The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Successful Go-to-Market Strategy

Launch Like a Pro: Your Blueprint to an Effective Go-to-Market Strategy

Ever feel like you’re just winging it when it comes to launching a new product? You’re not alone. Most marketers know the pressure: your team built something great, and now everyone’s looking at you to make sure it actually gets into customers’ hands. The problem is, you don’t know where to start! Suddenly you’re stuck wondering if you’ll be the reason your launch flops.

Even the most innovative products can fall flat if nobody knows about them, understands them, or sees why they matter. That’s where a go-to-market (GTM) strategy comes in. It’s a clear, actionable plan to get your offering in front of the right audience, with the right message, at the right time. And now, you have access to a guide that will show you how to launch a new product like a pro.

If you’re tired of second-guessing every launch decision, this guide is for you. I interviewed Aleksandra “Sasha” Mitroshkina, an experienced marketing leader who is passionate about product marketing, sales enablement, and driving go-to-market success. 

Below, you’ll learn what goes into a successful GTM strategy so you can launch with confidence. You’ll also get exclusive go-to-market example plans to pull from for your next project. Ready to stop guessing and start driving results? Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

• What is a go-to-market strategy?

• Who needs a go-to-market strategy?

• How does a go-to-market strategy differ from a marketing plan?

• How do you prepare a go-to-market strategy? Steps for launching a new product

• Go-to-market strategy examples: get ideas for launching a new product

• How do you know if your go-to-market strategy worked?

• If your go-to-market strategy is failing, how do you turn it around?

• What should you do if you’re launching a new product with a small budget?

• How is AI impacting the strategy for launching a new product?

• Advice for marketers who are launching a new product

What is a Go-to-Market Strategy?

Picture this: your company has spent years developing an innovative new product that’s about to change everything. But when it officially goes on the market…no one buys it. 

Without a well thought out go-to-market plan, this risk is all too real. 

A go-to-market strategy is simply a bridge between your product and your customers. Sasha said it best: “GTM is about building that connection and making it easy for the right people to cross over and engage with what you’ve built.”

You do this through certain marketing tactics, which will be influenced by the type of product or service you’re selling, your budget, and other factors. We’ll get to that in a minute. For now, let’s explore who needs to be investing in a go-to-market strategy.

Who Needs a Go-to-Market Strategy?

Anyone launching a new product or service needs a go-to-market strategy. Whether you’re rolling out a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, expanding a consulting firm’s offering, or unveiling the next iPhone, you need a well-defined GTM plan. Without a strategic approach, even the most innovative offerings can struggle to gain traction, miss their ideal customers, or waste resources on ineffective marketing and sales efforts.

How Does a Go-to-Market Strategy Differ from a Marketing Plan?

So, you’re probably wondering: isn’t a go-to-market strategy just a fancy name for a marketing plan? Not quite. While they’re related, they serve different purposes.

“A go-to-market strategy is broader than a marketing plan,” Sasha said. “It’s the overall blueprint for how we bring a product to market successfully. It covers who we’re targeting, what we’re selling, how we’re positioning it, how we’ll sell it, what the pricing looks like, and how we support customers. It aligns product, sales, marketing, and customer success around one shared goal: driving adoption and revenue.”

A marketing plan, however, is just one part of the go-to-market strategy. Sasha noted, “It focuses specifically on how we create awareness and generate demand. The campaigns, content, events, ads, social — those are all part of the marketing plan. But without the GTM strategy to guide it, your marketing might not be aimed at the right people, or timed right, or coordinated with the sales team.”

Now that we’ve established what a marketing plan is and who needs one, let’s talk about building one.

How Do You Prepare a Go-to-Market Strategy? Steps for Launching a New Product

Preparing a go-to-market strategy boils down to five stages. It may sound easy, but it takes focus, planning, and teamwork to pull it off. Skip a step or rush through, and you risk launching into a setback instead of success. Follow these steps and you’ll have a solid foundation to build on.

Stage 1: Understand the Target Audience

You can’t sell a product if you don’t understand who you’re selling it to. If you can glean information about your target audience, your go-to-market strategy will likely yield more success. Here’s Sasha’s approach:

First, I want to understand the customer’s pain points and priorities. What are they struggling with right now? What’s slowing them down or costing them money? That gives me the foundation for positioning, because a GTM plan isn’t just about what we offer, it’s about how we help our audience solve a very profound problem. Usually, I learn about this from our product team, sales, and from talking to customers.

But this fundamental information usually isn’t enough. Sasha digs deeper:

Next, I look at how the customers buy. Who’s involved in the decision, what the typical buying process looks like, what channels they use for research, and what kind of messaging they respond to. For example, are they technical users looking for documentation, or business buyers who need ROI justification? Sales are an obvious go-to resource for understanding how customers buy.

Getting a grasp on how customers buy is important, but it’s not the last step in this stage. Sasha also works to understand what messaging would resonate with this group and what competitors are doing in the market.

Then, I also want to understand the language they use. That includes everything from the industry terms they’re familiar with to the tone of voice that resonates. It helps make sure the messaging sounds like it was written for them, not just about us. Sales and Customer Success teams are the ones who can provide you with some insights in this regard, as they talk to customers regularly.

Finally, I think about context: things like where they are in their journey, what alternatives they’re considering, and how urgent their need is. That helps shape both the timing and structure of the GTM plan.

Once you’ve fully understood your audience, you’ll be on your way to creating a successful go-to-market strategy. The next stage? Market research.

Stage 2: Market Research

Understanding the market is just as important as knowing your target audience. Without insights into what the market currently looks like and needs, your go-to-market strategy might produce lackluster results.

Sasha noted by the time she’s ready to create a go-to-market strategy, the product team is already building the product or has made initial discovery research they can share. “Usually, this research is pretty technical and may be missing the data I need to make informed decisions about how to market this product,” she said. “So, I usually expand the research further.”

She will use various analyst reports and portals like ZoomInfo to understand the bigger landscape of the market. “For example, if I launch a product that is specifically targeted to companies using a certain technology in their stack — ZoomInfo and Lusha are a big help in understanding whether the market is substantial or not.” She’ll also study internal data, like won or lost deals, and interviews with customers.

If the initial research is inconclusive, she’ll work on a global community survey to get external validation for the product. However, Sasha noted that she doesn’t always have time for this, and sometimes the initial research is all she has access to. In these cases, it’s okay for your research to not be entirely complete or perfect. “The rule of thumb is it should be good enough to build the initial GTM strategy and once the bits and pieces of it are launched, iterate with new learnings,” she said.

Overall, Sasha is looking for insights into the size of the market, competitors, results on search engines, usage and adoption of the product, and what will happen in the market in the near future. She’ll also examine two major drivers of potential success: total addressable market and total obtainable market.

• Total addressable market is the total market demand for a product or service. In essence, it’s the maximum revenue a business can create by selling the product or service in the market.

• Obtainable market refers to how many customers would realistically benefit from buying the product or service. This can be calculated using the company’s average conversion rate and average deal size.

Want to see an example of Sasha’s market research? Download it here.

Stage 3: Team Alignment

Once the research is done, Sasha creates a project page where everyone can track the progress of the GTM strategy implementation. She uses Notion but other project management tools can work as well. The key is to put it where most of your cross-functional colleagues are comfortable working.

If you’re looking for an example product page, you can find a template on the Product Marketing Alliance website.

Get the full template here.

From there, she assembles the steps needed to ensure a successful project launch. She noted that it includes planning calls, assigning tasks, and more.

After the project page is up and running, I plan a set of calls, from the kick-off to milestone calls with stakeholders. I call this a tiger team: people that come together to bring this project to success. Usually, it’s marketing, product, customer success, and sales representatives. We all get assigned tasks according to the scope of the GTM launch and held accountable for delivering the items on time.

Once everything is planned, it’s time to start rolling out the marketing tactics that make a successful product launch.

Stage 4: GTM Strategy Tactic Creation

The scope of a go-to-market strategy will depend on what category the product or service falls under. Sasha noted she has three tiers for her product launches:

• Tier 1: A product that is new and innovative, and will help us win new customers.

• Tier 2: A product that is still new and innovative, but is going to be interesting to only a subset of the larger market — like existing customers, or a niche audience. The first two tiers are usually targeted towards revenue generation.

• Tier 3: A product that closes the gap between us and our competitors, something to keep the current customers happy. This launch may be targeted at product adoption more than revenue.

Each tier has its own set of deliverables and channels used for the marketing plan.

Tier 1

This tier will include a broad range of marketing initiatives to deliver the message to the right audience. You may include email campaigns, PR, thought leadership, SEO, PPC, social media, in-person events, ebooks, whitepapers, and webinars. Sasha also noted that she’ll usually include a full list of sales enablement materials like sales decks, battlecards, datasheets, and sales playbooks. Tier 1 campaigns usually take about 2.5 months from the initial research phase to the actual launch.

Tier 2

Tier 2 will receive around 65% of the marketing initiatives compared to a Tier 1 release. It might include typical digital marketing strategies, but wouldn’t include a launch event or press release, for example. This tier usually takes 1.5 months to get up and running.

Tier 3

Tier 3 usually gets around 40% of the marketing activities compared to Tier 1. This tier only takes a few weeks from the initial research to the launch.

Stage 5: GTM Strategy Implementation

Once the deliverables are set, Sasha will go over them with the tiger team and set up a cadence of milestone checkups. A week or two before the launch, they finalize all the deliverables and test them. Then the launch itself can happen on one date, or can last a whole week if you have many products to talk about.

Go-to-Market Strategy Examples: Get Ideas for Launching a New Product

Studying go-to-market strategy examples is one of the best ways to learn. Sasha shared three in-depth examples that will help you understand how to launch a new product.

Example 1: MongoDB Support and Services from Percona

For over three years, Sasha worked for Percona, a world-class open source database software, support, and services company for MySQL, MongoDB, and PostgreSQL databases. There, she was instrumental in leading the company’s GTM strategy to break into the MongoDB market.

What is MongoDB? MongoDB is a document-oriented, non-relational database. It’s document-based, which means it represents hierarchical relationships using a single record. It’s also schema-free, which rules out massive data migrations.

Wells Fargo is an example of a company that uses MongoDB. As customers use cards for smaller, everyday purchases, the amount of data Wells Fargo needs to store grows larger. The company used MongoDB to reduce reliance on outdated mainframes, streamline integrations, and support millions of transactions quickly.

Sasha noted that Percona wasn’t active in the MongoDB market in 2022, and she saw a potential opportunity for the business to take advantage of. “At the time, we weren’t actively promoting to that audience. By analyzing internal data, we identified a promising opportunity to better serve organizations using MongoDB on-premises.”

She spent about two to three months doing research and putting the strategy together. This consisted of customer interviews, competitor analysis, and internal interviews. From there, she worked with the CRO and other stakeholders to align on a new messaging and positioning strategy. They decided to focus on a specific segment: companies that wanted to run MongoDB on-premises and didn’t want the cloud version.

The team launched a campaign with assets including comic-style creatives, email nurture flows, webinars, a cost-savings calculator, and infographics. They also ran paid ads on Google, LinkedIn, and some technical media like Linux New Media and LearnLinuxTV.

Sasha said that a shift in messaging was what it took to launch successfully in the MongoDB market.

We changed the way we talk about our solution. We made the buyer the hero of the story. Before that, the company was mostly focused on how great our software is, but not really on the problems it solves for the customer. We stopped talking about only features and started showing how we solve real problems. We made a clearer path from software to adoption services, because that’s where Percona actually makes money. And it worked! The campaign brought record revenue growth and big logos.

Example of one of the comics Percona ran for this GTM strategy

Example 2: GTM Strategy and Implementation for AlmaLinux OS

In this example, Sasha was responsible for launching the AlmaLinux OS project as the founding marketer. She noted that a previous solution, CentOS, was discontinued, and left a massive gap in the enterprise Linux ecosystem. “Millions of users were relying on CentOS,” she said. “AlmaLinux was created as a community-driven, drop-in replacement. I came to bring it to market from the ground up.”

What is AlmaLinux OS? This operating system is often used on servers for things like hosting websites, running applications, managing databases, and cloud computing. It’s perfect for anyone that requires an enterprise-level Linux distribution, without the cost.

The first thing Sasha did was define the positioning, branding, and messaging. She made sure it “clearly positioned AlmaLinux as a reliable, open, and enterprise-ready alternative.” For the launch, she organized a virtual event that brought in 600 registrations, 250 highly engaged live attendees, and over 12,000 on-demand views after the event. She also launched the official website, opened a swag store to help grow community identity, and created a Reddit community that went from zero to 2,000 members within three months.

Sasha also worked closely with press and analysts to get the project covered in enterprise-focused outlets like LinuxJournal, Infosecurity Magazine, LWN, Linux Magazine, and more. “That gave us credibility with IT decision-makers and helped position AlmaLinux as a serious alternative for enterprise workloads,” she noted.

Now, AlmaLinux OS is one of the top three open source enterprise Linux distributions, used on over a million servers, and even implemented by organizations like CERN. It’s also distributed by 420+ hosting providers and was named “the CentOS replacement to beat” by The New Stack.

Example 3: GTM Valkey Services from Percona

This example dives into a use-case of early-stage go-to-market validation — when there’s still a lot of uncertainty around the market.

What is Valkey? This software is an open-source, high-performance datastore. It’s used for things like caching, message queues, and can be utilized as a primary database.

Sasha noted that a new open source project called Valkey launched in 2023. Percona is a company that’s deeply rooted in open source, so the organization got involved in Valkey from the beginning. Leadership recognized the potential but approached investment decisions carefully to ensure resources were allocated strategically. Sasha saw potential, and she worked to prove that there would be demand for commercial support and services.

She started with research. She analyzed internal sales trends, reviewed analyst insights from RedMonk and Forrester, and dug into signals like DBEngines rankings and Google Trends. “But public data was almost non-existent,” she said. “So, I launched the first Valkey-focused community survey, collected over 150 responses, and ran 10 in-depth interviews to understand real user needs and adoption trends.”

Using that information, she wrote a whitepaper. “It was picked up by the media and became a centerpiece of the awareness campaign,” she said. “More importantly, it gave the leadership team the confidence to move ahead with the Valkey GTM strategy, because now we had data to support the business case.”

Sasha noted that the research-led GTM strategy helped generate strong awareness, brought in qualified leads, and supported the launch of new consulting and support services within just one quarter. Additionally, it positioned Percona as one of the first companies offering professional services for Valkey.

How Do You Know If Your Go-to-Market Strategy Worked?

Planning and executing a go-to-market strategy is a feat. But, if you can’t prove that it worked, you can’t highlight your contributions. So, how do you know if your strategy was a success?

Sasha said that revenue is always a strong indicator of victory. However, you can’t always get an accurate read on revenue generation in the earlier stages of the go-to-market launch. “In order to understand whether we’re moving in the right direction, I look at early success indicators,” she said. “Product adoption rates, leads generated, and if I have a webinar or launch event, a good indicator of interest is the number of registrations.”

Once you start tracking these KPIs, you can always adjust your plan as you go. But, you should always work to tie your accomplishments back to some indicator of revenue. “Ultimately, you need to strive to track revenue and product-related metrics like Lifetime Value (LTV), Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC), win rate, and use the early indicators I mentioned earlier to understand whether your plan is moving in the right direction,” Sasha said.

Overall, it’s important to set goals early on in the go-to-market strategy process. Otherwise, you won’t know what to measure your campaigns against.

If Your Go-to-Market Strategy is Failing, How Do You Turn it Around?

Let’s say that your go-to-market strategy isn’t producing the results you wanted. Revenue isn’t growing, sales are not happening, and no one is noticing your product. Even worse, you might be getting attention from the wrong people — individuals who aren’t your target audience at all. What do you do?

Sasha suggested looking at your ideal customer profile (ICP) first. “When you get a customer and they are churning out, this could signal a mismatch between what you promised and what you delivered, or that you’re attracting the wrong initial customers,” she said.

You might be facing another challenge: Your go-to-market strategy was a success, but it quickly tapered off after the initial launch. Sasha had great advice for this very scenario:

After the initial go-to-market launch, the main goal is to keep riding that wave, that momentum that was built with the GTM motion. How to keep your product relevant all the time, months after launch? I monitor market changes, and if I see a shift that needs addressing in the ongoing communications post-launch, I adjust it as the change happens.

For example, I used to work with the product called KernelCare (it is currently part of the TuxCare brand). KernelCare is a software for automated Linux security updates (“live patching”). This live patching process is very important by default, and its importance grows when a new Linux vulnerability is found. To make sure that our brand is top-of-mind for our audience, I monitored new vulnerabilities regularly, and when one or the other critical vulnerabilities came out, I launched a new mini-campaign. It’s been a very successful brand so far, so I take it that this strategy was working.

In essence, once you launch a go-to-market campaign, it’s extremely important to keep monitoring it. Otherwise, you might risk bringing in low-quality leads or losing momentum too quickly.

What Should You Do If You’re Launching a New Product with a Small Budget?

If you’re working with a smaller budget, you might feel limited in what you can do. Luckily, there are ways to stretch your money for maximum effectiveness.

Sasha noted that if you’re in a small market or a space dominated by one or two large companies, a formal go-to-market strategy might not be the most effective use of your resources. In these cases, you might rely more on word-of-mouth. This could include focusing on public relations rather than digital marketing. Working with influencers or industry publications can help you get solid traction.

How is AI Impacting the Strategy for Launching a New Product?

AI has impacted so many aspects of marketing. Product marketing is no exception. Sasha noted that AI has made the market more saturated and more difficult to stand out. “It’s harder than ever to differentiate products when every business has ‘AI-powered’ added to their software or even physical products,” she said. 

The workaround? Deep research paired with well-crafted narratives. With that in mind, you can tailor your messaging to your exact audience, which plays a huge role in the success of the go-to-market strategy.

One of the most important takeaways from this article is to not rely too heavily on AI. Sasha said it best herself:

Of course, it’s okay to consolidate the research that you do with tools like ChatGPT, but the narrative design, positioning, messaging, and especially content writing — keep it genuine. Because at this point, most of us can distinguish what was made by AI and what was made by a human. The content and strategies created by humans tend to perform and make more sense than AI-generated resources.

If you feel like you’ve done GTM strategy by the book, but don’t see the results you targeted, just start picking the strategy apart and look at different parts of it with a critical eye. Ask yourself, what can be done better in the ICP definition? How can you better enable your sales team to sell your product? Is your product positioned in the right market? Are you talking to the prospects in the right way? Are you communicating with your audience in the channels they use to make decisions? All these questions can help you clarify the strategy and pivot if needed.

We need to understand that AI is a tool, not a replacement for real, critical human thought. While you can rely on it to do certain menial tasks, a go-to-market strategy should always be created by humans, for humans.

Advice for Marketers Who Are Launching a New Product

Phew, that was a lot of information to soak in! At the end of our interview, I asked Sasha if she had any advice for new product marketers who are building go-to-market strategies. 

She said gearing up with templates and checklists is your best shot at success. “What I found is that the PMM community is very open and there to help each other, no matter what,” she said. Ask around for resources other people use, or even ask if someone might become your mentor.

Sasha also mentioned that building a tiger team can help you deliver better results. She said there are always people in an organization who are showing initiative, have ideas, and are happy to participate in a go-to-market strategy. “Find these people and hold onto them,” she noted. “Make sure it is a balanced crowd: people in customer success, sales, product marketing, support, at a minimum.”

You’re Ready for Your First Launch!

A well-crafted, go-to-market strategy is the foundation for a successful product launch. Carefully following these steps can help ensure your approach is aligned, focused, and poised for success. So, take the time to plan and collaborate effectively. With a solid strategy in place, you’ll be ready to navigate challenges and seize opportunities as they arise.

Still have questions about how to launch a new product? Need more go-to-market strategy examples? Connect with Sasha on LinkedIn to learn about her mentorship program.

About Aleksandra “Sasha” Mitroshkina

Aleksandra “Sasha” Mitroshkina is an experienced marketing leader passionate about product marketing, sales enablement, and driving go-to-market success. With a background in launching both proprietary and open-source products, Sasha focuses on aligning product adoption with business growth and revenue generation. Currently a Vice President of Marketing at CloudLinux, Sasha successfully helped organizations like Percona, CloudLinux, TuxCare, AlmaLinux, and other software companies to define and drive their go-to-market strategies, improve sales confidence, and implement innovative processes for high-performing marketing functions. In addition to her leadership expertise, Sasha is the author of a course on “Sales Confidence: Ways to Measure and Improve It,” which has helped numerous PMMs enable their sales teams with tools and resources for faster and larger deal closure.