Case Study: Go-To-Market Strategy for an SMB Client

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with the CEO of a startup who wanted help understanding the components of a Go-To-Market plan for his SaaS offering. Here’s what I shared with him.

Components of an SMB GTM Strategy for a SaaS offering:

Validate the need for the SaaS offering. What problem does it solve?

Identify target accounts and buyer’s that would have a need for his product

Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP): Create a detailed description of the type of customer that would benefit the most from the SaaS offering and most likely to purchase.

Develop messaging and value propositions that align with the targeted buyer requirements for the product. Messaging should highlight:

Why organizations should buy from you: Examples for his product are:

  • Trust
  • Credibility
  • Reduced Risk
  • Quality
  • Expertise
  • Personalization (personalized services to address their needs)

The value organizations would achieve using the SaaS offering are:

  • Increased Compliance and Reduced Risk: Ensuring the organization’s systems and processes follow the laws, regulations, and standards that apply to them
  • Increased Productivity: The solution automates time consuming, manual tasks, reducing time to submit forms
  • Flexibility: Customers could choose the SaaS model that works best for them – 01) Purchase and use the SaaS software themselves, 02) Contract for his services, 03) Purchases services from an authorized partner that licenses the SaaS software.
  • Increased Accuracy: Automation, Machine Learning and AI provides built in intelligence to increase accuracy to avoid mistakes
  • Personalization: Customers are unique and require a personalized approach to align with their business model

Buyer Journey: Create personalized buyer journeys to lead prospects through the evaluation / buying process to provide the right level of information at the right time

Content Creation and Curation: Publishing content and curating content (articles, blogs, whitepapers, etc.) that are relevant to their offerings and audience.

Social Media Strategy: Leveraging social media platforms as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, Tick Tock to increase awareness and visibility with prospective buyers of your expertise and solutions. A comprehensive social media strategy can lead to increased sales.

Identify / Engage w/Complementary Groups on LinkedIn and Industry Sites: Engage with groups that are focused on B2B SMBs, Legal, Accounting, Resellers to help engage potential customers.

Competitive Differentiation: Develop a strategy and messaging to clearly articulate and differentiate from competitors. Competitive messaging will articulate why your approach is different and the value provided by customers that contract with you.

Demand Generation Strategy: Use content, articles, podcasts, references, case studies, and events as part of an overall marketing strategy to create awareness and drive interest in your products and services with your target audience.

Sales Strategy: Create content such as sales call scripts, target account lists, Ideal Customer Profiles, buyer personas, presentations, collateral and education to help equip sellers to engage with customers.

Customer Success Strategy: As you bring customers on board it’s important to have a strategy to demonstrate the value of your products and services (both new and existing offerings) to drive upsell and cross-sell revenue.

Website: Leverage your website to provide information, messaging for specific segments and buyers, along with collateral that describes your expertise, why customers should buy from you, and the value to them.

After completing our conversation the CEO had a better understanding of how a complete Go-To-Market strategy could help him increase awareness and engagement with his target customers to create new revenue opportunities within his SaaS segment.

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