Able to speed up your post-M&A operations with a go-to-market (GTM) post-merger integration guidelines?
Merging two firms is a posh course of. Advertising and marketing performs an necessary 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 might be disruptive. It’s necessary to obviously talk with clients, staff, and companions to make sure enterprise continuity. Moreover, you’ll wish to make sure you’ve created a cohesive advertising 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. Which means advertising leaders ought to keep able to take care of the complexities of an M&A integration course of.
This GTM post-merger integration guidelines is designed that will help you take care of the advertising features of the transaction, from messaging to CRMs to buyer upsells. Let’s get into it.
GTM Submit-Merger Integration Guidelines
Listed here are seven ideas for advertising a merger:
Outline your new model messaging.
Develop a unified advertising plan and timeline.
Put together inner 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 best way what you are promoting 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 necessary to carry collectively your management group to outline what your organization needs to be, do and say.
We advocate conducting a messaging hierarchy train, which is able to assist you to produce a model messaging framework that everybody can align on.
2. Develop a unified advertising plan and timeline
Now it’s time to marry your product imaginative and prescient together with your advertising technique. Work on creating a strategic advertising plan that includes one of the best practices and experience from each firms. This will contain merging groups, consolidating advertising tech stacks, and reallocating assets.
You’ll wish to assess your total go-to-market technique. You could wish to change the way you method sure lead technology ways, reminiscent of content material manufacturing or paid promoting. If each advertising departments have been utilizing totally different attribution fashions, you’ll must mix or align these. Total, you’re deciding how your new-look advertising division will function.
On this stage, you’ll additionally wish to set a date for saying 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 individuals are working of their established order. From a advertising perspective, you don’t wish to break what’s working as you determine the way to combine. However typically, leaders permit this to go on for too lengthy, and the integration course of is stunted. Having a powerful technique, plan, and timeline to execute is necessary.
3. Put together inner communications methods
Staff ought to be notified straight of the merger or acquisition earlier than they discover out on their very own. Any M&A might carry modifications to their group construction, payroll, advantages, and extra.
Contemplate 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 attainable is basically necessary to set the tone that this M&A won’t be disruptive for them
It is best to 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.
This can be a massive second! Ensure you’re repurposing and distributing the information throughout all your channels to seize your viewers’s consideration. Additionally, attain out to present clients a number of instances concerning the information, as they may miss a one-time e-mail.
5. Compose updates to firm web sites and social media profiles
Make sure to put together updates of any public-facing firm profiles together with your new mission assertion, firm boilerplate, or different advertising necessities. This consists of the big-name socials (LinkedIn, X, TikTok, and so forth) in addition to profiles reminiscent of Crunchbase or G2. However keep in mind: don’t replace something publicly till your launch date. I’ve seen errors from of us scheduling blogs upfront, 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 retaining them separate? Will you construct a touchdown web page that describes the advantages of the merger? Plan these actions properly upfront, as creating or updating an internet site is usually a lengthy course of.
6. Consolidate GTM tech stacks
Through the M&A course of, GTM groups have to mix their tech stacks simply as a product group would.
Understanding the efficiency of the brand new entity will come down to scrub reporting, which is basically exhausting to do in case your GTM tech stack is totally totally different. Having a plan and an architect for this will likely be essential. Right here’s the place collaboration between your GTM and finance personnel is vital.
For those who’re opting to merge your GTM capabilities, you’ll wish to consolidate buyer databases inside your CRM to make sure accuracy and consistency. This will contain some cross-platform knowledge 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’ll assist scale back duplicate knowledge entry in the long run.
7. Establish cross-selling and upselling alternatives
Analyze the product portfolios of the incoming firms to find alternatives for cross-selling, upselling, and bundling. Touchdown on the precise pricing and packaging methods may also help make sure that present service stays intact whereas offering alternatives to accumulate new clients.
Navigating an M&A integration course of is usually tough, however we hope this advertising post-merger integration guidelines helps simplify the GTM features of your merge. For those who’re on the lookout for assist with the product and finance sides of the M&A course of, you’ll want to obtain our Submit-M&A Integration Bundle for extra professional insights.
