Hi, I’m James. Thanks for checking out Building Momentum: a newsletter to help startup founders and marketers accelerate SaaS growth through product marketing.

Probably the most overused, yet most misunderstood word in SaaS?

Go-to-market is often used to refer to everything that happens in a business outside of engineering and core functions like finance and HR.

Often this isn’t defined as a single strategy, but as an amalgamation of everything you’re already doing. Even to those in the know, GTM can feel really intangible – and extremely difficult to communicate internally.

And if it’s difficult to communicate amongst different teams, are you sure you’re all rowing in the same direction?

Ultimately, it needs to be a summary of:

how you are literally taking (through marketing and sales)…
…the product you have (and are) building…
…to the market (who, and in which landscape)

Your go-to-market plan needs to convey target customer, your product and positioning, pricing, and distribution channels.

You probably have strategies for all of these pieces, but aligning these together under one GTM strategy can really help focus the message, refine rough edges, and bring everyone on the journey together.

One slide to rule them all

Get the template here

I’ll admit, I’m no designer!

This is not a replacement for more in-depth documentation, but a way to reduce your core strategies and actions into one simple slide that can be shared internally.

The first column covers your customers:

Summarise your target market – beginning with your ICP segment, the teams you sell to, and the job title personas in your core audience
Pull out the unique value that your product delivers, which aligns with your customers expectations and needs. Reminder: these need to be based in reality, not fiction.

The second column covers your product and landscape:

Category – what’s the frame of reference for your product?
Key differentiators – what are they key features that your product delivers that others don’t?
Competitors – who are your top immediate competitors, and how do you differ from them? Also describe any alternative solutions that customers use to achieve similar outcomes.

Lastly, communicate distribution channels (sales and marketing):

Sales strategy – how do you sell and engage prospects, what are the key actions in the sales process?
Pricing – what’s the pricing goal, how much does the product cost, and what is the target average revenue per account?
Marketing strategy – how are you finding prospects in the market, what are the key channels you’re using, what’s your customer acquisition cost?
Elevator pitch – how should everyone who reads the slide explain what your product delivers?

Here’s one I made earlier…

For this example, I made up Fauxtal, a candidate engagement platform for enterprise recruiting teams.

Communicate better, finetune strategy, and increase alignment

I’ve used slides like this before as a summary in presentations to give teams context and grounding on how their work connects to the go-to-market process.

Whether you already have a defined GTM strategy or not, it’s always an interesting process to review within these boundaries with some questions in mind:

Can you spot misalignment in your GTM, rough edges across the components that create some friction?
Are there still questions around who your customers are and their problems, your product differentiators, or how you compete?
Does everyone understand why your price is what it is?
Are people actually using the customer value / product differentiator points in conversations?

One of the most powerful pieces of this template is sharing drafts with people across your business. After reviewing the slide, would they fundamentally disagree with the points you’ve detailed?

If so, you may need to revisit your underlying strategies to unlock higher levels of alignment. Focusing your you go-to-market strategy creates confidence, which in turn builds momentum.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought – find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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