Go-to-marketmeaning and examples

The parts of a go-to-market plan

1. Customer: who will buy first, and why they need it.
2. Offer: what you sell, and what makes it worth choosing.
3. Price: what you charge, and what discounts you allow.
4. Channels: where buyers will find you. This can be dealers, shops, your website, a sales team or marketplaces.
5. Message: how you explain the offer in plain words.
6. Sales steps: who follows up, and how fast.
7. Numbers: targets you will check, such as dealers signed or orders taken.

A made-up example in rupees

Say a Pune maker of water-saving taps wants to enter Indore. This is a made-up example.

How it works for an Indian business

Start in one city, learn, and then move to the next. India has many languages and buying habits, so a plan that works in one city may need changes in another. Settle your brand positioning first, so every part of the plan says the same thing. If the new product will carry a group name, think about brand architecture as well.

Check the shelf, not only the ad. If dealers do not stock the product, ads create demand that nobody can fill.

Common mistakes

• Launching in many cities at once.
• No clear first buyer. "Everyone" is not a customer.
• Copying a rival's price without knowing your own costs.
• Spending on ads before dealers or stock are ready.
• No one owns follow-up, so enquiries go cold.
• No numbers to check, so the plan cannot be fixed.

To judge the cost of winning each customer, read about CAC (customer acquisition cost).

Related terms

• Brand positioning: the clear place your brand holds in buyers' minds.
• GTM (Google Tag Manager): a Google tool for placing tracking tags on a site.
• Trade marketing: marketing aimed at distributors, dealers and shops.
• Channel marketing: marketing done with the partners who sell your product.
• Share of voice: your share of all the advertising in your category.

To build your plan, see our go-to-market strategy work.