Freelance Go-To-Market Strategy Consultants For Every Need

Unfortunately, developing a go-to-market strategy can be complex. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 45% of businesses fail within their first five years. Usually, the reason for this failure is an incomplete or ineffective go-to-market plan. 

Failure to properly identify the right market, separate yourself from the competition and even choose the right pricing for your new solution could mean you lose opportunities for growth.

A go-to-market strategy consultant steps in to ensure you’ve got the right framework in place to make your product launch a resounding success. 

What is a Go-To-Market Strategy Consultant?

To understand the value of a go-to-market strategy consultant or GMT expert, you first need to know what a “go-to-market strategy” is. A GTM strategy is a step-by-step plan for launching a new product or service in a specific market and driving demand. 

Basically, it outlines everything from how you’re going to bring your product to the marketplace, deliver on your key value propositions, and satisfy customers. The right go-to-market strategy is a handy roadmap that ensures you can define and reach your “Total Addressable Market.” 

A go-to-market strategy consultant is someone who works with a brand to ensure they’re answering all of the correct questions with their plan, such as:

• Where is the market for this product?
• Who are the ideal customers/ buyers of the solution?
• What value does the buyer assign to this product?
• What differentiates the solution from competing options?
• How much should the product or solution cost?
• How will you advertise your product or solution?

A consultant works with you to collect all the data required for your go-to-market plan, define your marketing strategy, price points, and budget, and align stakeholders around your vision. 

What Does a Go-To-Market (GTM) Consultant Do?

On a broad level, go-to-market strategy consultants provide commercial, strategic, and creative support throughout the process of launching new products, campaigns, and solutions. They bring a range of expert insights into your plan, helping to define everything from the ideal target audience for your requirements to which marketing channels you should use. 

While the exact responsibilities of a GTM expert can vary, their overall goal is to ensure your product, service, or campaign launch is a success by providing you with the right data and insights. They review market trends, analyze competitors, create customer personas, and more.

Some of the key responsibilities of a go-to-market consultant include:

Establishing Product-Market Fit

Creating a go-to-market strategy is one of the best ways to avoid many of the oversights and mistakes that can lead to a product launch failure. Even if you create an incredible solution for your audience, poor product-market fit can have a negative impact on your business. 

A GTM consultant will work with you to define which problems your product or solution solves and how they appeal to your target market. They’ll examine whether the market has a clear demand for your product and provide insights into market trends and patterns. 

Defining your target audience and buyer journey

Creating accurate buyer personas and “Ideal Customer Profiles” (ICPs) is crucial for a go-to-market customer. While the ICP explains what kind of groups you want to target, a buyer persona dives deeper into the pain points, goals, and expectations of your target audience. 

A GTM consultant can analyze the potential niches and markets best suited for your company’s growth. They can help you map the buyer’s journey, identifying crucial touchpoints like social media channels, blog pages, and newsletters to determine what your marketing strategy should involve. Plus, they can help you tailor your messaging to your specific target audience. 

Conducting competitor and market research

Alongside conducting research into your target customers and ideal buyer profiles, a go-to-market consultant can also help you differentiate your business and ensure your product or service stands out. They can look at the top competitors in your industry and identify opportunities to make your solution more appealing to your customers. 

They can also use their market research to determine whether there’s enough space in your intended market for a new player. If a market is overly saturated, a GTM consultant could suggest a different approach that improves your profitability. 

Choosing GTM strategies and distribution methods 

One of the most important roles of a go-to-market consultant is planning the overall “GTM” campaign and the distribution methods you’ll use. They’ll help you to identify the right marketing channels and lead sources for your campaigns. Plus, they can ensure you choose the right go-to-market methodology for your target audience. 

For instance, a GTM expert can explain the benefits of using the “funnel” methodology for attracting leads and nurturing them into sales and the “flywheel” method. The flywheel method focuses on engaging, delighting, and constantly attracting new customers.

Creating alignment

Alignment is essential when launching a new service or product. Everyone in your team needs to be on the same page, from your social media experts to your product development team, your financial executives, and so on. Your GTM consultant will create the resources and guidelines needed to keep everyone on the same page. 

They can help determine the responsibilities different team members will have and set deadlines for specific projects. They can also help work out the kinks throughout your GTM strategy by collaborating with essential staff members. 

Setting Goals and Tracking Outcomes

A GTM consultant may also help you establish the specific goals you want to achieve with your go-to-market campaigns and the KPIs and metrics you’ll need to monitor throughout the plan. Measurable objectives will give you a crucial insight into how well your campaigns are performing. 

GTM experts can use intelligent tools, analytical systems, and reports to provide a clear view of the progress of your campaign. They can also offer advice and guidance on how to rectify any problems that might emerge as you launch your new solution.

Go-To-Market Consultant: In-House or Freelance?

Go-To-Market consultants, managers, and experts can work in a variety of different formats. Similar to PR experts and social media managers, they can work in-house with your business or support you on a freelance, flexible basis. If you have an extremely large company that constantly produces new products and services, an in-house expert could be the right choice.

Hiring a full-time GTM consultant to work alongside your product development and marketing team means you’ll benefit from their guidance on a consistent basis. However, hiring one of these professionals can be extremely expensive. The average GTM manager earns around $110,821 per year. That means they’re probably not the right fit for smaller brands.

Plus, for most companies, GTM assistance won’t be necessary all year round. Most companies don’t produce endless new products and services on a constant basis.

The alternative, and often more popular options, are either to work with a marketing agency that offers go-to-market guidance or to hire a specialist GTM freelancer. An agency can once again be a good option for a larger business looking to access various forms of support at once.

Most agencies in the marketing world don’t just offer GTM assistance; they can also help with things like social media marketing and content creation. However, if you want the most cost-effective and flexible route, a GTM freelancer is by far the best option. 

Like most marketing freelancers, a go-to-market freelance consultant can work flexibly with your brand according to your specific needs and schedule. You can hire them for as much time as you need without any lengthy contracts and even combine them with other freelance support. 

The Benefits of Hiring a Freelance GTM Expert

Unless your company constantly produces new products and solutions, hiring a GTM freelancer is by far the best way to access the support of a go-to-market consultant. You get all of the benefits of working with an in-house GTM expert without the rigid contracts and costs. 

The biggest benefits of working with a GMT freelance consultant include:

Bespoke, tailored Go-to-Market strategies

Go-to-market consultants in the freelance landscape often have years of experience working with a variety of different companies, products, and services. They know how to analyze your specific target audience, examine opportunities, and create bespoke strategies that appeal to your business. 

These experts use everything from internal resource analysis to market insights to identify unique opportunities for your business growth. They’ll work collaboratively with your team, creating comprehensive blueprints you can follow to ensure your launch is a success. 

Access to Valuable Resources and Tools

When you hire a GTM expert full-time, the onus lies on you to ensure you provide them with all the resources they need to conduct SWOT analyses, competitor analyses, and design value matrixes for your go-to-market plan. While you still need to provide your GTM freelancer with some resources, such as customer profiles (if you already have them) and brand guidelines, they also have access to their own tools and frameworks.

A freelance go-to-market consultant will know which tools to use to analyze your target market and find the best channels and opportunities for your campaign. They’ll have frameworks and templates you can use to build your value matrix and design campaigns. Plus, they’ll often have access to advanced tools you may not be able to afford in-house.

Extensive Expertise

Just like an in-house go-to-market consultant or a GTM expert working as part of an agency, a freelance consultant will have extensive expertise in their field. They combine financial, commercial, and strategic expertise to help with everything from market size validation to framework planning. They can help you plan your content marketing campaigns and promotional methods and even deliver guidance to other members of your marketing and product development teams. 

Hiring a GTM freelancer also means you have the opportunity to pinpoint the exact skills and expertise you need. For instance, if you know your business needs extra help with customer research and competitor analysis, you can hunt for freelancers with expertise in these areas. You can even find freelancers with complementary skills in branding and content creation. 

Risk Mitigation

One of the biggest benefits of hiring any kind of go-to-market consultant is that you can mitigate various risks involved with bringing a new solution to the market. A failed product launch can have a disastrous impact on your finances and your brand reputation. The right consultant will ensure you’ve covered all of your bases to make your campaign a success. 

They’ll create value matrixes to see whether an opportunity is worth pursuing. Help you choose the right pricing for your product based on competition, supply, and market trends, and assist you in identifying clear product value propositions. They can also inform you if your chosen market is overly saturated and help you find new opportunities that could be more profitable.

Improved Team Alignment

Many business leaders make the mistake of thinking they need an in-house expert to leverage the benefits a GTM consultant brings to team alignment. However, the reality is that a freelancer can help to align your team just as well as any other professional. In today’s digital world, GTM consultants in the freelance landscape can interact with every member of your team through various channels.

They can use tools like project management software and calendars to align your staff around deadlines and ensure everyone understands the role they need to play. They can even work hand-in-hand with your team synchronously, collaborating with them on documents, content, and social media marketing campaigns. 

Flexibility

One of the most obvious and biggest benefits of choosing a GTM consultant freelancer over a standard in-house GTM expert is flexibility. As your business grows and evolves, and you bring new products and services into the market, you can choose exactly which professionals you need to work with. You can hire multiple specialists at once or just one. 

You’re also not tied into a lifetime contract with your consultant. After you’ve launched your new product or service and successfully earned customer attention, you can end your relationship with your freelancer until you need to use them again. This means you can save a significant amount of money compared to hiring an in-house professional. 

How to Hire a Go-To-Market Strategy Consultant

Skill shortages in the marketing and branding world have led to significant issues for companies trying to hire traditional GTM professionals in the past. Fortunately, hiring a go-to-market consultant as a freelancer can be a lot more straightforward. 

Not only can you easily find the experts you need online with the right freelance platforms and communities, but you can also sidestep some time-consuming processes involved in hiring a full-time staff member, like training and onboarding. 

Step 1: Determine Your Specific Needs

The first step in choosing the ideal go-to-market consultant for your project is figuring out how much support and guidance you’re going to need. Most reputable GTM experts will be able to help with various tasks, such as competitor analysis and insights into product-market fit.

However, some professionals will be able to deliver additional support, such as helping you to create user personas, design value matrixes, or even build content marketing campaigns. Assess your current marketing team and the skills you already have access to within your organization, then define what kind of aptitudes you’ll need your GTM consultant to have.

Step 2: Look for Industry Expertise

While an experienced GTM professional will be able to adapt their services to suit companies in any industry, it’s always helpful to search for someone with a deep knowledge of your market. A go-to-market consultant who understands your niche and has worked with similar brands in the past will have a deeper understanding of your customers, their preferences, and their pain points.

They’ll be able to rapidly identify the right go-to-market strategy for your products and offer deeper insights into how you can differentiate yourself from your competitors. Consider asking your freelancer for examples of work they’ve done for other companies in your industry. 

Step 3: Define your Budget

As mentioned above, hiring a freelance GTM consultant is usually far less expensive than working with an agency or an in-house professional. However, the exact price you pay for your consultant’s assistance can vary depending on a range of factors. The services they offer, their level of expertise, and even the length of your campaign can all play a part. 

Look for a freelance platform or expert offering transparent insights into pricing so you know you can stick to your budget. For instance, Growth Collective gives an instant estimated quote to every company that requests assistance from a freelancer on its platform. 

Step 4: Choose the Right Freelancer Platform

Speaking of freelancer platforms, when you’re hiring a go-to-market consultant, it’s important to search for a community you can trust. There are plenty of “freelance” platforms out there that promise access to professionals with go-to-market skills. However, not all of them are alike. 

Make sure the platform you choose thoroughly vets its freelancers, ensuring they have the right level of experience and skills to deliver results. It’s also worth looking for a platform that makes it easy to communicate with your freelancer, track their performance, and even change to a different consultant if you’re not happy with your results. 

Step 5: Communicate and collaborate consistently

Finally, when you’re working with your freelancer on your go-to-market strategy, make sure you commit to constant communication. You’ll need to set clear expectations at the beginning of the collaboration and outline exactly what you need from your expert. It’s also important to provide them with any resources you might have, such as customer data or brand guidelines.

Throughout the campaign, regularly check in with your freelancer and ask them for reports and metrics that help you assess the success of your campaigns. A good freelancer will constantly keep you in the loop about how your strategy is progressing. 

Ready to Hire your GTM Expert?

Launching a new product or service can be an exciting process. It’s an opportunity to expand your target market, reach new audiences, and increase your income. However, there are a number of challenges that can impact the success of your campaign.

Working with a go-to-market consultant to plan the perfect strategy will help to reduce your risk of a failed product launch and ensure you see a rapid return on investment. If you’re ready to hire your own GTM consultant, contact the team at Growth Collective today.

We carefully match every company to the ideal freelancer for their requirements and work only with the most reputable professionals in the industry. Reach out now to be matched with the perfect GTM expert for your needs.