Branding plays a role in go-to-market

When talking about go-to-market, you often hear this term used when the company is in the stage of international expansion or targeting particular geographical market. I think people often get this term wrong. Whether you are starting with a new innovation, a start-up or a large company, you need to plan your go-to-market strategy.

Go-to-market planning at its best starts a lot earlier. It can start as early as when you have your first demo or a prototype. Well-conducted go-to-market takes into account unique selling points, competition and above all customer needs. Go-to-market is really about packaging your offering ready for the market(s) and making it appealing for all stakeholders. It’s about launch strategy taking into account to whom you are selling your product rather than internationalisation strategy where you are looking at dynamics of particular market and your product-market fit (although this can be part of go-to-market).

Branding plays an important role in this and in order to get the go-to-market right you would need to work with designers and marketing experts. Even business model canvas is not really concentrating on things like story, visuals and target group which are part of go-to-market. Technology commercialisation is focused very much still on technology choices, protection, product features, pricing strategies, product development, team building and distribution. All this is necessary but in order for products to align with customer needs, marketing needs to play a role in the process. Here are some questions you can start with:

• Value proposition: What value are providing to users?
• What kind of feedback have you received?
• What is your story?
• What kind of users do you see using your product or services?
• What kind of visual world are you providing to your customers?

Go-to-market happens in networks where users, branding and technology specialists are working together to launch not only the best but most appealing innovations to the world.

This article is supplied by Maria Sipila of Sipila consulting. Read the original article here.