Building a Go-To-Market Team

Building a Go-To-Market Team

Assembling the right team to take your product to market can seem like a daunting task. During your search, you’ll encounter issues such as selecting suitable go-to-market roles for the product launch, finding the best talent for the job, and creating a cooperative work environment.

What is a go-to-market team?

Go-to-market teams are responsible for bringing products to market. The team will discuss the best marketing channels, sales strategies, and pricing models to ensure the product’s ongoing success. Generally speaking, within every GTM team, you’ll have several senior positions and a number of teams reporting to them. 

Your average go-to-market team structure might look a little something like this:

Senior roles:

•  Product marketer
•  GTM manager 

GTM teams: 

•  Sales
•  Marketing
•  Product

In this section, we’ll outline the responsibilities of the senior roles and the go-to-market department they manage. We’ll also cover what it takes to create a productive work environment for your newly-formed GTM team.

Senior positions

Your first task when building a GTM team should be to hire a product marketer and perhaps also a GTM manager.

These professionals will spearhead your go-to-market strategy and ensure everything goes according to plan. A product marketer can, in theory, take care of every detail up to launch with the right teams behind them, but sometimes it’s best to onboard a GTM manager to streamline workflows.

Product marketer

The product marketer, or product marketing manager, is in charge of marketing the product from day one. Obvious though it may seem from the job title, this role comes with several responsibilities that you may not be aware of.

Here are some of the main duties of the product marketer:

•  Carrying out market research
•  Creating a product story 
•  Building a content strategy 
•  Planning the product launch 
•  Setting the product up for commercial success
•  Generating a buzz around the product through engagement

As you can see, there’s much more to the role than simply selecting the right marketing channels to promote the product. 

The product marketer acts as a bridge between your company and the audience you’re trying to reach. It’s through the product marketer’s efforts that people will come to know about your product before and after its launch.

While the product marketer will cover the four Ps of marketing in their approach, they’ll also need to lay the groundwork for their marketing efforts through rigorous research and follow up with customer engagement to cement interest in the product.

If you’re looking to fill this role, the best fit will be someone who matches the following criteria:

•  Research skills 
•  Marketing prowess (copywriting is a plus)
•  Broad knowledge of business basics

GTM manager

The GTM manager role can be considered somewhat of a luxury. If you have funds leftover after hiring a product marketer and the rest of your GTM workforce, a GTM manager can be a wise investment. If you want to lighten the burden on your product marketer, freeing up resources they can use on creative pursuits, a GTM manager is a must.

Here are the responsibilities of a GTM manager:

•  Oversee the entire go-to-market process
•  Coordinate with sales, marketing, and product teams to meet deadlines
•  Analyze competition 
•  Identify risks and problems
•  Understand and leverage market trends

By hiring a GTM manager, you’ll have someone on hand to oversee every aspect of the process from start to finish. This is your go-to guy for the everyday logistics associated with a go-to-market strategy. The GTM manager will work closely with the individual teams to ensure everyone is on the same page and working to expectations and deadlines.

For this role, you’ll want to find someone who satisfies the following criteria:

•  Top communication skills
•  Works well overseeing various teams 
•  Has a finger on the pulse of global trends

Go-to-market teams

No product marketer or GTM manager can ensure a successful product launch without the support of several teams. Most go-to-market strategies will involve a marketing, sales, and product team. 

So, what does a go-to-market team do?

Each team will work to the product marketer or GTM manager’s overall plan, completing tasks and projects that are critical to the success of the go-to-market strategy. The three supporting teams make up the go-to-market workforce, provided they have guidance from whoever is overseeing the GTM strategy.

Marketing

The marketing team will be responsible for raising awareness of your product and, more importantly, generating interest in it. With a strong marketing team, you’ll have a greater chance of creating a buzz around your product both before and after launch.

Here are some of the roles the marketing team will assume:

•  Identifying and communicating brand identity   
•  Conducting market research
•  Carrying out marketing campaigns 
•  Managing your online presence

Sales

The sales team will piggyback off the marketing team, using the leads your marketing efforts have generated to sell the product. Everyone in the sales team should be driven to sell and convince customers on the fence that your product offers the best solution. 

Here are some of the responsibilities for your sales team:

• Lead generation 
• Customer retention 
• Budget management 
• Customer support services

Product 

Finally, you’ll need a dedicated product team to bring your GTM dream team together. The product team will work on the product itself, defining its key features and USPs, outlining the development roadmap, and coming up with new ideas.

Here’s what the product team will work on:

•  Outlining product vision 
•  Creating a roadmap for product development 
•  Defining USPs in terms of features and characteristics

How to create a productive environment

Even if you assembled the Avengers of the GTM world, you’d struggle to hit your goals without the right work environment. 

Here are some actions you can take to set your GTM team up for worldwide domination:

Clarify your objectives

Before you embark on your go-to-market journey, set up goals to aim for. Without a roadmap for what success might look like, how will your product marketer or GTM manager know whether they’re on the right track?

Establish metrics and KPIs (key performance indicators) from the outset, and your GTM team will have clear milestones to hit on the way to the product launch and beyond.

Here are some metrics you might like to use:

• CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): The average cost to acquire a new customer
• LTV (Customer Lifetime Value): The average income received per customer over time
• MRR and ARR (Monthly and Annual Recurring Revenue): Average income per month/year
• ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): How much you make on ads versus how much you spend
• Churn rate: The number of customers/subscribers lost
• Organic search traffic: Traffic that comes from online customer searches

Set up clear communication channels

If you want a cohesive GTM strategy in which all three teams work well with one another, communication is key.

You need to establish communication channels within each team and across departments. The top players, such as your product marketer, must have the means to relay messages between the respective teams quickly.

Often, the best way to do this is to have your workforce use a single software solution or tool. For example, if everyone in the organization has access to Slack, they can quickly and conveniently communicate with their coworkers and superiors.

Develop a project management system 

It’s no secret that there are dozens of top project management software solutions out there fighting for your attention and hard-earned cash.

The rise of project management tools correlates with the increasing tendency for companies to adopt hybrid or remote work models. A world that was already moving towards flexible hours pre-pandemic is now hurtling towards remote work as a standard way of working. It’s estimated that around 48% of workers will continue to work remotely beyond the pandemic.

If you’re searching for an all-in-one project management solution to streamline your go-to-market efforts, Wrike could be the answer. With Wrike, you can estimate budgets for your various marketing campaigns, delegate and collaborate on tasks and projects, and evaluate overall worker productivity. Try the two-week free trial now to see how Wrike can form an essential part of your GTM team’s strategy.