Once your beverage business has developed a new product, the next step is to bring it to market. While this might sound like a simple next step, it takes months or even years of market research and planning in order to make sure that you are able to successfully connect with your target audience and get commitments from new accounts. Even the best products will fail without a go-to-market (GTM) strategy that takes into account a variety of important factors. Keep reading to learn how to create a detailed business plan that will help you identify your target audience, create a marketing plan and implement a sales strategy.
What is a Go-To-Market Strategy?
A go-to-market strategy or a GTM strategy is step-by-step business plan that outlines how you will go about launching your new spirit, wine, beer or RTD product to market. It is a type of roadmap that predicts your beverage alcohol brand’s future performance at on- or off-premise venues, and now through DTC channels as well. These predictions are based on your market research and competitive data.
7 Steps to Creating a GTM Strategy for Your Beverage Alcohol Brand
A GTM is not one-size-fits-all. Every plan will vary according to which markets are appropriate for your product, who your target audience is and much more. Here are the seven key steps to creating your GTM strategy:
- Define your target markets. Do some research and decide which markets are best for your product.
- Define your target customer. Create detailed buyer personas. What are their interests? What are their pain points? What different demographic categories should you be targeting?
- Define your brand positioning. What sets your brand apart from similar companies? Why should consumers choose you?
- Define your offering.
- Define your channels. Where will you be selling? How will this affect where and how you will be marketing to your audience?
- Build your budget model. How much will you be spending on marketing and what percentage of the budget will be allocated to different channels?
- Define your marketing strategy. Outline a detailed plan that includes step-by-step strategies.
Remember that the main goal of a go-to-market strategy is to make sure that your new product reaches your target audience. Buyer personas are an essential tool that will allow you to really get to know your audience so that you can develop a brand and an offering proposition that speaks to them.
Featured Resource: Sales 101 For Alcohol Brands
Who Should Lead the GTM?
Ultimately, the product management team is responsible for creating a product that meets market needs, fills a specific gap in the market or introduces something truly innovative. However, the product management team should work closely with the marketing team to ensure a successful product launch. Together, the two teams can create a great product and use information about the audience to get the product to market and in front of people who are ready to buy.
If the thought of creating a GTM still sounds overwhelming, it is time to stop and ask yourself some important questions. Exploring these questions and generating detailed answers will help you develop a vision for your brand and your product and help jumpstart your GTM.
- Why are you in business? Essentially, take a look at what motivates you and your company? Without getting caught up in thoughts about profits, what do you want to accomplish?
- Who are you best positioned to serve?
- What makes you different in a way that matters? What is your brand? What do you stand for and what do you have to offer?
- How can you deliver results to clients? Oftentimes, this begins with being clear about expectations so that everyone is on the same page when it comes to deliverables.
Using Technology and Data to Plan Your Go-to-Market Strategy
Before you plan your go-to-market strategy, its important to invest in a technology or database that will provide you with the market intelligence you need to succeed as you launch your new product. The Overproof suite of technology is specifically designed for the beverage alcohol industry and works for brands of all sizes as they plan their go-to-market strategies.
In the Overproof Portal, you can set your brand’s goals and KPIs, define your ideal target account, enter in all of your competitors, and then the Overproof technology will generate a target account set, including probability of success, based on all of your criteria. This target account set can then be seen by your sales reps when they open the Overproof App on their phones, allowing them to easily visit these target accounts, send commitments and take notes while they are out in the field.
While this takes care of step 1 and step 5 in your GTM strategy, you’ll still need to understand your target customer and define brand positioning. This can be also be done through Overproof’s Tastings app. Designed for off-premise activations, Tastings allows your agents or brand ambassadors to collect competitor data from liquor store shelves, demographic data of consumers who taste your product, and conversion data on the shoppers that ended up purchasing your product. After an activation is finished, all of these data points get sent to the Overproof Portal, and you will see insights dashboards that show how your product compares to your competitors in the off-premise and the type of consumer that is buying your product.
Go-to-Market Strategies Wrapped Up
A go-to market strategy is essential to your business. While you might have a general plan for your entire business, each new product needs a specific strategy before it goes to market. Without a plan in place, it is easy to fail to connect with your target audience and waste valuable marketing resources on the wrong channels and efforts. Not to mention that the proper planning can help prevent the common mistakes and oversights that cause many new product launches to fail. Use these tips to create a go-to market strategy for each and every product you create.
FAQs
What are go-to market strategies?
A general marketing strategy is meant to shape a company’s long-term approach to staying ahead of the competition. A go-to-market strategy uses buyer personas and other information to make sure that a new product successfully reaches the target audience.
How do you build a go-to market strategy?
Define your target markets. Define your target customer. Define your brand positioning. Define your offering. Define your channels. Build your budget model. Define your marketing strategy.
Why do you need a go-to market strategy?
Without a go-to market strategy, your product will fail to reach your target audience, convert sales and gain traction in a competitive market.
Who is responsible for a go-to market strategy?
The product management team and marketing team should work together to shape both product offerings and go-to market strategies that ensure success.
What are the four key questions for creating your go-to market strategy?
Why are you in business? Who are you best positioned to serve? What makes you different in a way that matters? How can you deliver results to clients?
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