Developing an Effective North American Go-To-Market Strategy
Entering the North American Market requires thorough research and planning. In today's competitive landscape, a well-defined strategy that leverages research, segmentation, data analysis, cohesive content, and personalized messaging is essential for success. This guide provides valuable insights for developing a successful go-to-market strategy for North America. By following these key steps, companies can create a well-defined strategy that enables go-to-market success.
Step 1: Conduct Market Research and Competitive Analysis
Market research and competitive analysis are essential aspects of an effective strategy. Without a thorough understanding of the market, consumer preferences, and competition, marketing efforts will likely fall short. Moreover, most companies that conduct market research before developing a strategy outperform their peers, especially when it comes to key messaging, UI/UX design, and customer satisfaction.
Market research helps organizations understand their target audience's preferences, needs, and behaviors. By gathering relevant data and insights, companies can create buyer personas that serve as the foundation for tailored messaging that resonates with the target audience. Organizations should utilize various research methods to collect this data, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, and online analytics tools.
In addition to conducting market research, organizations should also perform a competitive analysis. During a competitive analysis, companies identify and analyze competitors to understand their relative strengths, weaknesses, and market positioning. By identifying the gaps and opportunities in the market landscape, businesses can create a strategy that differentiates their brand's offerings and helps them stand out from the crowd. Various methods are helpful for completing a competitive analysis, including a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis and Porter's Five Forces model. Additional methods include analyzing search ranking comparisons, customer reviews, backlinks, and public relations (PR).
After conducting market research and completing a competitive analysis, organizations will have a clear understanding of their market and competitive landscape. This information will serve as the foundation for their go-to-market strategy.
Step 2: Develop Market Segmentation and Buyer Personas
Another crucial step in creating a successful go-to-market strategy is developing market segmentation and buyer personas. Market segmentation enables brands to identify target audiences based on specific characteristics, interests, or behavior. By narrowing in on particular customer segments, organizations can develop a tailored marketing strategy that speaks to each segment's unique needs and preferences.
Without segmentation, companies risk sending generic messaging to an entire audience, which can lead to a lack of engagement or even an adverse reaction. In contrast, market segmentation allows brands to connect with an audience on a deeper level, creating a more personalized experience that truly resonates. For example, companies that use segmentation report a 760% increase in email revenue, primarily due to higher open rates and click-through rates, compared to non-segmented campaigns.
Companies can identify specific customer groups using several methods, including demographic, psychographic, and behavioral segmentation.
To effectively segment an audience, researchers must conduct thorough research and gather data about the audience's characteristics, interests, and behavior. They can use various methods, such as surveys, customer feedback, and analytics tools, to gain valuable insights into their target audiences. After collecting the necessary data, brands can begin dividing the audience into smaller groups based on similarities in their characteristics, interests, and behavior.
From here, organizations can utilize their market segments to develop more-defined customer personas. Personas are character archetypes that represent an ideal customer for a particular product or service. They include everything from a name to a background and a description of values, interests, and motivations. Whereas customer segments describe broad customer groups, customer personas embody that information in a highly-specified way that enables greater marketing precision. Detailed buyer personas should ideally align with the identified customer segments and provide insights into the type of customers within them.
Whereas customer segments describe broad customer groups, customer personas embody that information in a highly-specified way that enables greater marketing precision.
It's important to remember that, like customer segments, customer personas are not based on assumptions or guesswork but on actual data and insights from an existing customer base. The idea is to take in-depth market research and distill it into specific personas that can be used to guide marketing efforts.
The importance of developing customer segments and personas cannot be overstated. Not only do effective customer personas have the power to increase site traffic by up to 210%, but they also make email campaigns two to five times more effective, and they enable companies to be more successful in generating and articulating value propositions. Simply put, by developing personas, marketers can align their messaging with the target audience's needs, preferences, and pain points. This alignment enables higher rates of customer traffic, interaction, and conversion rates, which translate to increased revenue opportunities.
Step 3: Create an Integrated Strategy
After conducting market research and segmenting target audiences, companies should work to incorporate this knowledge into a comprehensive strategy that outlines goals, benchmarks, and objectives. The strategy should include key marketing channels, content, and audiences, as well as more logistical items, such as budgets, resources, and timelines.
Create Goals and Benchmarks
When developing an integrated strategy, it's imperative that companies first articulate their larger goals and benchmarks before establishing the content and the logistics. Marketing goals help create the foundation for the strategy, enabling campaigns to have substance, direction, and cohesion. Each strategy should ideally have a few large, overarching goals, with several key benchmarks and objectives associated with each one. Both the goals and the benchmarks should be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timely.
Map Out Processes and Resources
Once the overall direction of the strategy is established, companies can begin to map out the content and processes within it. During this step, companies can take one of two approaches. Either they can establish the logistical aspects of the strategy first, such as budget and time constraints, or they can identify the core content of the strategy and then work backward from there. With either approach, organizations must take time to ensure that all of their strategy's content aligns with the overarching goals and available resources.
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Tell a Cohesive Story
In addition to creating alignment between content, goals, and resources, companies must also ensure cohesion within their marketing content. In other words, each part of the strategy (emails, advertising, social media, etc.) must work together to generate audience interest and tell the brand's story. Practically speaking, this process usually includes developing consistent branding and creating integrated marketing content.
Brand consistency and integrated content marketing are two of the most essential aspects of market success in North America. In a market where 90% of consumers report that authenticity is an important purchase factor, companies must create branding and content that tells their story in an authentic, relatable way. To do this, companies should first clarify their larger purpose and vision. Then, they should use this purpose to guide the creation of relevant content.
In terms of developing integrated marketing content itself, the options are endless. Some popular choices for marketing content include social media posts, emails, advertisements, and earned media publications. Another type of content that is particularly powerful among North American audiences is user-generated content (UGC).
User-generated content is original, brand-specific content created by customers. It's typically published on social media or other channels and includes images, testimonials, reviews, and videos that showcase customers' experiences with a brand. Not only is UGC perceived by customers as more valuable and relevant, but it also results in 73% higher email click-through rates, 29% higher conversion rates, and 28% higher engagement rates across digital platforms compared to brand-generated content.
At the end of the day, North American consumers value an authentic brand story they can trust. Therefore, companies looking to expand into this market must develop an original brand identity that tells a story using relevant content.
Prioritize Personalization
In addition to developing an authentic, cohesive brand story, companies looking to expand to North America must prioritize personalization in their marketing messaging. Moreover, this messaging must be clear, concise, and tailored to each marketing segment and buyer persona. Utilizing diversified messaging enables businesses to communicate effectively with a broader range of consumers.
Personalized messaging can significantly improve the customer experience. It is particularly effective in North America, where 90% of U.S. consumers are drawn to personalized marketing content, and 83% would exchange their data for a more customized experience. According to Epsilon, when businesses offer a personalized experience, there is an 80% greater chance of customers making a purchase. Tailoring marketing messaging to specific customers and segments creates a more engaging and relevant experience for the target audience.
It is important to note that creating diversified messaging is not a one-size-fits-all approach. The messaging should be based on research and insights from market analysis, competitive analysis, and buyer personas. By understanding the audience's needs, preferences, and behavior, organizations can develop messaging that speaks directly to their pain points and motivators, enabling greater market-entry success.
Identify Key Channels
Identifying key channels is one of the most critical parts of developing a North American go-to-market strategy. With so many channels to choose from, selecting the right ones that will resonate the most with target audiences is imperative. Take advertising, for instance.
Advertising is an integral part of any effective North American go-to-market strategy, especially considering North America accounted for 51% of the global traditional advertisement market in 2021. However, launching ads can be rather expensive, so it's important to ensure they are placed on the correct channels. When thinking about advertising in the North American market, several popular channels come to mind, including:
It's important to understand that not all advertising channels are suitable for every business. In fact, each of the channels above works better for some audiences than others. Therefore, it's important for companies to strategically identify the key channels that will resonate the most with their target audiences.
Though the example above relates specifically to advertising, the same concept holds true for any other strategic marketing content. For any content that reaches consumers, It's crucial to understand which channels will be most effective for specific messages, products, and target audiences. By taking time to identify and align key channels with strategic content, a business can optimize its market entry and expand its reach.
Step 4: Analyze Data and Key Metrics
After developing a comprehensive and integrated strategy, companies must also identify and analyze key metrics. By routinely collecting and interpreting data, organizations can adapt and refine their go-to-market strategy to enable success.
Collecting data can take various forms, depending on the company's campaigns and strategic goals. Therefore, it's important to link key data and metrics to various aspects of a company’s go-to-market strategy. The idea here is to track and collect data that provides insight and accountability into the key functions outlined in each strategic marketing function.
One of the most significant advantages of data tracking is that it enables organizations to make data-driven decisions about their marketing efforts. By analyzing customer behavior data, companies can learn about patterns and trends and better identify which marketing channels are most effective or which product features are most popular. Brands can then use this information to optimize marketing campaigns, improve product offerings, and effectively tailor target messaging.
Some helpful metrics to monitor include website traffic, email click-through rates, social media engagement, customer satisfaction, and conversion rates throughout each marketing funnel stage. By collecting this data, companies will not only be able to see how their customers interact with their brand, but also where any conversion pain points occur throughout the buyer's journey. From here, companies can use these insights to improve customer interactions, increase conversions, and optimize retargeting efforts. This information ultimately enables companies to maximize their go-to-market success.
Final Thoughts
A successful entry into the North American market requires thorough research and planning. To succeed in today's ever-changing competitive landscape, companies looking to come to North America must develop a comprehensive strategy. It’s crucial for them to leverage market research, competitive analysis, segmentation, authenticity, personalization, and key metrics to expand their market reach and connect with customers. By following the steps outlined in this guide, international companies can set themselves up for success in the North American market.
Senior Vice President - US Sports Camps/Nike Sports Camps
1yGreat article full of very useful and practical advice for foreign companies looking to open distribution in the U.S.