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Embark on a journey to success with the Startup Founder Roadmap, your go-to guide for navigating the challenging yet rewarding world of startups. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just launching your first venture, this podcast is your compass for building, growing, and leading a thriving startup company.
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00:00 - Speaker 1
So a go-to-market strategy is simply your process for getting your product out there to the market. How are you going to take this product and put it in front of all of your ideal customers and show them the value that you have to obviously bring in that revenue? A good go-to-market strategy includes things like partnerships, your email lists, some social media content, pr and stuff like that. You want to use a combination of these things to complete a strategy to get your product out there into the market. Today, we're going to get into the go-to market strategy and how you can use it to improve your startup. What's up, people? I'm Chris and you're watching Startup Definitions. This is part of the Startup Founder Roadmap Podcast and I'm on my journey of building my startup and I love finding these new key terms and different words. You hear all the time buzzwords and stuff like that. I like breaking it down here on the show because it helps me learn and process the information and I know it's going to help a lot of other founders out there. So thank you for tuning in and I also want to say if you're listening on the podcast, I appreciate you, but we are on YouTube. Search for startup founder roadmap. Subscribe to the channel. I appreciate that support. Let's are on YouTube Search for Startup Founder Roadmap. Subscribe to the channel. I appreciate that support. Let's get into it.
01:07
So, when it comes to a good go-to-market strategy, one thing I thought it was in the beginning, when I first started my whole startup journey was like, oh, you have to have a bunch of money and you want to pay for PR. You want to do all of that stuff, and while that could be part of it for some companies yes, it could go that way, but for a lot of other businesses that don't have a lot of funding, you don't have an endless bankroll. You got to be more creative. So I think, obviously, the first thing you think of when I say that is probably content. Content marketing is one of the best ways to get your product out there into the market, and one company that did this really well is fitbit. You all know what fitbit is the workout bands. You know it tracks your heart rate and all that stuff. They have workout plans and everything, and that's actually their new product. When they were launching a new product, they use this strategy. So what Fitbit did is they set up a premium training service and a new app Because, think about it, most people that use a Fitbit, if they're willing to go out there and buy this thing that tracks their steps and their calories and all this stuff and they're willing to pay for that, they're probably the same people that will pay a trainer or pay for an app, right?
02:11
So it's kind of like that's more of your ideal customer, their interest. You got to know that stuff. What's even better about this is because they have the physical product of the fitbit band. They take it a step further now where when you buy that or whatever retailer it is, you can get like 30 days free on the app. You can get a free training session on one of their trainers, right. So they already had a great way to kind of bring in their existing customers into this market. As soon as you go and buy a Fitbit, you're now introduced to the other part of their market, which is the software and the service.
02:43
When Fitbit set up this strategy, it actually created $192 million in revenue right, almost out of thin air, right From the app and then from some training and stuff like that. Now their customers have became 10 times more valuable to them. So, part of this go-to-market strategy, obviously Fitbit was already an existing brand before setting this up right, so they already had a brand, but bringing out this new service, this new product, they needed a way to get that in front of people. So how do you do that? They have ads and retargeting. They did some stuff with retailers and it's just a lot of small little steps along the way that they use to take this product to market. The key thing here is they weren't trying to market to an unknown market. I think that's an underrated.
03:25
Aspect of a good go-to-market strategy is you're not trying to go out there and convince people right, and this is something that podcasters do where, like, podcasters don't have listeners, so they're trying to convince people that don't listen to podcasts to listen to their podcast. It's like no, go to the people that already listen to podcasts and get them to listen to yours. The people that are already listening to shows. They love shows. They probably want to listen to more shows or, when their older shows get stale, they want new shows. That's where your show should be right there. So Fitbit did a great job of okay, you're already a customer, you're already in our world and our space. Let's just add this value on top of that and they created a bunch of revenue from that.
04:00
Another company you probably don't know of that did this really well is a company called TaxJar, and, simply put, taxjar talks about taxes. You think about it. Taxes is not the most fun subject, it's not the most engaging thing, and I would argue that most people would think that just learning anything about taxes is going to be difficult and complicated just from start. So to overcome something like that, you got to balance it out with content. This is where content, I think for a lot of brands, is so important, because when you can sit down and explain something and break it down and deliver key concepts to people, it just it really elevates whatever you're doing, because now you build a different level of trust.
04:36
And I think this is where a lot of the education space should go right. A lot of companies that have software should use content and courses, workshops, webinars, trainings all of that stuff to sell to their ideal customers. Because now I know, if you come to me and you say, hey, I need to figure this thing out about podcasting, ok, that means, number one, you have a podcast. Number two, you're willing to invest in yourself to learn whatever it is that you need to figure out. You are aware of this problem. Those are all green flags. It is that you need to figure out. You are aware of this problem. Those are all green flags so I can give you this information, answer all those questions for free and guide you to my software. I think that's where a lot of software companies are pivoting to, where a lot of courses and all the coaches we see selling that stuff won't really be as profitable in the long run because we're going to have more of the startups that have software to help these people actually teaching the stuff. If you look at a company like Thinkific, that's another good example. They do a really good job of the long, extensive blog posts, the webinars, the conferences, the meetups where you can get in there with other course creators that have made good money and they teach you how to do it for free. They're showing you all of this stuff for free and then you just go and use their software to accomplish the scope.
05:42
But for the content strategy to work as your go-to-market strategy, you have to kind of get rid of the idea that you're going to sell a bunch of products from it. I think that's kind of what messes people up. The idea that I'm going to put this content out and I'm going to get a bunch of subscribers on day one and I'm going to sell a bunch of courses, I'm going to sell consulting I don't think that you can do both of those at the same time. I think with the content marketing it's best to prioritize your call to action as your software, because then all the other stuff you have and again this comes from somebody that has 20 courses, I have eBooks, the workshops, the webinars, I have all of that stuff. But now I make more money because I pivoted to giving that stuff away and then throughout all of my programs I talk about my software. So now those same people are now buying the software and they pay for that monthly. That's way better than one off sale here, one off sale there. I rather dominate the market through my software and just giving out that valuable information.
06:37
So a few things about a good go-to-market strategy that are kind of underrated in my opinion. Number one is partnerships. When you're going to market, if you have other people that's like, hey, this product is great, I think the goal should be to get like three to five people inside of your industry, their industry leaders to say this product is great. You can get three to five of those industry leaders to say this product is great. You can get three to five of those industry leaders to really back you on that and you can put their faces in their quote on your landing page. When you can post it on your social media accounts, it's on the website. That's a good look, right? That's a really good look, because now you build even more trust. You're borrowing trust from these other influencers in your market. Now, again, you're not trying to get famous people. Get people that are relevant to your world, obviously.
07:21
I think another part again is content. I believe every startup should have a podcast, every single one, because you can use it to educate people and tell stories about your brand and build connection and build trust and then still build those relationships right with other people in your industry, with all the other experts and influencers. You can do a lot with having your own platform, and part of having your own platform, too, is the mindset that comes with that. Now you see it as okay. I got to put out this good content to actually help my ideal customers and as you're doing that, you start to see the benefit because your users use the platform more. Some people are going to ask you more questions, which is a good thing because it means they're trying new things out, and then you learn even more because now you see, okay, they want this feature to be changed and upgraded. Like that, you start to learn a lot from just putting out good content.
08:09
And the last thing with the go-to-market strategy, I think it's a time thing. Don't be too focused on, like, a launch date. I think that we get kind of caught up in that. I did too in the beginning. Man, I'm telling you, I made that mistake myself. We're like oh, I'm going to launch on this day. The reality is nobody probably cares. Just being honest with you, nobody really cares about your launch date. Like all the top companies that we love, that we support, most people don't remember the actual day they launched. It doesn't matter. You don't know the day Google launched, or YouTube, or Apple, none of this stuff and you probably don't care. I don't even think you should, to be honest. Like, I think it's better to focus on your go-to-market strategy as something you're doing for at least a month At least. Like when I plan my tactics out, I lean into things for at least a month. I'm going for like three months. It's like I'm still launching this thing.
09:06
Because think about it like this when you post on social media, most people don't see your content, like most people aren't seeing your stuff. So when you post it once or twice, they probably didn't see it. You send it in an email, they probably didn't see it. You send it in an email, they probably didn't see it. So after a month of you doing that, a small percentage of people have seen it. They have engaged with it. That second month you surely will have people's attention. But that third month you get everybody inside of your world and people outside of it to kind of see what's going on.
09:35
And if you're doing things like promoting on newsletters, you are on other podcasts. If you're on youtube channels, if you're doing all this content stuff, you now become omnipresent, where you're everywhere all the time and people are like damn, what's this person have going on? That's what you want. I don't think it's possible to do that with one launch day. Like that was realistic years ago, but now it's just, it's not anymore.
10:00
So I think when you're launching your startup now with a good go-to-market strategy, it should be something you're doing for that 90-day sprint like, think about 90 days. What am I doing for 90 days? That's going to get me in front of new ideal users every single day. That's the goal with a go-to-market strategy. So let me know what you think. Goal with a go-to-market strategy. So let me know what you think. What is your go-to-market strategy, whatever your startup is? Let me know down in the comments below. I just love checking out these new companies. This is fun to me, honestly, whether it's software, e-commerce, whatever it is, let me know in the comments below. If you're listening on a podcast, I appreciate you so much, but check us out on YouTube. Startup Founder Roadmap.