Able to speed up your post-M&A operations with a go-to-market (GTM) post-merger integration guidelines?
Merging two corporations is a posh course of. Advertising and marketing performs an vital position in making it profitable. Any merger and acquisition (M&A) transaction modifications not solely how an organization operates, but additionally the way it presents itself to the market.
Mergers will be disruptive. It’s vital to obviously talk with clients, workers, and companions to make sure enterprise continuity. Moreover, you’ll wish to make sure you’ve created a cohesive advertising and marketing plan that covers attribution, tech stacks, and pricing.
Regardless of uncertainty within the M&A markets over the previous couple of years, the consultants at PWC consider that we’re due for an M&A rebound. Meaning advertising and marketing leaders ought to keep able to cope with the complexities of an M&A integration course of.
This GTM post-merger integration guidelines is designed that will help you cope with the advertising and marketing elements of the transaction, from messaging to CRMs to buyer upsells. Let’s get into it.
GTM Put up-Merger Integration Guidelines
Listed here are seven suggestions for advertising and marketing a merger:
Outline your new model messaging.
Develop a unified advertising and marketing plan and timeline.
Put together inside communications methods.
Talk the information to your viewers.
Compose updates to firm web sites and social media profiles.
Consolidate GTM tech stacks.
Establish cross-selling and upselling alternatives.
1. Outline your new model messaging
Oftentimes, buying a brand new firm will change the way in which your enterprise operates. You would possibly create new product worth props, cater to new audiences, and even redefine the imaginative and prescient and mission of your new entity. It’s vital to deliver collectively your management crew to outline what your organization needs to be, do and say.
We suggest conducting a messaging hierarchy train, which can provide help to produce a model messaging framework that everybody can align on.
2. Develop a unified advertising and marketing plan and timeline
Now it’s time to marry your product imaginative and prescient together with your advertising and marketing technique. Work on creating a strategic advertising and marketing plan that comes with the perfect practices and experience from each corporations. This may occasionally contain merging groups, consolidating advertising and marketing tech stacks, and reallocating assets.
You’ll wish to assess your whole go-to-market technique. You might wish to change the way you method sure lead technology ways, akin to content material manufacturing or paid promoting. If each advertising and marketing departments have been utilizing totally different attribution fashions, you’ll should mix or align these. General, you’re deciding how your new-look advertising and marketing division will function.
On this stage, you’ll additionally wish to set a date for asserting the information of the merger.
This ties into establishing an implementation timeline. Often after an M&A, there’s a grace interval the place issues aren’t built-in and persons are working of their establishment. From a advertising and marketing perspective, you don’t wish to break what’s working as you determine methods to combine. However generally, leaders enable this to go on for too lengthy, and the integration course of is stunted. Having a powerful technique, plan, and timeline to execute is vital.
3. Put together inside communications methods
Workers needs to be notified immediately of the merger or acquisition earlier than they discover out on their very own. Any M&A might deliver modifications to their crew construction, payroll, advantages, and extra.
Take into account how you propose to share this information together with your groups. Use your newly-defined messaging hierarchy to realize consistency.
4. Talk the information to your viewers
The worst factor you are able to do in an acquisition is have your clients really feel uncared for. Throughout any M&A, there may be going to be change however you don’t need your clients to really feel that early on. Sharing the information with them as early and as humanly as potential is basically vital to set the tone that this M&A won’t be disruptive for them
You must plan on some mixture of crafting a conventional press launch, pitching the story to media retailers, writing emails to clients, and prepping social media content material.
It is a huge second! Be sure you’re repurposing and distributing the information throughout your entire channels to seize your viewers’s consideration. Additionally, attain out to present clients a number of occasions in regards to the information, as they could miss a one-time e-mail.
5. Compose updates to firm web sites and social media profiles
Be sure you put together updates of any public-facing firm profiles together with your new mission assertion, firm boilerplate, or different advertising and marketing necessities. This consists of the big-name socials (LinkedIn, X, TikTok, and so forth) in addition to profiles akin to Crunchbase or G2. However bear in mind: don’t replace something publicly till your launch date. I’ve seen errors from people scheduling blogs prematurely, solely to have dates modified on the final minute.
Do the identical together with your firm web site(s). Are you merging the websites below one roof, or maintaining them separate? Will you construct a touchdown web page that describes the advantages of the merger? Plan these actions properly prematurely, as creating or updating a web site is usually a lengthy course of.
6. Consolidate GTM tech stacks
Throughout the M&A course of, GTM groups have to mix their tech stacks simply as a product crew would.
Understanding the efficiency of the brand new entity will come down to wash reporting, which is basically arduous to do in case your GTM tech stack is totally totally different. Having a plan and an architect for this shall be essential. Right here’s the place collaboration between your GTM and finance personnel is essential.
In the event you’re opting to merge your GTM capabilities, you’ll wish to consolidate buyer databases inside your CRM to make sure accuracy and consistency. This may occasionally contain some cross-platform information migration (for instance: in the event you use HubSpot however the acquired firm was operating on Salesforce). Whereas this will likely take some effort upfront, it is going to assist cut back duplicate information entry in the long run.
7. Establish cross-selling and upselling alternatives
Analyze the product portfolios of the incoming corporations to find alternatives for cross-selling, upselling, and bundling. Touchdown on the best pricing and packaging methods can assist be sure that present service stays intact whereas offering alternatives to amass new clients.
Navigating an M&A integration course of is often tough, however we hope this advertising and marketing post-merger integration guidelines helps simplify the GTM elements of your merge. In the event you’re on the lookout for assist with the product and finance sides of the M&A course of, you’ll want to obtain our Put up-M&A Integration Bundle for extra knowledgeable insights.
