Best Go-To-Market Channels

What is a go-to-market channel?

A go-to-market channel refers to the marketing technique a business uses to get its product off the ground. It could be anything from content marketing to paid advertising and can vary for B2C and B2B businesses.

Choose the right go-to-market channels to get the word out, and you’ll be rewarded with consumer attention. 

Many businesses in the digital age try to shout louder than their competitors to reach their customers. Rather than let your brand voice become just another echo in the online void, be selective with your marketing approach.

If you pour time and energy into the right marketing channels, you can grab the attention of your intended audience and follow through to secure sales. Fail to make your ideal buyer persona aware of your product, and they’ll spend their cash elsewhere. 

Deciding which go-to-market channels to use can be difficult, so you’ll need to carefully judge who you’re marketing to and how they’re likely to come across your product organically. 

Your first task should be to define your audience, as this will have a significant impact on what channels will work best for your product.

B2B vs. B2C

The marketing channel you use will be more or less effective according to which audience you’re trying to engage. 

Do you primarily do business with other businesses (B2B), or do you sell directly to the consumer (B2C)?

B2B 

If you’re trying to convince other business owners to invest in your product, some avenues are likely to bring you more success. For example, targeted social media marketing can be highly effective. LinkedIn is a platform used predominantly by business people, so logic dictates that it would be a gold mine for prospecting potential clients — which it is.

Yet not everyone is on social media, so how can you cast a wide net when marketing to working professionals?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important channels for B2B marketing, as it’s your website that consumers will land on when looking for products. Bringing in extra traffic through SEO optimization and convincing customers with quality content is an excellent strategy to boost your conversion rates.

B2C

If you sell directly to your customers, your priorities will be slightly different. Instead of pouring all your energy into your website and SEO, it’s a good idea to double down on social media and email marketing. 

Social media platforms have built-in audiences looking to consume high-quality content that offers them value. If you can be the brand that posts consistently and puts out actionable advice or entertaining posts, then you can slowly build a significant following of customers to whom you can later sell. 

Email marketing works for B2C businesses because it allows you to constantly be in your customers’ field of awareness. With regular emails offering value to your customers, you can set up timely reminders that ensure you’re always in their minds, whether they realize it or not.

To find out which marketing channel is the right fit for your business, we’ve put together a list of the top three go-to-market channels for 2022 and beyond.

Top 3 go-to-market channels in 2022

What is a channel to market? A channel is a marketing platform or medium that can open up your reach and help you create leads for your business. 

Here are some of the most popular channels for 2022:

SEO

Regardless of your target audience, be it a senior executive or a casual buyer, it’s worth investing resources into creating an SEO-optimized website or blog. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, SEO (search engine optimization) refers to the process of increasing the number of customers that land on your website via search engines. 

If a customer enters the term ‘red cars’ into a search engine, you can be certain that Ferrari will show up on the first page. 

There’s evidence that search engines like Google have higher conversion rates as advertising channels than social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. As such, it would be a mistake not to implement SEO as part of your GTM strategy. 

There are several ways you can optimize your website for SEO to draw in more customers and boost your chances of conversion:

•  Improve load speeds 
•  Use relevant keywords strategically 
•  Create a pillar page with hyperlinks to your most popular content

Content marketing

There’s no SEO without content. It doesn’t matter who your business serves or what your goals are, you need to put out quality content consistently to stay relevant and reach new customers. 

The goal of content marketing should be to offer value to customers, old and new, by informing or entertaining. In anticipation of your product release, it’s worth working on your content strategy so you can whip up excitement around the launch and convince customers that your product solves a problem they face.

The most common content marketing avenues are blogs and websites, which you can populate with compelling landing pages, engaging blog posts, and long-form articles. If you’re looking to make an impact, a multimedia approach might serve you well. Diversify by promoting your content through attention-grabbing social media posts, or create a YouTube channel to open up another channel of communication to your audience.

Social media

It’s no secret that social media provides an excellent platform for businesses to get the word out about their latest product or service. With access to over four and a half billion users around the world, it’s never been easier to open a direct line of communication with your customers.

So how do you use social media to bolster your GTM strategy? One option is to tap into influencer culture, which has experienced a meteoric rise in recent years. These days, influencers hold a lot of power to sway the opinions and purchase decisions of their followers. You can use this to your advantage to build hype and excitement around your product. 

Did you know that more than 70% of teenagers on YouTube trust their favorite YouTubers more than celebrities? Platforms like YouTube and TikTok are rife with marketing potential, and they skew towards a younger audience. Hire the right influencer, and you could appeal to the masses in 2022.

Think of influencers as brand ambassadors who can add their own unique brand voices to yours, giving your message a greater chance of landing and converting interest to sales.

Another option is to try and build your own social media empire. Empire is a stretch, but it’s true that few companies can have a successful online presence operating only on one or two social media platforms. 

To best reach your desired customers, you need to spread out across three or more platforms. Here are some of the most popular platforms for businesses:

•  Facebook 
•  Twitter 
•  Instagram 
•  LinkedIn
•  YouTube
•  TikTok

Each social media platform works differently, so it’s important to consider your strategy accordingly. 

On Facebook, for example, users tend to scroll through their feed and ignore walls of text in favor of multimedia posts that implement SEO best practices for readability. On TikTok, you have the opportunity to show a whimsical side to your brand’s personality and entertain or inform your audience in short 60 second clips.

A combination of these go-to-market channels is sure to boost your chances of a successful product launch. Increasing your online visibility from the outset will reap rewards in the long run as you build an authoritative presence for your brand.