Step 1. Understand Your Target Audience
Conduct Research Before Building a Go-to-Market Strategy
What do we need to know?
Understanding your business, the market, internal audiences, and external audiences is absolutely necessary for building a strong go-to-market strategy.
New businesses need research before they go-to-market. Existing businesses need to continuously conduct research to optimize their go-to-market strategy.
Here is the research I use to gain understanding.
Essential Research
-
The goal is to evaluate how well the business is communicating value.
I start by reviewing Products and Services, Brand Standards and Guidelines, Communications (Websites, Sales Presentations, Business and Product Literature, Social Media, Etc.), and Customer Reviews.
-
The goal is to evaluate how well the competitive alternatives are communicating value.
I start by reviewing Products and Services, Communications (Websites, Sales Presentations, Business and Product Literature, Social Media, Etc.), and Customer Reviews.
-
The goal is to evaluate what is really going on behind-the-scenes. What challenges are stakeholders facing? What opportunities do they see? How much support do they have?
-
The goal is to evaluate external perceptions of value.
Why do audiences choose the business? Why don’t they choose the business or certain offerings? What would be of more value to them?
-
The goal is to evaluate what is actually happening — ignoring what people say and watching what they do (team members and customers.)
Supplemental Research
-
The goal is to stay up-to-date on market factors.
Many industries have organizations that provide formal research reports. Getting access to this information is typically a much smaller investment than conducting it yourself.
-
The goal is to stay up-to-date on social factors.
More relevant marketing and effective relationship building is driven by the understanding of what audiences are being influenced by.
-
The goal is to stay up-to-date on influencers.
Many industries have individuals with large followings that can influence the market. Following them and the reactions of their followers can provide helpful indicators for the future.
Gap-filling Research
-
The goal is to fill in any gaps by directly asking the audience.
Investing in quantitative research can potentially help avoid wasting time and money developing products, services, and marketing that are of low value to your audience.