Graphic of a stethoscope facing a computer screen with a graphic and chart on the screen.

Over my career as a marketing researcher and strategist, I’ve often remarked that if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. That idea has always been a reminder to me that it’s important to have the end in mind before starting out on any initiative, whether it’s a research project, campaign strategy, or annual plan.

Knowing what results you would ideally like to see (typically, some aspect of business growth) or what questions you would like to have answered should form the basis of the marketing strategy you develop or the research you are conducting. That’s because if you aren’t starting with the end in mind, you may not get what you want because you are wandering aimlessly toward a fuzzy goal.

A corollary to this idea is that if you don’t know where you are, you’re lost. Understanding where you are right now as a business is critical to any successful marketing effort and something that can often be overlooked because of budget reasons, complacency, or a rush to go to market. The list of factors that can influence your marketing efforts is long, but it’s important to ensure that you have a good sense of where you are before setting out and spending resources. 

Diagnosing your go-to-market reality 

Before you build or refine your go-to-market strategy, you need a clear, honest understanding of where you stand today. At a minimum, that means evaluating four key areas:

  1. Your audience: Customers and prospects
    • Are you capturing feedback regularly?
    • Is their business with you growing, shrinking, or flatlining?
    • How is the way they want to interact with you changing?
    • What do they need from you?
    • What churn are you experiencing?
    • What is causing the churn?
    • Can prospects find you and the information they need to make a purchase decision?
    • With so much search now running through AI and with behaviors shifting to less engagement with salespeople until the last minute, how are you meeting their content and purchasing needs?
    • Are you e-commerce enabled?
  2. Your market: Competitors and external
    • How are you positioned relative to them?
    • Are you leading the pack or following?
    • Are you chasing the same customers or different ones?
    • Is anyone unique?
    • Are your competitors even in the same category or business as you? For example, chewing gum may think it’s just competing with other gum brands, but in the supermarket checkout line, it’s competing with chocolate, candy, nuts, energy bars, soda, chips, tabloid magazines, and other impulse items.
  3. Your brand: Perception and experience
    • What research do you have about your brand and how audiences perceive it?
    • It’s crucial to be honest with yourself when assessing your brand’s perception and customer experience. If something different is happening at the dealer or retail level than what the brand is promising, customers will not be happy and they’ll roast you for it. Publicly. Examples of the customer letdown abound in the retail world, despite the marketing messages. A bad experience, out-of-stock parts or other items, dirty stores, clueless salespeople, and more will destroy a brand’s credibility fast.
    • What is going on in the world that might affect your best-laid plans?
    • Factors beyond your control frequently upend even the best ideas or intentions.
  4. Your performance: Data and business results
    • How are you using data to help you make decisions?
    • Are you capturing it securely, sharing it with internal audiences, and adjusting your decisions based on what is actually happening?
    • How are sales trending?
    • What goals do you have for sales?
    • Do those goals seem attainable given the customer, prospect, competitor, context, and brand situations?

Individually, each of these areas offers valuable insight. Together, they create a clear picture of your go-to-market reality — one that can guide smarter, more effective strategy decisions.

Fueling your B2B growth strategy and success

Orienting yourself to these factors and examining their implications can be a lot of work, especially if your business has let them get dusty over the years. Still, understanding them is critical to making your marketing efforts successful, enabling your business to grow, and ensuring that you aren’t lost.

Like with an annual physical exam or other routine preventive personal health activities, the foundational aspects of your go-to-market approach need to be dusted off, examined and pressure-tested regularly. Working with a strategic marketing agency, like 2RM, can help you shore up your foundation and set you on the road to business growth. Reach out to start planning today.