Identifying your target market & creating a market strategy

Matt Garman
23 Jan, 2020

How to identify your target market and create your go to market strategy

Even if you already have a Go To Market (GTM) strategy, you should regularly review it. I cannot stress enough, how important it is to review every part of your sales function.   The world is changing faster and faster and to be successful, we have to be smarter and more in tune with our market than ever before.

Whether you’re reviewing or building from scratch, you must start with the basics. Before you can build your GTM, you must be able to answer the following:

  • What are you selling?
  • Who are you selling to?
  • How will you reach your target market?
  • How will you promote the product?

What are you selling? – Define the offer: 

  • What is your value proposition and the main business benefit for your customer?
  • What problem is being solved?
  • What are the main benefits of your product?
  • How will your product be used?
  • How is your product different to your competitors’ offerings?

Who are you selling to? – Define your target market:

  • Who would you expect to buy your product?
  • Do they have specific needs?
  • Does their need match the solution offered by your product?
  • Do they have a goal or aspiration that your product helps them to achieve?
  • Do they like your company and your product?
  • Create a profile of your target customer

How do you reach your target market? – Sales channels and marketing strategy:

  • Identify your main sales channels, self-service (your website/advertising), sales people or third-party channels who sell your products and often the products of your competitors
  • Do you have a clear idea of where and how your customers buy products and are you set up to access your addressable market and your highest priority customers?
  • Do all your channels leverage your value proposition?
  • As your market changes, are you fully optimizing all available channels?
  • Do you have strategic partnerships and do you review these regularly?

How do you promote your product? – Branding, marketing and pricing:

  • Have you thought about how you sell and if it’s consistent with your brand positioning?
  • Does your marketing strategy support your sales and channel strategy?
  • Have you included the insights from your competitive landscape analysis?
  • Do you know your competitors’ strengths in different products and are you able to counter them effectively?

During your review or build phase, these are some of the actions to help you successfully target your market: 

  • Analyse previous sales to see where you’ve been most successful and where your most profitable customers come from
  • Profile the characteristics of your best customers and create a ‘buyer persona’ of your ideal customer
  • Review your products and compare them to your competitors’ offerings to assess your strengths and weaknesses
  • Define your offer by understanding who uses your products and how, what are the major benefits and how your product is different
  • Analyse your sales and marketing materials to make sure they maximise your competitive strengths
  • Regularly review your marketing material including: website, online content, leaflets and other print collateral, is it current, does it represent your brand and is it effective?
  • How does your pricing stack up against your competition, does it equate to the value delivered by your product?
  • Do you know which channel is the best way to reach your customers and are you using it fully?
  • Is your sales process set up to maximise the business coming through your chosen channel?
  • Your value proposition should drive your strategy; does your GTM strategy reflect your competitive analysis?
  • How do you identify your prospects, how are you marketing to them, how do you bid for their business – is your process consistent, sustainable and repeatable?
  • Measure how well your channels are working for you and identify and fix any that are not giving you a return on your investment
  • Establish a formal process for measuring the success or failure of each sales channel and use it to achieve consistent results
  • Consider that every different product or service you offer might need it’s own GTM

Once you have your GTM in place, keep up the communication until you’re confident that every person in your business is able to say ‘This is where we’re going and this is how we’re going to get there.’

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