<ul><li>Recorded data — obtained externally in the form of published sources such as competitors’ brochures, promotions, news articles, and annual reports</li><li>Witness or observed data — such as what you see when you go to a trade show and visit a competitor’s booth or the conversations you uncover through social media that customers are having about the competition</li><li>Ability to gather plan data — or efforts to set up opportunities to learn more about the competition.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Pinpoint your competitive advantage

<ul><li>New market entry — when extending an existing offering to a new market</li><li>New product development (NPD) — when launching a new offering in an existing market</li><li>Offering diversification — when introducing a new product into new markets. This is rather a high-risk strategy because it entails a lot of unknowns for the company. They need to learn a whole new market and tell a new audience, who it doesn’t know very well, how its new offering will deliver value.</li></ul>

Situations in which a Go-To-Market plan is needed

A Go-To-Market plan should include certain elements of research and action:<ul><li>Customer research: that probes buyer’s interest in your product, or otherwise to perform customer development</li><li>Trend research: such as whether the company is entering into a stable or growing market and how saturated the market is</li><li>Coordinated product development: get intimate with the product by bringing product managers into the research and market testing phases</li><li>Customer targeting: putting together a specific profile of your early adopters and, more importantly, why they would choose it over a competitor’s offering.</li></ul>

Understand the customer

<ul><li>Demographic factors — such as age, income, education, religion, marital status, occupation.</li><li>Geographic factors — urban, suburban or rural area</li><li>Behavioral characteristics — how relevant, consistent and frequent their behavior is toward a particular problem</li><li>Psychographic considerations — including activities, interests, the benefits sought, attitudes, and values</li></ul>

Segment the Market

It is more focused and developed for a specific product or market. A comprehensive Go-To-Market plan will compose of four components:<ul><li>Product strategy: to differentiate the new offering from those of competitors.</li><li>Promotion strategy: pricing promotions and cross-promotions at launch</li><li>Channel strategy: channels utilized not only to sell products but also to educate and support partners and customers</li><li>Marketing and communications strategy: entailing efforts to generate awareness with customers and employees who interact with customers for instruction, purchase, and or support.</li></ul>

The Go-To-Market Plan

Some goals of a Go-To-Market plan may include:<ul><li>Product brand awareness — high awareness or being easily recognized, helps drive potential prospects and sales.</li><li>Marketing to leads — leads, are qualified people who will be interested in the product.&nbsp;</li><li>Sales targets — this is the portion of the qualified potential prospects who will actually convert to a paying customer</li><li>Product adoption — high adoption rates will mean higher expected sales and economic returns</li><li>Customer satisfaction — the goal would be to decrease the number of defects and dissatisfaction at the launch and post-launch stages.</li></ul>

Set strategic objectives

Defining the customers’ problems and validating the offering that addresses them:<ul><li>Define the pain: customers do not think in terms of solutions, they only know what their pains are.&nbsp;</li><li>The urgency of the pain: Are they looking for an immediate solution?&nbsp;</li><li>The size of the pain — you will also need to think about how deep the problem runs.&nbsp;</li><li>Willingness to pay — you want to be sure customers will pay for the product.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Product-problem fit

<ul><li>Reduces the time it takes to get to the market</li><li>Lowers risk and the cost that may be associated with failed launches</li><li>Delivers the best experience for the customer</li><li>Invests on the right path with better direction for internal sources and external partners</li></ul>

The benefits of a Go-To-Market plan include

While a company’s marketing plan is a broad document that aligns marketing initiatives to the high level business goals and objectives, a G-2-M plan is more niche, focused, and developed for a product