Go to market and channel strategy

Customer pathways have shifted dramatically and quickly, triggered by changes in technology, communication and media

Once upon a time we had a landscape of force-fed media, delivered through a small set of predominantly traditional channels. That has now evolved into a customer-driven universe of search, social, peer-review and influencer marketing, and mobile apps.

Customers’ buying decisions are happening online, offline, directly, and indirectly, and customers are engaging with customer service through their channels of choice. In fact, the average customer today engages with a brand across 10 channels!

We need to take the customer’s perspective in order to determine how best to approach the market

In our work with businesses, we’ve heard dozens of questions related to go-to-market models:

• Should we put together a direct sales force or sell indirectly through others?
• Should we bundle customer service into our sales division or treat them separately?
• Can we get our product to market through other channels, such as social media?
• The list goes on...

The problem is that these are fundamentally the wrong questions to start with. They all focus on the perspective of the business when what they need to do is take the perspective of the customer, in order to determine how best to approach the market.

Figuring out an approach for going to market is one of the toughest things for a business to do. But without understanding the customer and their pathway, it’s almost impossible to get it right. It’s ultimately that deep customer understanding and customer-centric view that should guide your channel configuration.

So how do you design a customer-centric and effective go-to-market approach?

We believe companies should re-think their channel setup and go-to-market approach on three levels:

1. First, you need to optimise the channel mix. Which channels do your target segments use and prefer? And what combination of channels will be most effective and provide the greatest ROI?
2. Second, you need to optimise each individual channel – because the sum of the go-to-market approach will not be greater than the weakest part.
3. And third, you need to allocate your marketing and sales resources across channels. Where and how do you get the highest return?

Figuring out how you go to market is not a one-time exercise for a company. It should be an ongoing process, constantly informed by emerging technologies and an evolving understanding of customer needs and channel preferences.

In our experience, the companies that have been able to rebuild their go-to-market strategy successfully have reaped several benefits.

Figuring out a go-to-market approach is no trivial exercise — it separates the companies that will be successful and sustainable from those that won’t. It’s where strategic choices meet practical execution and things need to be both effective and efficient at the same time.

• For their customers, it resulted in a better customer experience –greater personalisation and frictionless switching across their channels of choice.
• For their employees, having a clear and common picture of how to engage with customers resulted in increased productivity, strengthened employee engagement and, ultimately, led to better performance.
• For their company, a clear go-to-market approach resulted in higher ROI on marketing and sales investments, growth in market share, increased profitability and, in some cases, all of the above.
  
  

How we have supported clients with go to market and channel strategies