1/ I've been working with companies to help build their go-to-market strategies and wanted to summarize the process to make it repeatable.

Here's what I've learned and how I would break down "How to build a GTM strategy"...

2a/ Get to know your customers. Duh, everything starts here. But you should have an intimate understanding of your customers.

I like to do an exercise: map out their day. Get super detailed here.

2b/
- When they wake up where are they? An apartment? A house? A city? Do they have kids? A dog?
- What apps are they using? What are they checking?
- What tools are they using at work?
- What lows do they have in the day? What highs?

3/ From there, you should build very robust personas, and focus on:
- What are thinking, feeling, etc.?
- Understanding their underserved needs
- How your product addresses those underserved needs
- What the alternatives are

^Alternatives are the next big focus area...

4/ Understand the competitive landscape
- What are the alternatives? What are the obvious and non-obvious competitors?
- What are their features vs. yours?
- What is their pricing?
- [Ideally] which features do people value the most? I love the Kano model for this analysis.

5/ Now you know how to position your product, so build an MVP brand & positioning. Write it out:

FOR [persona]
WHO [their problems/JTBD]
[your company] is a [headline about what you offer]
THAT [value prop to user]
UNLIKE [competitors that do X]
[your co] does [differentiators]

6/ Then, map out funnels
- How does someone discover you?
- Where ARE your target customers? What sites?
- What are they searching for? What's in their mind?

Maximize the Venn diagram of:
- Target customer is there/doing these things
- It is relevant to our product or brand

7/ Then map out the consideration (middle) and conversion (bottom) of the funnel using a similar exercise:
- What are they comparing you against?
- What are their questions/concerns?
- How are you addressing those?

This could be a journey or a funnel. I like to use both.

8/ Okay so now, FINALLY you can figure out your marketing & distribution strategy.

- What marketing channels will work?
- How will we market the product?
- Which personas do we go after first?
- Budgets needed

9/ Optional step - figure out your pricing model. If you don’t do this now, you can do it later.

- Freemium vs. Sales driven (inbound vs. outbound)
- What features should be gated vs. not? How do your competitors do it?
- How much will they pay & what is potential LTV vs. CAC?

10/ Build an action plan and execute your marketing strategy.

The key thing here is to balance testing vs. focus. You want to invest in a distribution strategy with the highest chance of succeeding.

Balance impact vs confidence in strategy vs time to learn vs cost.

Repeat.