Partner/Channel/Client GoToMarket Plan

1. Go-to-Market Plan
Partner/Channel/Client
Go-to-Market (GTM) plan for LAR/VAR/MSP/ISV will be well served to build a client’s effective (GTM)
plan early on in the product launch process, to ensure you’re including the right people in the decision-
making process, thinking about your customer’s end-to-end experience, and engaging in a multi-step
discovery process before you lock yourself into decisions that may be difficult and expensive to change
later on.
1. Business Summary: This is a high-level overview of your business plan. addressing the core
business drivers behind your decision to sell cloud/SAAS services, highlight the key performance
indicators you’ll use to measure your success, and identify your primary competitors along with
the differentiators you’ll focus on to compete in defined markets. More mature plans may also
include detailed forecasts and specifics about market behaviors.
2. Product Strategy: The key products you will launch in your cloud/SAAS portfolio, along with
any bundling plans, special promotions, or other attachment strategies that will help you sell the
products—including upselling and cross-selling to both new and existing customers. Any
specifics you can include about differentiators between your offerings and those of your
competitors will help you build your sales messaging as you progress further into the launch.
3. Channel Strategy: Identifying the primary channels that you’ll use—both to sell your products
and to educate and support your customers—along with the resources, training, and incentives
that will drive channel performance. In complex channel organizations, products and offers may
differ from one channel to the next, playing on the unique advantages of specific channels, such
as direct sales teams or online portals.
4. Marketing Strategy: Driving product/service awareness and generate leads, both in your
identified markets and within your existing customer base. In large organizations, the marketing
strategy may also include activities for generating internal awareness. Such internally oriented
activities are particularly important in situations where many groups will “touch” customers as
they progress from purchase to activation to support.
5. Customer Experience: How you are perceived by the customer—either at a high level or in
detail. Starting with how customers first hear about a product, it progresses through their
purchase, activation, renewal, and possible cancellation. Exploring this journey helps to identify
any “fall-off” points that may reduce conversion rates, or drive churn, while also helping to
ensure that you’ll have the right people and systems in place to support the new products.

2. 6. Technical Requirements: The technical requirements needed to support the new
products/services. These requirements, which may be affected by decisions made in the
previous sections of the plan, may include branding your customer/partner-facing portals, and
integrating sales and provisioning systems with third-party resources you’ve employed.
7. Evaluation: This is where you spell out and prioritize the factors you’ll use to measure your
success—for example, reaching a certain volume of sales in specific channels, or reducing churn
of an existing product by attaching a cloud/SAAS service. Try to be as specific and detailed as
possible in outlining your goals and evaluation tactics—it will keep your team aligned and help
to optimize activities through your launch.
8. Timeline and Execution: Identify the timeline for execution, including next steps, the critical
path for decisions, key milestones, and plans for reviewing and fine-tuning the GTM plan. This
last point should not be overlooked, as good GTM plans are not static, but evolve with the
project. As your plans progress, you can add details to increase the plan’s accuracy.
Cloud/SAAS Go-to-Market Plan
Partner/Channel/Client
Go to Market plan/goals gives you the opportunity to set your launch vision and present an overview of
your plan. The plan summary addresses the core business drivers behind your decision to sell
cloud/SAAS services, highlight the key performance indicators you’ll use to measure your success, and
identify the primary competitors along with differentiators you’ll focus on to compete in defined
markets. More mature plans may also include detailed forecasts and specifics about market behaviors.
1. Business Drivers:
There is a wide range of cloud/SAAS services to launch, several ways to launch these services, and many
potential markets to target. Documenting the reasons your business is introducing cloud/SAAS services
in the first place can keep the team focused on the task at hand, and remind you to say no to what may
be good launch ideas, but which may not match your core strategy.
• What are the key business drivers for developing a cloud/SAAS services portfolio?
• What are the business reasons behind choosing a partner to deliver your cloud/SAAS services?

3. 2. KPIs and Benchmarks
If you sell cloud/SAAS services, value added services or similar products now, this benchmark and key
indicators will have defined a basis from which to measure success for new services. Benchmarked KPIs
for your current value-add or cloud/SAAS products, you can apply those findings to set realistic forecasts
for the cloud/SAAS services you would want to ROI. These projections can, and will likely, change as your
plan matures, but it’s valuable to set targets so post-launch results have context and are meaningful.
KPIs are often identified for the cloud/SAAS portfolio as a whole, but can also be detailed by product,
channel or customer segment.
• What performance indicators will you use to determine success for your new cloud/SAAS services?
• What are the KPIs associated with your defined business drivers?
• Can you establish benchmarks with current products to measure cloud/SAAS services KPIs post-
launch?
3. Your Market and Target Customers
Markets and verticals differ quite significantly by geographic region – some are early adopters relative to
the rest of the world, while others may be growing faster in one solution segment versus another due to
various demographics. Customer segments you will target is important for defining your product
offering, building promotions, and defining your channels. For many hosting providers, their current
customer base is a key market: demand is defined, a relationship exists, and customers are accessible.
Many providers, both hosting and telecom, are also looking to diversify their customer base with new
services. A new market offer a host of both opportunities, challenges, and requires more investment.
 What is the demand for cloud/SAAS services in your particular market?
 What cloud/SAAS services are currently offered by competitors in your market?
 Are there specific areas of cloud/SAAS services that are underserved in your market?
 Considering your competition, who’s currently leading and who’s investing?
 Are your customers currently utilizing cloud/SAAS services? If so, which ones?
 What providers are your current customers using for cloud/SAAS services?
*** The answers to these questions will help you to define your product, along with your marketing
tactics, sales scripting and more. Your plan can be as simple or sophisticated as you need, and each plan
should be flexible and customizable to your specific marketplace/channel/customer.

4. 4. Poll Your Customers/Partners
 Polling your customers/partners helps you find out what services they are already using or plan
to add in the future.
 If you plan to cross-sell on new sales or sell cloud/SAAS services to your existing customer base,
find out what brands your customers think of for popular cloud/SAAS services.
 Talking to your/their sales reps, or post launch, listening to sales call clips.
 Conduct informal polls with customers/partners on your cloud/SAAS services.
5. Who is the Competition?
 Launching new cloud/SAAS services to your portfolio will likely broaden your market,
introducing new competition.
 Discussing and collectively identifying competitors—and documenting them in your GTM plan—
will help keep product and marketing teams focused when defining product pricing and service
levels. It will also help your channel/sales teams to develop targeted scripting. For multi-service
providers, competitors identified for cloud/SAAS services are likely to differ from competitors
identified for traditional products.
 Review competitor’s online/ social presence. For more detailed company/product information,
annual reports, if they have them, can also offer an important high-level perspective of your
competition’s metrics, positioning and product portfolio.
 If you plan to sell cloud/SAAS services online, perform an online search using key words that
match your intended products. What brands display first? Who is paying for advertising? What
do their landing pages look like? What is their checkout experience?
 By conducting a thorough competitive review, you can gain insights from those who have
already entered the market, identify opportunities to differentiate your offering, and prepare
your channel/sales team to compete more effectively.
6. The Cloud/SAAS Service Value Proposition
 You know the marketplace/competitors’ strengths and weaknesses!
 How will you stand out in your market?
 What will be your unique value proposition?
 Will it be price? Service? Product diversity?