Recent conferences on data and market analysis held worldwide have revealed newer innovations in market strategies, especially Data-Backed Go-To-Market Strategies.
How do these conferences address the role of data in marketing, you ask? They arrived at the following conclusion: data has to play a pivotal role in everything we do as marketers, beginning from defining our businesses to how we package and present them.
Thus, it was concluded that more data results in:
A data-driven go-to-market strategy (GTM) has to be developed with market definitions and buyer personas, packaging/pricing and messaging, core competencies and price in mind. But how do we use data effectively to devise a market strategy?
Here are the three ways that you can implement data-driven GTM strategies:
We know about our industries and the target markets, but what about our buyers? Who are our buyers? Why do they buy our products? Data helps to quantify the buyers’ purchasing behavior!
We do this using propensity modeling - a statistical technique that uses data to predict customer behavior in the future.
Express Analytics claims that propensity modeling is a potent tool that does the following:
This powerful technique can potentially provide a valuable competitive edge. Therefore, as a marketer, you would now have statistics on how a customer will share the marketing materials, reference them, buy them, and churn them.
A propensity model is beneficial for understanding how a product has been received and reviewed by the customers. For example, customers can be divided into groups, and scores can be attributed to their defining traits. The data collected can then be applied to different industries, markets, and companies that work in the domain. This will help you gain an idea about the reception of your product among the customers. The data will then be used to compare with other firms to refine the product further so that it meets the needs of the targeted personas and stands out.
Now, this market data can be used in a wide variety of ways. Firstly, it will help you better understand the targeted persona and the strategies that can be used to do so. Secondly, it will stop you from being led on by a site visitor or a buyer who shows interest, for you now have concrete figures to refer to on customer segments. This will help you understand how vital and valuable the customer may be. You will have all the associated market data, starting from the demographics, what they do for a living, and their lead scores.
Such data-driven go-to-market strategy models can also help identify the kinds of messaging that will help certain sections of customers respond, how to retain them over time, and the predictive measures that can be taken.
Messaging is an integral part of a Go-To-Market Strategy . As Steve Jobs, the Co-Founder of Apple, once said, “Master the topic, the message, and the delivery." Even today, professionals in marketing and communications swear by the importance of words.
How simple should the pitch be while positioning:
(Your product) is a (category name) that provides (main benefit) for (audience) unlike (main competitors) which provide (the main benefits)
… This should be done based on your product's main features, your buyers’ persona, and requirements. What is the appropriate messaging strategy, though?
To capture the audiences' imagination, you need to have different versions of messaging highlighting the various aspects of your products. But how will you do this? The answer is—with the help of data!
Conversion rate optimization tests examine the reach and impact of the messaging. Most marketing agencies like to use the A/B methodology. A minimum of two copies thus will be launched for the client and examine its success in turning the reader into a customer.
Packaging and pricing are often overlooked aspects of business, but they are still crucial to a product's market strategy.
Is your pricing structure based on that of your competitors? If your competitors are using the appropriate rates for the market, you are in good stead. Otherwise, even your pricing structure will be flawed.
The market value of your product will be based on the estimates of the value-based systems. However, the elasticity of the market should be factored in along with the estimated value of your product by studying the patterns of the users and the buyers.
Devise a scale to understand how the existing customers think about the price of your product. The scale will range from “too affordable” to “too expensive”. Collate the responses and then see the result. If customers think your offerings are affordable, your pricing strategy has been successful. Otherwise, you may have to adjust if they claim that your products are expensive.
This exercise should be combined with another important question: How inclined are the consumers to buy your products again? The survey should be conducted among different segments or tiers of consumers as frequently as possible.
Remember, data never lets you down! In case it does, we are here to help you cross the data hurdle for the perfect go-to-market strategy.