Marketing, communication and public relations strategist, Meghna Jain, positioned as Group VP (Marketing) for Stoneage group of companies (Orvi, Stoneage, Strata), holds 16 years of experience across industries—luxury home-decor, fashion & media.Meghna pursued Ph.D from University of Rajasthan, later moved to UK for her Post-Doctoral Study in Education & Coaching. She also holds expertise in Digital Marketing, in which she did a specialisation from IIM- Calcutta. With experiences and assignments executed in UK, France, Germany, Italy & India and having 5 International Awards for published academic research papers in her kitty, Meghna is passionate about working with artisan communities and establishing brands that offer timeless, hand-crafted products for global consumers. Meghna is instilled with strong multi-tasking, planning, analytical & problem-solving skills. She works towards team building with a focus on compassion-driven employee development. She spearheads Brand Management, Consumer Research, Event- based marketing at Orvi. Also responsible for Formulating go-to-marketing strategies for e-commerce brands, Strategizing/ implementing sustainability and community driven organisational initiatives.
A go-to-market strategy is a business tool that product marketing specialists, managers, and other decision-makers use to ensure a smooth launch of a new product or service, entry into an unfamiliar market, or the re-launch of a former brand or company.
Basically, a go-to-market strategy is a comprehensive action plan that details how a new product or a service would reach the end-customers. While each product has a requisite for a different strategy, the end-goal of every go-to-market plan is the same – to achieve a competitive advantage.
In the most basic sense, a typical go-to-market strategy list down two important features that is its pricing strategy and then the distribution plan, but in today’s scenario, companies prefer to be more specific and elaborative. To highlight, all go-to-market strategies have the following core components:
- Target Market – before anything else, you should have a clear definition of your target audience. This involves the demographic, psychographic, geographical, and other variables in the existing market that can help you narrow down your focus. Furthermore, you will also need to create buyer personas and pin-point the ideal profiles that you want to target.
No one enters into the competition without understanding both their competitors and the marketplace. Why would you think of launching a product without knowing what you’re getting into where cut-throat competition lies in every step taken up by the emerging and existing brands? A go to market strategy is something that should constantly change and adapt to the market, and so you need a deep understanding of what the market looks like now as well as its future prospective.
- Value Proposition and Product Messaging – your value proposition and a clear description of your product are two other key components of your Go-To Marketing strategy. Their effective application will help you position your brand and stand out from the crowd. This approach defines your perfect customer if someone who experiences the frustrations your product solves it. They are aware of the problem, already looking for a solution, and are able to buy your product. Not all members of your target audience are the same; each person is a unique individual with their own problems, values, and goals. Creating buyer personas can help you differentiate between the different types of people within your target audience, so you can visualize who your customers are on a human level.
- Pricing Strategy – depending on your target market and positioning goals, decide on an appropriate pricing strategy. Pricing is more than just a financial decision. Your pricing structure needs to made appropriate based on your business model, but it’s also a signal to people about the value you are going to provide. Pricing reflects every other aspect of your go to market strategy, from your customer to the market to how you use strategies like PR, marketing, and sales. And it needs to be a purposeful and deliberate choice.
- Distribution Plan – finally, make sure that you have an effective distribution plan in place for your new product to scale up in the market. Customers purchase your product on their own as per their need. With e-commerce channels in force, it becomes convenient and open doors to more avenues in which customers can find and buy products online. While this process doesn’t require a dedicated sales team, one needs to invest in thorough marketing to drive traffic to your website.
To become a true product leader, knowing how to roll out a new product and invade into unfamiliar territory is crucial in the start. If you put the time and dedication into creating a solid place goes to market strategy following the framework as per the guidelines, one should be able to grow their company in a relaxed, more meaningful way. It might seem like extra work at the moment, but by thinking about your strategy and doing the work upfront, you will be sitting back and enjoying the fruitful whereas the competitors would be working hard to make a mark.