Go-to-market strategy

Firstly, it is very important to understand the importance of GTM for marketing interviews and
GDs as major portions of these processes deals with GTM. If you able to nail down GTM, you are almost
through in your interview. Now, let’s understand how an interviewer/panelist can frame the question to
you. Not all times you would be asked for a go-to-market strategy of a particular product. Occasionally,
questions shall be twisted but you need to understand that they are asking for GTM.

Coming to process of doing a GTM strategy, we need to have a complete understanding of 5C,
4P and STP frame works. Let’s understand these frame works with the help of an example. Let’s say you
are assigned as a VP-Sales and are planning to launch new premium Biscuits. What would be your GTM
strategy for premium biscuits in Metros.

Okay, we will first understand category/industry in which we are trying to launch our product.
We need to understand what each of our competitor’s offerings and positioning are and identify the
gaps in the market. Entire biscuit industry values at around Rs.180 Billion( Market Size), of which
premium biscuits (Cookies filled biscuits and sandwich biscuits) accounts for roughly Rs.97 Billion. Major
players in the premium biscuits are Cadbury’s Oreo, Sunfeast’s Dark fantasy, Britannia’s Bourbon and
Parle’s Bourbon. Oreo offers two flavors, Crème and Chocolate while Dark fantasy is a Filled Chocolate
premium biscuit.

After a brief understanding about the Category, let’s move on to who our customers are: we are
basically looking at people between ages of 12 – 40. Though this range is debatable, roughly most of our
customers fall in this range. Most of these people belong to affluent life styles, basically SEC A, B group
living in Metros and Tier I & II cities. (SEC is Socio-economic class defined based on various parameters
like income, education, profession, location etc.). Basically these people would be going to Private
schools & Colleges or would be working class people who would love consume chocolates frequently.
They are well accustomed with the package food and reacts positively to junk foods. Till now we have
identified the Target group (Consumers) and understood industry. Once you have identified the target
consumer/customer group it is very important to position your product. This should be based on the
market gaps that we identified earlier. A good positioning statement would give you an edge over others
in both interviews and GDs. Now, let’s move on to 4Ps.

First, looking at the “product” we have to understand what are the flavors/variants that we
should be offering to the target group. What would be the best selling variant (Chocolate / Strawberry /
Milk Crème ). Next we will move on to Packaging. We need to identify what the right size of the product
should be (Should it be a 100 gm product or 200 gm product or a smaller SKUs). As these people can
afford for high amount, it is always better not to launch in smaller SKUs (SKU means Stock keeping Unit).
You may even argue that smaller SKUs will help increase the number of trails. On the other side trails
can also be generated by bigger SKUs as these people are not too much price conscious. Also try and
understand line and category extensions for the products. These might not be applicable for the
example here but might be needed for other products/services.

Secondly, you have to look at the “pricing strategies”. You always have an opportunity to price
you product higher or lower or same as your competitors. It all depends on how you would to play and
how you position your product (On-the-go snack or breakfast item or fun element). Understand the POP
and POD (POP-points of parity and POD- Points of difference). It is very important to understand how
you position your product as it reflects on the Brand Recall. Higher brand recall implies high impact on
customer/consumer minds. As this is a premium range biscuits it is always suggested to place your
product in the higher price band.

Thirdly, we are down to “Place”. We need to identify what are places that our target group
would be going/visiting. Kids go to schools and colleges so we can target tuck shops, most of the target
group are regular visitors to shopping malls, super markets/ hyper markets and grocery stores. They
spend quite some time on relaxing, places visiting would be movie theatres, Parks, Pubs and Clubs,
Sports arenas etc. All these places can be our touch points with the customers. Our Width of distribution
(Number of stores in which we are present divided by number of stores in which this category is
present) depends on how far we can reach for customers and how profitable the channel would be. As a
Sales manager I would first be targeting Super markets & hyper markets and groceries first. These places
have high visibility for any given product, which can also help me in promoting my product. You would
ideally be using terms like Modern and General trade in this segment of the discussion. Talking about
the visibility you should also be thinking about at what point in the store the products should be placed
so that they get the best visibility (Counter-tops are places next to counters, Front-Caps are place at the
beginning and End caps are placed at the end of the aisles where customer halts to think about which
aisle he should be moving to next). How will you make sure that retailer keeps my products at best
visible places ( Should I be paying an extra amount for the shelf-space or should I be giving him higher
margins so that he can make more money out of my products – basically methods of incentivizing
retailers). You might also have to trough some light on how you can bundle your products or place your
products next to high selling items (Beer-Diaper example). You might also touch-up on various channels
or routes you would like to utilize in distribution- Direct Distribution (FMCG-> Stockist-> Distributor->
retailer) or In-direct distribution (FMCG->Stockist-> Distributor-> Wholesaler->Retailer).

Fourth is “Promotion”. Basically promotion can be divided into two types, ATL (Above the line)
and BTL (Below the line). Though the ”line” here cannot be defined very clearly, we can classify all the
promotions outside a store can be classified as ATL ( TV Ads, Hoardings, Show sponsorship, Activations
in Malls etc.). All the promotions that happen inside the store can be classified as BTL (in-store
promotional material, Displays etc). We have discussed BTL activities in pricing segment. Talking about
ATL, especially TV advertising, choosing the right combination of medium, message and members is very
important. Medium basically deals with mode of communication like – TV Ads, Radio Ads, Hoardings etc.
Message is the information what you are trying to pass on to customers. Members are the people/items
used to convey the message- Brand Ambassador/ Mascott.

By now, we would have a rough idea on most of the aspects and a brief summary at the end of
the discussion would give us the insight in to the GTM strategy that group have agreed to.

GOOD LUCK

Document composed by

Om Namassivaya Koneti

Kailash Nuthalapati