Multiverse Partners GTM Acceleration in the Asia Pacific

GO-TO-MARKET IN THE
ASIA PACIFIC

UNLEASHING GROWTH IN THE MARKETING, ADVERTISING, AND MEDIA SECTOR.

So, what is the Go-to-Market strategy?

A Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy outlines how an organisation intends to bring its product or service to market, acquire customers, and generate revenue.

A well-defined GTM strategy ensures that a company maximises its market potential and solves customers' real-world problems. A GTM plan is implemented to accelerate the market adoption after validating its Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Business development, sales, and marketing are core to the “Commercial” function of an organisation. The terms are often loosely used. They all serve the same purpose, but they play different roles. In this article, we explore Go-to-Market, an often-neglected function that compromises growth effectiveness. We will focus on the business-to-business (B2B) GTM in the Asia Pacific marketing, advertising, and media sector, where the customer is the brand's marketing department. The products and services are Adtech and Martech solutions, advertising, sponsorships, creative, content creation, and marketing activation services.

Read about APAC Launchpad.

Who needs a Go-to-Market strategy?

Hiring a large capital-intensive sales team at an early stage to launch a new product or service or enter a completely new market carries significant financial risks. What works in one market may not work in another. Each market requires meticulous planning to ensure the highest chance of success. All companies launching new products or services, entering new markets, and scaling up will need a GTM strategy. A well-thought-out GTM strategy becomes even more critical to enhancing the probability of success.

Why is Go-to-Market strategy important?

Over the decades, the marketing, advertising, and media sector have enjoyed minimal external regulatory compliance and oversight. The sector is characterised by low barrier-to-entry, hyper-innovation and hyper-disruption. An early adopter of AI and digital technology, it is also plagued with ethical, data privacy, and cybersecurity concerns. The players are becoming risk-averse and price sensitive with the rapid changes in global geopolitics and economic sentiments.

A carefully designed and tuned GTM strategy with an experienced GTM team can deliver outstanding and quick results. Shortening the learning curve, minimising friction, avoiding roadblocks and regulatory minefields, and giving the market entry a higher chance of success are reasons for having a well-conceived GTM strategy.

What are the critical considerations in a GTM strategy?

There are many elements in a GTM strategy. We discuss several critical considerations that must be included in any GTM strategy framework:

Clarity of purpose – Are we building to validate, building to automate, or building to grow?
Clarity of customer problem – Who are our target customers? What are their problems? How will our product or service solve their problems? What are their aspirations and concerns?
Insights on the competitive landscape – What is the market size? Who are the current players? Who are their customers? How satisfied are they?
Understanding the product or service – Define the product or service. What promise does it make? What are the risks of using the product or service? What are the constraints and limitations? Can customers afford not to use or use something else?
Developing the value proposition – What is the proposition and value-price equation for customers to consider our product or service? Does our customer engagement and sales presentation reflect our promise?
Developing the sales channels – Who were the key partners and trusted sales intermediaries to access the customer base? How do we incentivise the sales channels?
Determining the price – What are the price points for customers' Willingness-to-Buy and the seller's Willingness-to-Sell?
Managing the sales funnel – How do we generate quality leads and drive sales opportunities? Are the negotiation and deal closing frictionless?
Ensuring customer success – How do we ensure satisfactory sales fulfilment, reporting, customer success, and repeat purchases? How do we delight our customers? How do we earn our reputation and encourage referrals?
Measuring success, learning, and innovation – Setting up the right metrics to measure success, developing quick test-and-learn to improve the GTM process, and acting as a catalyst for rapid innovation.
Navigating regulatory compliances – What are the current regulations and compliance requirements? What is the impact on society, ethics, and risk management?

Business Development and
Go-to-Market

Business development and go-to-market are two closely interrelated but distinct functions. While both are crucial in driving customer adoption and revenue growth, they focus on different aspects of business strategy and execution.

The critical difference – Business development is responsible for pursuing new long-term growth opportunities, and GTM refers to bringing a new product or service to market and acquiring customers.

Alignment – Business development provides insights into market opportunities, customer needs, and potential partnerships that can inform the GTM strategy. GTM, in turn, executes the sales and marketing activities necessary to realise the growth opportunities identified by business development.

Partnership – Business development may identify potential partnerships, collaborations, or distribution channels that can enhance the GTM strategy. These partnerships can provide access to new markets, technologies, or customer segments, which GTM can leverage to accelerate customer acquisition and revenue growth.

Market validation – Before executing the GTM strategy, business development may conduct market validation activities such as customer research, competitive analysis, and pilot programs. These insights help refine the GTM approach, messaging, and value proposition to maximise market acceptance and success.

Read APAC Launchpad success stories.

Why hire specialists for GTM acceleration?

When launching a new product or service or entering a new market, a well-established company will have expert resources, assembling a cross-disciplined team made up of product marketing, brand marketing, performance marketing, public relations, direct sales, channel sales, and market segment specialists. However, smaller organisations typically cannot afford such a team.

Hiring experienced professional business development and go-to-market specialists can accelerate the process, minimise friction and risks, open doors, and test and learn. Their services will include developing the complete end-to-end business development and GTM plans, including the abovementioned GTM considerations.

Multiverse Partners specialises in GTM Acceleration Advisory. For more information, contact hello@multiversepartners.com.