Go-to-market: what it is and how to take your offer to market

Marcel GarciaUpdated Oct 4, 2026

Go-to-market (GTM) is the strategy that takes an offer to its first clients or into a new market: exactly who you sell it to, which problem it solves, at what price, through which channel and with what proof. It comes down to five decisions, and if you sell something expensive, you make them before you spend on ads.

Most go-to-market guides are written for software, startups or big brands, with Apple or Airbnb as the examples. If you sell something expensive, the plan is shorter and stricter: every client is worth a lot, and every wrong client costs a lot. This guide works the same for a new service, a new location, a new market or a business starting from zero.

It is signed by Marcel Garcia, founder of HAKI, a Barcelona growth partner to businesses that sell on value. If you are launching a free app or competing on price, other guides will serve you better. The examples with round numbers are just that, examples; the real figures are only the ones a case page publishes.

How to build a go-to-market strategy: five decisions

This is what a go-to-market plan contains. Each decision comes with a test of whether it is made, and the whole plan fits in one sentence: I sell [this] to [this client], who has [this problem], at [this price]; I reach them through [this channel] and [this proof] convinces them. If any decision fails its test, it isn't time to spend on channels yet.

Exactly who buys

A person, not a sector: what they do, what worries them and who signs. If you sell to a company, the one who decides and the one who pays can be two people, and both belong in the plan. It is decided when you can say who you don't want to sell to.

The problem, in their words

The one your client already searches for on Google or complains about in the first meeting. One that holds the others together, even if each search then gets its own page: Laura Jové focused on women's health treated at the cause, and each problem she treats (period pain, fertility, menopause) has its own. It is decided when it fits in one sentence in your client's words, not yours.

The price

It is set by what the problem is worth and the margin you need to pay for acquisition, not by the cheapest competitor. Price decides who turns up and how much you can pay for each client. It is decided when you know how much you can spend to win a client without losing money.

The first channel

One, chosen by where your client already is and by what your offer allows. The others come when this one is predictable. It is decided when you can say which channels you are not touching yet.

The proof that convinces

What convinces someone who has never heard of you. One published result is worth more than ten promises; if you don't have one yet, your first client is also your first case, so work it so you can tell it. It is decided when a stranger sees it before booking a call with you.

The go-to-market of an app and that of a business that sells something expensive

The five decisions, plus how it is measured and when it is done. Go through your plan row by row: if it looks like the left-hand column, you are launching it as if it were an app.

	Launched like an app	When you sell something expensive
Who	Segments and buyer personas	A client you could put a name to, and in the same sentence who decides and who pays
Which problem	The features and a value proposition	One that holds the others together, in the words your client uses when searching for it
Price	An entry model: free tier, plans, a launch discount	What it is worth from the first client, which keeps out people who buy on price
First channel	All of them at once on launch day	One: where your client already looks, and that your offer and your margin allow
Proof	Logos, a press release and a launch campaign	One published result and reviews, in sight at the moment of decision
What is measured	Reach, visits and leads	New clients, and cost per client against what each one leaves (LTV:CAC)
When it ends	On launch day	When the first channel brings clients predictably; until then, it is reviewed every week

Price is part of the go-to-market too

Price isn't a detail you settle at the end. It decides who turns up, and it decides how much you can pay for each client, which is what opens or closes each channel.

An example with round numbers, made up so they add up: a service of 3,000 € that is bought once and leaves 1,500 € of margin. To keep an LTV:CAC ratio of 3:1 you can pay up to 500 € for each new client. Say that on Google Ads, on highly competitive searches, each client costs you 400 €: the channel pays off. Lower the price until it leaves 300 € of margin and your ceiling drops to 100 € per client: the same channel, with the same ads, loses money on every sale.

How to choose the first channel

For a new offer or a new market, not for a business that already wins clients and has got stuck. Four questions, in this order.

Can your offer be advertised?

Not always. Part of what Clínica Albareda treats, the stem cell therapies in its regenerative medicine, can't be advertised on Google Ads, so for those treatments the only door is the organic result: one page per treatment and the Google Business Profile working for people searching close to home. The channel isn't decided by the budget alone, but by the offer too.

Does your client already search for the problem?

Then start where they are already searching: Google Ads on those searches, with SEO growing underneath. It is the channel with the most intent: whoever searches for the problem already wants it solved.

Not searching for it yet?

If what you sell is new, or your client doesn't know what it's called, there is nothing to buy on Google. Demand has to be created where they spend their time: Meta Ads, content or direct outreach, with a message that filters on price from the first ad.

Can you keep it up every week?

One channel worked every week beats three channels touched once a month. Pick the one you can measure and correct every week with the team and budget you have today; the next one comes when this one is predictable.

Two go-to-market examples, with their numbers

Two opposite starting points: the new location of a clinic with a reputation, and a practice that started with nothing. The figures are the ones their case pages publish.

Clínica Albareda: a new location

We arrived with the walls of the second centre, in Sants, still unpainted. We refined the logo and designed a Webflow site with one page per specialty and a single call to action: book an appointment. Logo and website were ready on opening day; the centre broke even (covered its costs) at six months. We worked Google's organic results, because part of what it treats, stem cell therapies, can't be advertised on Google Ads: those patients only arrive if the clinic shows up when they search. In 2025 the clinic received 1,048 appointment requests from Google, 82% of them all.

Laura Jové: a practice from scratch

She started with no niche, no brand, no website and no patients. The first step was deciding who she would help: women with cycle, hormone, fertility and menopause problems, in online consultations. Then a website with one page per problem and a single call to action, a free 20-minute assessment: more than 10% of visits open the booking calendar. Google Ads on the problems she treats, measured in appointments: 246 in 2025 and 339 from January to September 2026, with a 15x ROAS in 2026. With the whole project (brand, website, SEO and ads), the practice books five times more appointments a month than in 2024.

Go-to-market and product-market fit are not the same thing

Three ideas get mixed up. Product-market fit is the evidence that a market wants your offer: people pay for it and recommend it to others. Go-to-market is how that offer reaches that market for the first time, or reaches a new one. The marketing plan is the day to day that comes after: actions, budget and calendar for a period, usually a year.

It matters because each one is fixed in a different way. If the right people see your offer and don't buy it, the problem is most likely product-market fit, and a launch plan won't fix it: the offer needs reviewing. If the people who see it buy it but very few see it, the problem is the go-to-market. If the channel already brings clients and only needs keeping up, what you need is a marketing plan.

When you sell something expensive, fit isn't measured with thousands of users: the first signal comes with the first ten clients. If they paid full price and would refer you, you are on the right track. If you had to discount to close them, you don't know yet.

The mistakes that sink a go-to-market

They come up again and again in the launches we see. None of them is fixed with more budget.

Selling to everyone

If your client is "any company that wants to grow", every ad competes with everyone and speaks to no one. The more expensive what you sell, the narrower the target has to be.

Talking about the product, not the problem

Almost nobody searches for "integrated methodology": they search for "knee pain when running". If the website describes what you do rather than what is happening to your client, they don't find you, and if they do, they don't recognise themselves.

Sending the traffic to the home page

Every ad and every search has to land on the page for that problem, with a single call to action. If it lands on the home page, you pay for the click and make your client search again for what they had already searched for. That is how the Clínica Albareda and Laura Jové websites were built: one page per specialty or per problem, and a single call to action.

Three channels on the budget of one

Split between SEO, Google Ads and social, no channel reaches the volume you need to know whether it works. One done properly tells you something; three done halfway tell you nothing.

Counting leads and judging too early

A form is not a client. And in a sale that takes months to close, judging the channel in its first month is judging it before it could have brought anyone. It is measured in clients and in cost per client, once the sales cycle has run its course.

Switching channels when the offer is what fails

When the right people see the offer and don't buy, the temptation is to try another channel. Another channel brings you more people who don't buy either, and the budget goes on confirming it. Sometimes what's missing is product, price or sales, not marketing, and if that is your case we will tell you, even if it means not working together.

Keep going with the other guides

CAC

What it costs to win a client, how to calculate it per channel and what a good LTV:CAC ratio is.

Sales pipeline

The stages of a long, expensive sale, and the numbers that show where it gets stuck.

Lead scoring

How to tell who can buy from you from who can't, before the call.

Selected projects

Embat

Fintech, Tech & SaaS

Clínica Albareda

Health

Laura Jové

Health

View all projects

A growth partner takes the go-to-market from the first client to a predictable channel

An external team that makes the five decisions with you, runs the first channel and is paid a base plus a variable part tied to new clients; the total is sized between 10% and 25% of the new revenue. What it is, what it costs and when it fits.

What a growth partner is

An opinion, signed

If you need forty slides to explain your go-to-market, you haven't decided anything yet: a plan that works fits in the five-decision sentence. And the decision people dodge most is price. They launch at a discount "to get the first clients", the people who buy on price turn up, and the first case they publish is someone who would never have paid what it is worth. Their first reviews quote a price they no longer charge. If you sell something expensive, launch at the price it is worth and to fewer people: you will fill the calendar more slowly, but with the clients you want more of.

Marcel Garcia, founder of HAKI. Growth partner to businesses that sell on value, from Barcelona.

Contact

Tell us what you are launching and who you want to sell it to.

hello@haki.marketing

Name

Surname

Phone

Company

Role

What do you sell?

What does an average client spend with you?

Who decides the marketing budget?

Message

Go-to-market questions

Literally, "going to market": the strategy that gets an offer its first clients or takes it into a new market. It is shortened to GTM and answers five questions: who, which problem, at what price, through which channel and with what proof.

Five decisions in writing: the specific client (with who decides and who pays), the problem in their words, the price, the first channel and the proof they will see before deciding. Plus two numbers to review it every week: new clients and cost per client.

Laura Jové started with no niche, no brand, no website and no patients. The first step was deciding who she would help: women with cycle, hormone, fertility and menopause problems, in online consultations. That gave the message, one page per problem with a single call to action, and the searches her Google ads run on. With the whole project, she now books five times more appointments a month than in 2024.

Product-market fit is the evidence that the market wants your offer: people pay for it and refer others. Go-to-market is how that offer reaches that market. If the right people see it and don't buy, the problem is most likely fit, and a bigger launch won't fix it.

Sales is one piece of the go-to-market, not the whole plan. The go-to-market decides beforehand who you go after, with which problem, at what price and through which channel; sales turns whoever arrives through that channel into a client. If sales isn't closing, check first whether the right person is arriving: the failure is often earlier.

Route to market (RTM) is only the path by which the offer reaches the client: direct sales, distributors, partners or a platform. In a go-to-market it is part of the channel decision. The go-to-market also decides who you sell to, which problem you solve, at what price and with what proof.

It is the go-to-market written down so someone else can repeat it: who you sell to, with what message, at what price, through which channel, with what proof and what gets measured every week. It is written after closing the first clients, with what worked, and in a business that sells something expensive it fits on one page.

At least as long as your sales cycle. Until a full cycle has closed you only have signals (visits, requests, appointments), not clients, and a channel isn't judged on signals. That is why it has no end date: it is reviewed every week until the first channel brings clients predictably.