Price: how much you charge and how, given what each channel costs.

The four depend on each other. A price that leaves margin for a distributor may make no sense in direct sales, and an expensive channel needs customers who buy enough to pay for it.

There is no single method. Asana proposes nine steps, and this order gathers what the sources read have in common. The first two can swap if a company starts from a finished product.

First, choose the market. That means defining a specific segment and ruling others out. A buyer persona helps describe who you sell to, and it is worth looking at competition and demand in that market as well.

Second, state what you offer. The value proposition says what problem the product solves and against which alternative. Salesforce recommends writing one for each product, even if the company already has its own.

Third, test the assumptions. If you do not know whether this audience will buy, an MVP lets you find out before hiring a team or signing with distributors. It also works for testing a price or a channel.

Fourth, divide the work between channels. Moriarty and Moran's hybrid grid helps here: a table with sales tasks along one axis (generating leads, qualifying them, presales, closing, post-sales service and account management) and channels along the other. No channel has to do everything. Direct mail can generate leads, the telephone can qualify them, and a sales rep can close. The authors insist that the split should follow how customers buy, not only what each channel costs.

Fifth, set the price together with the channel, because each channel's margin changes what you can charge. This decision cannot wait until the end.

Sixth, prepare the team. Salesforce calls this sales enablement: materials and training so that the people selling can present the product.

Seventh, decide what to measure. Salesforce names customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value and conversion rate. Set the targets before you start, and review the plan when the product changes or a new audience appears.

An invented example: a company with appointment software for dental clinics decides to start with practices of three or more chairs in the UK. Its main promise is fewer missed appointments, and it charges a monthly fee per practice. Since the fee cannot pay for a sales visit to every small practice, it generates leads with content and a form, qualifies by telephone and saves visits for groups with several practices. The launch date is one detail in that plan, not its content.

One case documents the cost of leaving this undecided. Moriarty and Moran tell the story of Wright Line, which in the early 1980s added a catalogue and telephone channel for midsize accounts and an indirect channel for small ones to its direct sales force. According to the authors, customers did not buy the way that split assumed. By 1985 growth, share and profits were falling, reps were fighting over accounts and the best customers were meeting different offers for the same product. It is a single case, told by the people proposing the solution.

Software vendors and guides say this work prevents costly mistakes, but no independent measurement of how much turned up in the sources checked. The description of Friedman's book promises double-digit growth, a publisher's claim that could not be verified. For that reason this entry gives no figure for improvement.

Three nearby terms answer different questions: - The marketing mix shares three levers with go-to-market: product, price and place. Go-to-market adds the choice of market and the organisation of selling, and promotion becomes one part among others. The boundary is not official, and some guides use the terms almost interchangeably. - Product-market fit is a state: a good market and a product that can satisfy it, in Marc Andreessen's 2007 wording. Go-to-market is a decision. It can be made before that fit exists, in which case it is a hypothesis. - The MVP is a tool for testing an assumption. It can test those behind a go-to-market, but it does not replace them.

• Put the four decisions and the reason for each on one page.
• Name the markets you are leaving out as well.
• Choose the channel by how the customer buys, and check that with real customers.
• Work out the numbers for each channel with its price before signing anything.
• Give each channel specific tasks and make clear who owns each account.
• Review it when you relaunch the product, change audience or add a channel.

• Calling a launch calendar a go-to-market.
• Handing the decision to marketing and leaving sales out.
• Addressing everyone so as not to rule anyone out.
• Copying a competitor's channel without knowing whether it pays for them.
• Adding channels one at a time without reviewing the whole.
• Splitting channels by customer size without checking whether customers buy that way.
• Setting the price once the channel is already decided.