3 Steps to a Successful Go-to-Market Strategy

As the transportation and logistics industry continues to evolve, marketers need to evaluate opportunities to capitalize on. One of the foundational building blocks for both a business and marketing strategy is the development of an action plan that details how a company will reach target customers and achieve a competitive advantage, also known as a Go-To-Market (GTM) plan.

Product vs Market-Focused Go-to-Market Plans

As you work with your company’s leadership team to develop your Go-To-Market plan, you will need to ask yourself if you will formulate and execute the plan based on market-focused or product-driven research.

When evaluating the two perspectives, the main difference to consider is that market-focused companies are externally focused and adhere to a growth model based on the ever-changing needs of the market. Market-focused companies look outside of the company for new technologies, new market players, and new customer expectations. Each of these will drive Go-to-Market development and contribute to the overall marketing strategy.

Alternatively, product-focused companies look at their offerings specific to their product and/or services and its continuous development throughout its lifecycle. Looking for inspiration for new opportunities internally, a product-focused company will regard and evaluate their offerings and how they can iterate and improve upon them as the foundation of their marketing strategy.

Go-to-Market Strategies for Transportation and Logistics

Ever-evolving industries like transportation and logistics should use a market-focused go-to-market plan to address the numerous industry segments and develop a strategy to penetrate, execute and be successful in each market. Below are three ways to start thinking about and building a Go-To-Market strategy that will support your business growth model and secure your success as a market-driven forward thinker in the transportation and logistics industry:  

As you read industry related market-focus research, you will start to see that developing a solid intelligence base for the overall industry is essential. This will lead towards a common persona development exercise for your GTM strategy and will solidify the proposed segments dictated by external marketing departments.

By interacting with customers, you will start to identify opportunities in the market to sell industry-specific products. Leverage current relationships with your customers established in the sales cycle to answer the question “Why do our customers do business with us?” These interactions can take the form of interviews, brief surveys and customer advisory boards. Each of these tactics will provide you with candid feedback on your performance and opportunities to capitalize and stay ahead of the competition.

By performing market research in the industry and continuously interacting with customers, you will be able to intelligently absorb current market conditions and any customer pain points. With these thoughtful insights, you can craft targeted messages in the “voice of the customer” and establish a thought leadership foundation to support your brand and business identity. This will allow you to be tactical in your marketing endeavours and build upon your identified market segment customer base.

With this market-focus initiative, you can dictate your level of market intelligence internally and use this to ensure the successful growth of your business ahead of the competition. By knowing your competition, their strategies and next steps as well as understanding your customers and using their feedback to drive your Go-To-Market strategy you will be able to support and achieve a growth model for your business in a consistent and executable manner.