Go-To-Market strategy

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It’s a normal desire for any business to have a robust Go-To-Market, GTM, plan or strategy. Who doesn’t? But wait, they were Hopes of Yesterdays’ and they have been outshined by Tomorrow’s desire. There was a sort of Rat race in progress to seek an answer to the ubiquitous – WWH “What-Where-How”. Everyone suddenly transformed from being  a solution seeker to a provider. Anything visible, the external vision, used to be something “Out-of-box” and everything internal is an approach and solution called “Inside-the-framework”. Much of this has to be blamed upon the traditional media landscape, cultural alienation between East-West, and availability of limited information.

However, over the past decade, the media landscape has undergone a paradigm shift. The biggest emerging market of the time is Digital, shiny and new. It’s online, socially connected, digitally data driven, informatively networked, and culturally aligned. There isn’t any “Line-of-Control” for this market, diluting the old-school perspectives on East-West.

Digital Market isn’t a Bubble but a Ballon. The contemporary digital market is ever changing, ever evolving, ever expanding and a disruptive place where no framework applies. It’s the same with GTM framework as well. Businesses can’t just expect to “Go-To-Market” and create a dent. In a Coconut shell, the traditional approach to GTM is passé.

The BIG question is, what’s next?

To desire a GTM is no longer NORMAL. The new normal is to aspire for a GTSM i.e. Go-To-Social-Market. It’s no longer about just going to the market, but going with a specific Goal like branding, positioning, engagement, support, sales, etc. And, why the traditional framework isn’t applicable in current digital space is because of 3-important things:

  • The aligned impact of traditional and social media

  • The influencing value of various media

  • The nature of proportionality between digital media and marketing outcomes

There is no constant model or framework that applies to the digital market. Likewise, there’s neither a permanent market leader, nor an in-the-book strategic move.

The successful companies are ones which have embraced digital media, maintaining the momentum with the same, and continuously adopting and adapting to the change. One thing common among the successful companies is an impeccable ability to create distinctive Go-To-Social-Market system. It’s no longer about GTM but GTSM. As far as wounded are concerned, the list can go till eternity with Blackberry, Nokia, Kodak.……

The beauty of GTSM lies not with the beholder but – in its capabilities to provide a real time information to a sales channel about what it needs to sell. This is all happening by breaking the silos of functional fiefdom-sales, marketing, operations, product innovation, etc- and integrating them, internally-externally, through digital channels. Unlike the traditional go-to-market, GTSM feeds real-time at the click-of-a-mouse. Organizations with GTSM are found to be more sane by remaining in sync with its environment. It is distinctive also in terms of providing technological co-ordination between functions. However, any approach is as good as an executing team. The success of GTSM relies on the passion quotient, digital understanding, strategic fundamental, and aspiration to know unknown.

The second part of this blog, to be published soon, will focus on elements that make GTSM and approach to create and brace the same. Meanwhile, if you would like to get your front line diagnosed and evaluate your GTSM requirement, feel free to drop us a mail on contact@366pi.com

We don’t invoice for letting you know your problems, but for solutions 🙂

Stay Tuned!!!!

Reach the author: The author of the blog could be contacted at Linked-In or reached at sushant@366pi.com.