READY, SET, GO-TO-MARKET. How and Why You Need to Plan for Launch

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1 READY, SET, GO-TO-MARKET How and Why You Need to Plan for Launch $ Aa

2 With the constant need to get to market quickly, it can be tempting to jump into launching a new product or service without first having a solid plan in place. However, taking the time to build a thoughtful strategy before a launch will ultimately lead to a better experience for both you and your customers. Whether you re launching cloud services as a new offering to your core services or enhancing your current portfolio with new products, you need a plan that will ensure you re asking the right questions, building group alignment, and ultimately executing your launch for maximum success. This go-to-market plan (GTM) can be as simple or sophisticated as you need it to be, depending on the size and complexity of your company and your potential target market. $ Aa But, at its very core, the GTM should help you define who in your company needs to be part of the decision making team, how you will determine project launch success, and what tactics will need to be completed to secure customer satisfaction during and after the launch.

3 Why You Need a Go-to-Market Plan Many partners find themselves mid-cycle through their launch without a documented plan. The tell-tale sign of lacking direction happens when team members can t answer critical questions such as, What companies are your main competitors? or What will be the process for a customer who wants to cancel one or more of their cloud services? BELOW ARE THREE CRITICAL COMPONENTS OF A WELL-DOCUMENTED GTM PLAN GROUP ALIGNMENT AT THE ONSET EARLY CONSIDERATION OF THE END-TO-END CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MULTI-STEP DISCOVERY BEFORE LOCKING IN ON A STRATEGY Having the right people involved in GTM planning not only brings in a variety of viewpoints possibly raising critical decision points that may otherwise go unconsidered but also aligns internal groups to your overall strategy and execution plan and reduces future conflicts. At a minimum, you ll want to include sales, support, finance, and technology subject matter experts in the planning process. Larger organizations may also want to involve legal, training, operations, and research teams to contribute to the GTM plan. A good plan should anticipate and address customers needs at every step from the first time customers hear about a product and through their consideration period, purchase process, product activation, support experience, and potential renewal or cancellation down the road. Because the customer journey involves many teams, it is essential that the GTM planning experience ensures all needs are considered and addressed early on. TWEET THIS: A good plan should anticipate and address customers needs at every step. The ultimate benefit of a thorough GTM planning process is that it allows for the consideration of a wide range of information before decisions are put in motion. Locking in on a strategy without a thoroughly vetted plan can limit your options down the road and a changing strategy can delay your launch and increase costs. Some key points to cover during the planning process include business drivers, competitors, your value proposition, services to be offered, channel prioritization and forecasts, on-boarding customers, and support strategies. By taking the time to consider all of these points before locking in on a strategy, you ll have a much smoother launch.

4 Before You Begin Have the Right People in the Room Before we expand more on what should go into a plan, we must first begin with the who. Depending on the size of your team, it can be an enormous benefit to have crossfunctional involvement during the planning stage. The more people that are involved, the more insight and expertise that will go into your plan and the fewer challenges you will likely experience during execution. KEY PEOPLE ON YOUR GTM TEAM SHOULD INCLUDE: Cloud business owner(s) Product marketing/ customer marketing specialists Sales/channel leadership Support/customer experience specialists Technical/ integration specialists Finance/accounting specialists

5 6 Steps to a Successful Cloud Go-to-Market Plan Now that you have your team in place, you can jump straight into drafting and executing your plan, right? Not so fast. Before you kick off your GTM, you ll want to consider a few often overlooked but still very important components: your goals, a competitive analysis, and market research. Clearly outlining your go-to-market plan s goals gives you the opportunity to set your launch vision and present an overview of your plan. At a minimum, your GTM plan s business summary should address the core business drivers behind your decision to sell cloud services, highlight the key performance indicators you ll use to measure success, and identify your primary competitors along with differentiators needed to compete in defined markets. More mature plans may also include detailed forecasts and specifics about market behaviors. FOLLOWING ARE THE KEY COMPONENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL GTM PLAN SUMMARY. 1 IDENTIFY BUSINESS DRIVERS:? There is a wide range of cloud services to launch, several ways to launch these services, and many potential markets to target. Documenting the reasons your business is introducing cloud services in the first place can keep the team focused on the task at hand, and remind you to decline ideas that do not match your core strategy. DISCOVERY QUESTIONS: What are the key business drivers for developing a cloud services portfolio? What are the business reasons behind choosing Odin as a partner to deliver cloud services?

6 2 DEFINE KPIS (KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS) AND ESTABLISH BENCHMARKS: If you sell cloud services, value-added services, or similar products now, the GTM plan s summary allows you to benchmark key indicators so you have a defined basis from which to measure success for new services. Once you ve established KPIs for your current value-add or cloud products, you can apply those findings to set realistic forecasts for the cloud services you re about to launch. Of course, these projections can, and likely will, change as your plan matures, but it s valuable to set targets to provide context to post-launch results.? DISCOVERY QUESTIONS: What performance indicators will determine success for your new cloud services? Which KPIs are associated with your defined business drivers? How can you establish benchmarks with current products to measure KPIs after launch? KPIs are often identified for the cloud portfolio as a whole, but can also be detailed by product, channel, or customer segment. 3 IDENTIFY YOUR MARKET AND TARGET CUSTOMERS:? DISCOVERY QUESTIONS: There are a number of resources you can turn to for data about your specific market. Odin SMB Cloud Insights offers significant no-cost data for key global markets, as well as paid information for more specific data sets. For example, we ve observed that markets differ quite significantly by geographic region some are early adopters relative to the rest of the world, while others may be growing faster in one solution segment versus another due to various demographics. What is the demand for cloud services in your particular market? What cloud services are currently offered by competitors in your market? Are there specific areas of cloud services that are underserved in your market? Considering your competition, who is currently leading and who is investing? Defining your targeted customer segments is important for defining your product offering, building promotions, and determining your channels. For many hosting providers, their current customer base is a key market: demand is defined, a relationship exists, and customers are accessible. Many providers (both hosting and telecom) are also looking to diversify their customer base with new services. Targeting new markets offers a host of opportunities and challenges, along with requiring more investment. Are your customers currently using cloud services? If so, which ones? Which providers are being used by your current customers for cloud services?

7 4 POLL YOUR CUSTOMERS: Polling your customers helps you learn what services they are already using or plan to add in the future. If you plan to cross-sell new sales or sell cloud services to your existing customer base, find out what brands your customers prefer for popular cloud services. Valuable insights can be gained from talking to your sales reps, or by listening to sales call clips after launch. You can also conduct informal polls among your customers to learn what brands they prefer for specific cloud services. 5 IDENTIFY YOUR COMPETITION: 6 DEFINE YOUR CLOUD SERVICE VALUE PROPOSITION: Launching new cloud services to your portfolio will likely broaden your market and introduce new competition. Discussing and collectively identifying competitors and documenting them in your GTM plan will help keep your product and marketing teams focused when defining product pricing and service levels. It will also help your channel teams to develop targeted scripting. For multi-service providers, competitors identified for cloud services are likely to differ from competitors identified for traditional products. A natural place to start investigating competitors is online. For more detailed product information, you may want to call and even become a customer yourself. Annual reports, if available, can also offer an important high-level perspective of your competition s metrics, positioning, and product portfolio. If you plan to sell cloud services online, perform an online search using key words that match your intended products. Then, ask yourself: Which brands display first? Who is paying for advertising? What do their landing pages look like? What is their checkout experience? Considering your identified competitors strengths and weaknesses, how will you stand out in your market? What will be your unique value proposition? For example, will it be price, service, or product diversity? The answers to these questions will help you define your product along with your marketing tactics, sales scripting, and more. Of course, you can make your plan as simple or sophisticated as you need, and each plan should be flexible and customizable to your specific circumstances. TWEET THIS! How will you stand out in your market? What will be your unique value proposition? Key questions to consider in your #GTM By conducting a thorough competitive review, you can gain insights from those who have already entered the market, identify opportunities to differentiate your offering, and prepare your sales team to compete more effectively. $

8 8 Essential Components of a Go-to-Market Plan Now that you have your preliminary research and competitive analysis completed, it s time to build out your plan in detail. As you create your plan, you ll want to include eight basic building blocks below. 1 2 BUSINESS SUMMARY: Present a high-level overview of your business plan. At a minimum, the business summary should address the core business drivers behind your decision to sell cloud services, highlight the key performance indicators you ll use to measure your success, and identify your primary competitors along with the differentiators you ll focus on to compete in defined markets. More mature plans may also include detailed forecasts and specifics about market behaviors. PRODUCT STRATEGY: This section of the plan identifies the key products you will launch in your cloud portfolio, along with any bundling plans, special promotions, or other attachment strategies that will help you sell the products including upselling and cross-selling to both new and existing customers. Any specifics you can include about differentiators between your offerings and those of your competitors will help you build your sales messaging as you progress further into the launch.

9 3 4 CHANNEL STRATEGY: This is where you identify the primary channels that you ll use both to sell your products and to educate and support your customers along with the resources, training, and incentives that will drive channel performance. In complex channel organizations, products and offers may differ from one channel to the next, playing on the unique advantages of specific channels such as direct sales teams or online portals. MARKETING STRATEGY: This section summarizes the activities you ll use to drive awareness and generate leads, both in your identified markets and within your existing customer base. In large organizations, the marketing strategy may also include activities for generating internal awareness. Such internally-oriented activities are particularly important in situations where many groups will touch customers as they progress from purchase to activation to support. 5 6 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: This section documents the anticipated customer journey either at a high level or in detail. Starting with how customers first hear about a product, it progresses through their purchase, activation, renewal, and possible cancellation. Exploring this journey helps to identify any fall-off points that may reduce conversion rates or drive churn, while also ensuring the right people and systems are in place to support the new products. TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS: This section documents the technical requirements needed to support the new products. These requirements, which may be affected by decisions made in the previous sections of the plan, may include branding your customer-facing portals, and integrating sales and provisioning systems with the third-party resources you ve employed. Odin can help you identify the technical requirements needed to launch your products. TWEET THIS: Exploring entire customer journey helps identify any fall-off points that may reduce conversation rates or drive churn.

10 7 8 EVALUATION: This is where you define and prioritize the factors you ll use to measure your success; for example, reaching a certain volume of sales in specific channels, or reducing churn of an existing product by attaching a cloud service. Try to be as specific and detailed as possible in outlining your goals and evaluation tactics it will keep your team aligned and help to optimize activities through your launch. TIMELINE AND EXECUTION: Finally, your plan needs to identify the timeline for execution including next steps, the critical path for decisions, key milestones, and plans for reviewing and fine-tuning the GTM plan. This last point should not be overlooked, as the most successful GTM plans are not static but evolve with the project. As your plan progresses, you can add details to maintain the plan s timeliness. By thoughtfully and efficiently managing a go-to-market plan with these guidelines, your product launches will become more streamlined and more profitable. Like most business initiatives, a successful go-tomarket strategy often comes down to having the right people on your team and then asking that team the right questions many of which we ve outlined here. To find other tips on market strategies along with information on business trends and best practices visit

11 Go-to-Market Plan Worksheet Your go-to-market plan should include the following components. BUSINESS SUMMARY: High-level overview of your business plan Core business drivers Key performance indicators Primary competitors include differentiators (optional) Detailed forecasts/market behavior specifics (optional) PRODUCT STRATEGY: Key products that will launch in your cloud portfolio Bundling plans/special promotions/attachment strategies Differentiators between your offerings and your competitors CHANNEL STRATEGY: Primary channels (to both sell products and educate customers) Resources, training, and incentives MARKETING STRATEGY: Activities to drive awareness and generate leads Activities to generate internal awareness (for large organizations only) CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: Outline of the customer journey How customers will first hear about the product How customers will purchase and activate the product How customers will manage renewals for the product How customers would potentially cancel a product Fall-off points that may reduce conversion rates or drive churn TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS: Technical requirements needed to support the new product EVALUATION: How you will measure success TIMELINE AND EXECUTION: Next steps The critical path for decisions Key milestones When the GTM plan will be reviewed and updated

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