4 Shifts to Improve Your Go-To-Market Execution

By Maria Geokezas, Chief Operating Officer at Heinz Marketing 

After perfecting your product and redefining your brand and message, it’s time to go-to-market. You’ve nailed down the perfect strategy. You’ve received incredible feedback from initial users. Your team is feeling confident.

But as the results come in, they aren’t what you expected.

You can’t gain traction, and your budget is dwindling… what happened?

You may assume that you chose the wrong strategy. But before returning to the drawing board, you might want to take a closer look.

After all, strategy is only half the battle. The other half is execution, and it’s never been harder to get right.

As all hardened marketers know, no plan survives its first contact with reality. Even the best strategy can fall apart due to circumstances beyond your control. However, the success of your product depends on how well your team can adapt when things don’t go as planned.

Too many companies focus solely on the go-to-market strategy, believing the right strategy is all that matters, and they overlook the importance of plan execution. So they aren’t prepared for the speedbumps they run into along the way.

When this happens, you must ask yourself how much of your lack of results is due to strategy and how much is due to a lack of the right internal resources and processes.

Set Your Go-To-Market Strategy Up For Success

While today’s technology has made getting in front of your customers easier, it’s also made it more difficult to catch and keep their attention. Almost every brand is generating large volumes of content. So, keeping up with the leaders in your space is your top challenge—especially if you’re working with a limited team or budget.

If you want your go-to-market plan to succeed, you have to find a way to cut through the noise. And that’s where world-class execution comes in.

Here, we look at the four pieces you need to set your go-to-market strategy up for success.

1.    Tap into the Best Team

Building a team that is not only skilled and experienced but also aligned in terms of vision and goals takes years. So newer or smaller teams often have a disadvantage.

And when team members are not on the same page, miscommunications and delays are bound to follow.

If your team lacks the right experience and know-how, it leads to blind spots and missed opportunities—which can tank your go-to-market execution.

To avoid these issues, you must build a strong, diverse team aligned with your product vision and goals. This could include recruiting experienced and skilled professionals or partnering with an outside agency. Both options allow you to tap into top talent and industry knowledge you wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.

2.    Track the Current Trends

The marketing landscape evolves rapidly. So, what worked three months ago may not be as effective today. For your go-to-market strategy to succeed, you must find a way to stay current on what’s working now across each platform and adapt quickly as needed.

If your competitors are using the latest marketing strategies and tactics, you have to be able to match or exceed their efforts to stay competitive. Using the marketing strategies that are working today – such as taking advantage of an up-and-coming platform – can help you stay ahead of the competition to preserve or increase your market share.

Don’t assume you have to stick to the same channels and campaigns just because it’s what worked in the past. Instead, take the time to explore new platforms and formats to distribute your marketing content. Set up an early testing processes for exploring new approaches and let the results guide the direction of your go-to-market execution.

By staying up-to-date, you ensure you use the most effective methods to communicate with your target audience and help your brand stand out from the crowd—without breaking the bank.

3.    Set the Right Budget

Setting the right budget can make or break your go-to-market launch. Without the proper budget, you may not have the resources to execute your launch plan effectively, leading to delays, missed opportunities, and even failure.

One of the main reasons why a budget is essential is that it allows you to prioritize your spending. For example, you might allocate more resources to brand awareness in the early stages of the launch, then shift your focus to conversions as you gain momentum.

Without a budget, making strategic decisions and allocating your spending at different stages of your launch is nearly impossible.

With an established (and well-informed) budget, you can avoid overspending or running out of funds before the launch is complete. That way, you can regularly monitor your spending to ensure you can complete each launch stage as planned.

4.    Know Your Limitations

Every go-to-market strategy has limitations you need to be aware of. In many cases, it’s having too many moving pieces without the time or team members required to execute the plan at scale.

You may not have the resources or manpower of larger teams, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be effective. Focus on your strengths and find ways to maximize your impact. Consider outsourcing specific tasks or collaborating with an outside agency to increase efficiency.

In some cases, you may need to revise your strategy to focus on the quality of your marketing over the quantity—keeping in mind that your audience will judge your product based on your marketing.

By embracing your limitations and leveraging your strengths, you can achieve success as a small but mighty marketing team.

Just remember that the goal is a well-executed go-to-market strategy. Otherwise, your product may not reach its full potential, and you’ll miss a valuable opportunity. By prioritizing execution through improving your internal processes—including how you integrate with outside partnerships—you make the most of your resources from the beginning, and your efforts will compound over time.