A go-to-market (GTM) framework is a template that a business can develop for their GTM strategies. These are typically short-term, data-driven plans for introducing something to a market segment (such as a new product or service). GTM strategies focus on using consumer data to shape actionable plans for best reaching a target audience.

Sometimes, several different GTM strategies will exist within a larger product marketing strategy, and as such they can be thought of as the initial “launch sites” for a marketing plan. This is especially true for larger businesses who will implement multiple marketing strategies at the same time. For some smaller businesses, though, a single GTM strategy may be all that’s required for a successful debut.

No matter a business’s size or their offerings, it needs a framework to guide successful launches. And the best way to ensure success is to have a tried-and-true starting point for all your GTM strategies. Going to market is a complex, nuanced process that’s different for every organization, so having a framework helps keep things on-track and focused on the business’s unique goals. And while the details of each individual GTM strategy will vary depending on the market, timing, and what specifically is being launched, starting with a base template makes the development stage go a lot more smoothly.

It’s important to note that not all data is created equally when it comes to a B2B go-to-market strategy, or any strategy for that matter. Market data is often too broad to draw any helpful conclusions, too surface-level to spark ingenuity, or too far-reaching to find emerging patterns in the market. With this kind of data, you just end up staring at a ton of numbers, trying to pull some sort of plan from it all.

All of those pain points above are what we at Aptivio aim to solve—and we’re pretty good at it, according to our clients. Our analytics platform can effectively support a go-to-market strategy for startups, seasoned companies, and everything in between—thanks to its ability to collect data en masse then find patterns in that data to inform your strategy.

In today’s market, just knowing a prospect is a good fit isn't enough anymore; you need to know who is doing the relevant research, have the proper timing and reasoning, as well as the right channel for your outreach. Automating the time-consuming parts of data research not only expands your scope, but gives you time to focus on what really makes data matter: context, insights, and actionable items. Best of all, Aptivio supports what makes data matter by giving you correlations for context, patterns in data that spark insights, and potential sales opportunities that generate actionable items for future plans.

See what accurate, actionable data can do for your business’s product launches. Get your free Market Snapshot report now, and see for yourself what sales opportunities await your call.

Five go-to-market components any business should prioritize are:
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1. Understanding market data like consumer pain points and buyer intent.
2. Generating awareness about the new product or service.
3. Identifying quality leads, as well as effective ways to convert them.
4. Increasing brand equity and reputation through successful campaigns.
5. Operating efficiently by keeping costs low and processes streamlined.

While each of these are much easier said than done, taking a logical step-by-step approach (while keeping these five components in mind) will better shape your decision making for the strategy. This is where accurate, helpful data becomes most critical to the planning process. Knowing not just what your target market wants, but how they look for it, takes out a lot of guesswork in your marketing strategy.

Before launching anything, your GTM plan should be able to answer the following seven questions:

1. Who is your target market (and ideal client profile)?
2. How will you communicate your brand identity?
3. Which marketing channels/methods will you use?
4. What are your pricing and payment options?
5. What sales strategy (or strategies) will you implement?
6. What does “success” look like for this launch?
7. How will you produce compelling content for this launch?

Different components of your GTM strategy will answer one or possibly more of these questions. A mission and vision statement, for example, will perhaps focus on brand identity (Question #2) and/or what success looks like (#6), whereas you may have an entire section of your GTM plan for detailing your target market (#1). An executive summary may even answer all of these questions at once.

Creating a go-to-market strategy template for your business starts with answering the 7 key questions we listed above (see “What are the Steps of GTM…?”), then translating those answers into an actionable checklist. With that, one thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to start from scratch; there are countless templates for GTM plans available online and pretty much  any of them can get you started.

While your GTM strategy template should reflect your business specifically, that will naturally happen as you fill in the information for your business’s specific goals. Some universal pieces should be there—such as an executive summary, mission statement, and so on—but you also don’t need to feel limited to those components, either. No two GTM strategies are alike, and for good reason.

As you fill in details, remember that a good GTM strategy should help you achieve these five main goals:

1. Understanding (and using) market data.
2. Generating product/service awareness.
3. Identifying sales-qualified leads.
4. Increasing brand equity and reputation.
5. Operating as efficiently as possible.

If your plan supports all five of these goals, you’re going in the right direction. Just make sure you have the right data to back up your decisions. And speaking of having the right data…

Many companies seek the help of marketing companies for sales leads, and the best ones use hard data to back their choices. A lead generation company named MarketJoy saw firsthand how much more success they had in generating sales-qualified leads with a platform like Aptivio at their disposal.

When MarketJoy first partnered with us at Aptivio, they were seeing a diminishing return from their usual means of procuring leads, and wanted to find a better solution. They had all the pieces of their framework in place, but unfortunately didn’t have the data they needed to back their decisions for clients. So, MarketJoy sought out Aptivio: an AI-driven platform that not only references billions of behavior points for buyer intent, but also integrated into MarketJoy’s CRM platform.The results speak for themselves; in just the first 90 days, MarketJoy saw a huge turnaround in their success rates, including a 38% increase in contract revenue value and a 400% increase in average contract length. Overall, they also grew their qualified pipeline deals by 20%. Here’s what MarketJoy CEO Jay Singh had to say about their success:

‍“It is no secret that creating demand in the market has become increasingly more difficult the past 2-3 years. Fortunately, our partnership with Aptivio has allowed us to overcome that challenge and perform at higher levels for our customers. Our partnership has even enabled us to achieve a higher contract renewal rate with our customers than ever before.”

‍How exactly did MarketJoy see such a drastic change? It all comes back to having the right data, and developing ways of using that data. Originally, MarketJoy’s methods of data acquisition were inefficient and outdated…but more importantly, the data they were getting was too generic to provide any real, actionable ways to generate leads. With Aptivio, however, they were not only able to acquire far more data, but far more helpful data, which mapped the buyer journey from start to finish. This, among other insights through Aptivio, gave MarketJoy the tools they needed to drive success for their own customers.

MarketJoy isn’t the only organization to see growth with Aptivio. You can read about more success stories from a wide range of businesses, each with their own unique go-to-market goals. You can also see more about how Aptivio’s platform works on our website.

Once you have a GTM framework, you’re going to need the right technology to support its execution. That’s what we provide at Aptivio. Our platform sits at the cutting edge when it comes to consumer data—consumer data that can drive your decision-making down the path to a successful launch. Our AI-powered engine gives you key insights on your target audience, using hundreds of signals (such as account history, research on competitors, and more) to generate countless data points for your usage.

Here’s just a few of the things you can do with a platform like Aptivio at your fingertips:
- Leverage network signals and buyer intent to close more deals
- Quickly map sales opportunities—and ways to reach them—in real time
- Share possible leads with your partners, investors, and networks
- Organize and prioritize your leads based on different characteristics

This is just a sample of what you can do with Aptivio. Through targeted data that prompts actionable choices, you can shape the best strategies every time you go to market. Not only that, but you can find innovative, new ways to grow your market share and bring value to your partnerships—all with the same tool. If you’d like to experience the power of data-driven market strategies firsthand, configure your free Market Snapshot today. You’ll see just how much there is to gain from Aptivio, from sales opportunities to improvement areas for your marketing campaigns, all by using real-time insights.

Your target audience is already telling you exactly what they want; do you have the tools to hear them?