Growth Marketing vs Go-To-Market: Which strategy for your startup?

As an entrepreneur or startup founder, you have surely already faced this question: how to effectively launch a product on the market and ensure its long-term growth? To answer this question, two key strategies stand out: Growth Marketing and Go-To-Market (GTM).

Although both approaches aim to maximize the success of a product or service, they apply to different stages of your startup's lifecycle and are based on distinct methods.

Let's discover in this article how to choose the right strategy based on your objectives.

What is Growth Marketing?

Growth Marketing is an approach centered on optimizing the AARRR funnel (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue) to maximize your company's growth at each stage of the customer lifecycle. Unlike traditional marketing, which often focuses on acquisition, Growth Marketing adopts a holistic approach by optimizing not only acquisition but also customer retention and loyalty, through data-driven marketing techniques and continuous experimentation, such as A/B testing.

Who is it for?

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This strategy is particularly suited for startups in the scale-up phase or companies that have already validated their product in the market. It's suitable for companies looking to boost their growth after acquiring an initial customer base and optimize their ROI.

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The main axes of a Growth Marketing strategy:

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- Acquisition: Identify and attract qualified prospects through various channels (SEO, advertising, social media, prospecting, ...).

- Activation: Lead users to their first positive interaction with your product or service.

- Retention: Implement actions to maintain user engagement.

- Referral: Use referral programs to transform your customers into ambassadors.

- Revenue: Maximize customer value through cross-sell, up-sell, and dynamic pricing strategies.

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What is Go-To-Market?

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A Go-To-Market strategy is an operational plan aimed at ensuring the successful launch of a product or service in a market. It involves defining your target personas and ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), analyzing your competitors, defining your value proposition, and selecting distribution channels. It's a key approach to validate your product-market fit, refine your product positioning, and obtain your first customers.

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Who is Go-To-Market for?

GTM is suitable for startups in the launch phase or for companies wanting to introduce a new product to an existing market. It applies at the start of operations, alongside initial marketing or sales actions, to test several positioning hypotheses and understand your target.

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The Main Steps of a Go-To-Market Strategy:

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- Define your personas and ICP: Identify target market segments and understand their pain points.

- Analyze your competitors: Understand the strengths and weaknesses of competing products in the market to identify differentiation opportunities and define a strategy to stand out.

- Clarify the customer promise: Develop a compelling value proposition that addresses the specific needs of your targets.

- Conduct preliminary tests: Test your product and value proposition on a limited audience to validate your hypotheses.

- Choose the commercialization strategy: Identify the most relevant approaches for your target (inbound, outbound, physical, virtual, ...). The choice of strategy must be consistent with product characteristics and ICP expectations.

- Launch the product: Execute the launch plan in your target market. The launch must be carefully orchestrated to maximize impact and generate traction from the start.

- Analyze and optimize: Track key KPIs to evaluate your launch performance and adjust your strategy and positioning based on feedback.

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💡 Generally, a complete Go-To-Market strategy extends over 3 to 6 months. This timeframe can be longer if the product is particularly innovative or requires extensive testing and several iterations before being ready for large-scale launch.

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Strategy Comparison: Growth Marketing vs Go-To-Market

When to implement a Growth Marketing strategy?

Growth Marketing becomes useful for your company when your product has already reached a certain level of market maturity. If you're at a stage where the priority is to accelerate your startup's growth, Growth Marketing is the ideal approach. This strategy aims to continuously optimize the performance of your actions through rapid cycles of testing, iteration, and improvement. Growth is particularly suitable for:

• Scaling: When you're looking to grow your user base without necessarily proportionally increasing your acquisition spending.

• Optimizing existing processes: If you already have established acquisition channels and want to maximize their efficiency.

• Expanding into new segments: Using insights drawn from data analysis to penetrate new market segments or geographies in a targeted way.

• Continuous innovation: Launching new features or complementary products at a rapid pace, based on user feedback and A/B testing.

When to apply a Go-To-Market strategy?

The Go-To-Market strategy is essential for companies in the launch phase or those seeking to enter a new market with an innovative product. Go-To-Market is crucial if you need to:

• Validate your product: You're at the stage where the product hasn't yet proven its viability in the market. The GTM strategy helps confirm that your value proposition resonates with your targets' real needs.

• Structure a launch: You need to organize and optimize your product or service launch, ensuring that positioning, communication, and distribution channels are aligned to maximize your impact.

• Acquire your first customers: GTM is centered on acquiring your first customers, laying the foundation for future growth.

• Minimize risks: GTM allows you to test your hypotheses in a restricted market before deploying more significant resources. It's a prudent approach that limits the risks of costly failure.

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Conclusion:

Although Growth Marketing and Go-To-Market share the objective of maximizing the commercial success of a product or service, they differ in their approach and application. Growth Marketing focuses on continuous optimization and growth acceleration of an existing product, leveraging analytical and optimization techniques. Go-To-Market, on the other hand, focuses on the introduction of a new product to the market, validating its value proposition and acquiring your first customers.

The choice between these two strategies should be made based on your startup's maturity and current strategic objectives. By mastering these differences, you can effectively optimize your company's growth and decide on the best strategy to implement.

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