Big Picture Strategy

2Four Go-to-Market Strategies

Developing your brand's go-to-market approach may seem like a complex task with many implications. Indeed, it is. The best way I know to do this for any brand is to use the Big Picture's system of integrated choices, the 6Bs, in a step-by-step and iterative manner.

The Big Picture method reduces complexity by focusing your team on the six foundational elements that all go-to-market strategies must address: brand, business category, bodies, beliefs, behaviors, and benchmarks.

That said, there is another piece to the brand strategy puzzle. There are just four strategy archetypes a brand can pursue in going to market: category development, brand expansion, brand commitment, and brand switching. And in making the choice of which go-to-market strategy to pursue, the 6Bs are helpful again. Use them to “try on” each of these strategies, so your team can visualize the opportunities available to your brand in each scenario and the major go-to-market implications of that choice.

1. Category development. This is the strategy a brand pursues when creating a category or expanding it by bringing in new customers. It involves investing in category infrastructure, and motivating adoption.
2. Brand expansion. This is the strategy of a category leader that wants to grow efficiently by increasing the value it offers to its loyal customer base. It involves increasing the financial and emotional commitment customers have to the brand.
3. Brand commitment. This strategy is for ...