Taking a new product to market on a limited budget and when no one knows who you are is tough...
However, this is the position most B2B startups face when they are launching a new product into an existing market.
To overcome these challenges, most will adopt a Go-To-Market strategy combining;
1. A sales-led outbound campaign (blend of phone, email, & social selling) with marketing providing support by creating tactical assets on request (landing pages, customer success stories, proposal docs etc.)
and:
2. A digital campaign with paid advertising, delivering high-value content (webinars, white papers etc.) deployed to attract people off social media and onto a highly optimised website – a journey that eventually guides a prospect to become a customer.
Regardless of which tactical route is chosen, there exists a gut-wrenching vacuum between campaign implementation and seeing the first return on your sales and marketing investment.
Essentially when you aren’t actually selling anything...
- How do you know you’re doing the right things?
- What else should you be doing?
- How long will it take?
- When will we know for sure it’s working?
Now for the good news:
There are specific pre-campaign activities you can do to ensure you’re giving your campaign the best possible chance of early success.
Positioning & Value Proposition
The ability to correctly position your product in the right market to the right audience is the bedrock of any successful campaign – all your sales & marketing tactics will fall into place when this is nailed. Do not neglect this stage – it cannot be hurried!
Problem Statement & Insight Gathering
Find answers to the following questions -What is the business problem your customer is facing? What is the human problem that sits behind it? How can you uncover these? What unique insight do you have on that problem, and how do you relieve their pain? What will their future look like once they’ve adopted your solution? What might happen if your prospect does nothing? Who can you speak to to validate your assumptions?
Buyer-Centric Content Creation
Combine your research & insight data to create a content strategy that will directly appeal to your target audience - your goal should be to share 1 insight per prospect that gives a solution to a real pain point they are experiencing.
The processes outlined above will help your sales & marketing teams to better understand their position in the market, uncover customer insights and focus on solving the right problems – ultimately delivering the desired results on behalf of the company and potential buyers.
