You’ve heard me talk about scaling before. You know it’s essential. But here’s the hard truth: if your GTM strategy isn’t locked, more leads won’t save you. More ads won’t fix the gap.

I’m seeing too many startups chasing growth without a grip on messaging, ICP, or channels. So this is your friendly, blunt reminder: start with GTM.

Want to revisit the basics first? Here’s a quick refresher on what a GTM strategy actually is.

Your go to market strategy isn't your sales process.

What Is a Go-To-Market Strategy? (And Why It’s Not Just Sales)

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Your go-to-market strategy is how you plan to reach, convert, and serve your customer. It’s not your pipeline or sales script.

Sales process kicks in after you know:

• Who your customer is
• What problem you solve
• What message hits

Let's say you're a new cloud provider who is going against the likes of Amazon and Microsoft. If you start with hiring a VP of Sales first to set up your sales engine, that would be a gross mistake.

Understanding the market through Customer Needs Analysis, particularly if you're entering a crowded space like Amazon Product Selling, gives you a clearer direction. If you start spending on marketing like the biggies, you're probably going to burn out in less than a year. So, what do you do?

You need to understand your customer before you can market to them.‍

You Can’t Market Without Understanding the Customer

1. If you don’t know what your customer actually wants, your spend is wasted. Full stop.Ask yourself:
   • What are their pain points?
   • What problem are you solving?
   • Why should they care?
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For example, let’s say a company wants to sell its product on Amazon. Conducting a thorough Customer Conversion Rates analysis can inform the Pricing Strategy to compete effectively. They might then look at the competition and see that there are other options available for the same kind of product. This gives them an idea of what their customers want in terms of features or price point so that they have an advantage over their competitors when it comes time for advertising campaigns etc.

Your Unique Value Proposition Must Be Obvious

This is a tricky one for most people, because you want your company and products to be as unique as possible, but it's also important that you don't oversimplify or lie about what makes your business different from others in the market. Utilizing services like Leadle Consulting can help in crafting and refining this message.

A good way of testing this is by reaching out to a specifically chosen pool of prospects from an even smaller subset of accounts to see how much they understand what your product or service means when applied to solving a problem specifically to their industry segment. If they're confused by any aspect of what's being said, then chances are there might be room for improvement on both sides!‍

Build Buyer Personas and Product-Market Fit Before Spending on Marketing.

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If you're not sure who your buyer persona is, how do you know what to say? Aligning your efforts with a Go-To Market Strategy can illuminate the path ahead. How about if you don't know the market for your product and there's no sign of product-market fit.

If you don't have a clear picture of these things before diving into any marketing spend, it'll be hard to make an impact on customers.

This is where AB Testing and Failing Fast in Marketing can be particularly beneficial, allowing you to refine your approach without substantial Marketing Spend.

This means that instead of spending money on ads or paying for influencer campaigns (which often don't work anyway), invest in creating personalized content that aligns with their needs and interests through Personalized Content Marketing.

Don't expect product-market fit with first use of a new channel.

The most important thing to know before you scale is:

1. Your market. Before you can launch a new channel, you have to understand who your customers are, their Customer Understanding, and what they need. When it's time for your go-to-market strategy, focus on those factors instead of just selling more stuff through strategies like Leadle's SDR Accelerator Program.
2. Your value proposition. Understanding how much value each customer gets out of using your product or service—and why they would want more! This guides where in the sales cycle someone should be positioned as part of an overall strategy. It also helps set expectations around pricing based on these factors.

Use tests that are as close to the real thing as possible, like RevOps and Appointment Setting to gauge effectiveness before Scaling up Business.

It's a good idea to test your product with a small sample of your audience. This will give you a better idea of what works and what doesn't for them, enhancing overall Customer Conversion Rates.

If you're going to try out new messaging, test that too—you should be able to see if the new message is more appealing than the old one in terms of conversion rates and overall satisfaction levels.

Similarly, if you're about to make changes in pricing or promotions, run an A/B test on both versions and see which one performs best by seeing how many customers convert into paying customers during this period.

It's often cheaper to fail fast by testing rather than paying marketing costs!

Wrapping It Up: Scale with Intention

Before you chase scale, make sure your foundation is set. That means:

• Knowing your customer
• Locking in your message
• Picking the right channel

Don’t go on a blind date with your market. Know them. Speak their language. And when it lands then, and only then, go all in.