Paawan Kothari, Entrepreneur and Go-To-Market Leader, shares her insights on marketing in this multi-part series: Demystifying Marketing.
All founders rely on their intuition. They inherently understand the gap in the market and want to build a solution to fill it. However, to take a product to market, you need more than strong intuitions and inventive products. Startups need a business plan to convince investors, a marketing plan to attract customers, and a go-to-market plan to launch a product. Here is a short primer on all three documents.
Business Plan: A business plan translates an idea into a viable business. It entails rigorous analysis, innovative solutions, and diligent financial modeling. This document is primarily for founders and investors — it is a way to validate and communicate your venture’s technical, economic, and financial feasibility. It should also include the overall marketing strategy.
Marketing Plan: This is an umbrella term that encapsulates every aspect of a company’s brand and its unique selling point (USP). A marketing strategy involves rigorous market research (competitive, SWOT, and market analysis), brand identity, value proposition, and product positioning. A Marketing Strategy determines the goals, and the Marketing Plan decides on the tactics. A Marketing plan answers the What and Who at the company level. What value does the company provide, and to Who?
Go-to-Market Plan: This is a sub-set of the marketing plan. It is product-specific and is targeted towards a specific segment. A company can have multiple GTM plans, one for each product and/or segment. For example, a GTM plan for enterprise customers will be different from the SMB segment.
Stay tuned for more on the GTM Plan framework in the next blog in this series, coming soon.
Originally published in Medium.
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Author Bio:
Paawan Kothari is an entrepreneur, a seasoned marketer, and a budding political activist with over 20 years of experience working for large and small companies. In 2010, Paawan quit her corporate job to start her venture, The Chai Cart®, to bring together her passion for entrepreneurship with her desire to make a difference. After 8 years of building the business, brand, and acquiring marquee customers, Paawan sold the business in 2018.
