Building a Seamless Go-to-Market Engine

There are many aspects to go-to-market (GTM). Before we explain what is good marketing or sales, it's important to have the context. What are all of the components of GTM? How do they fit together?

Go-to-market, especially for B2B products or services, is an interrelated system. While a consumer might stand in a big box store, look at 3 types of dish detergent, and make a decision, business buying decisions are almost never that simple. Therefore your brand will impact how your ads perform, your ad budget and the ads themselves might impact how your first sales meetings go, your first sales meetings might impact your close rate, and the type of customers that clicked on those ads might impact retention. And so on.

It is hard to know if you are doing well without context. What is great for cold email open rates? SEM clicks? Conversions? How many demos should result in a new customer? These metrics and benchmarks can vary significantly based on the channels and tactics you are utilizing.

An effective go-to-market strategy is an iterative process that evolves as your company matures. It requires continuous optimization as you learn what channels resonate with your target customers. Tactics that were ineffective early on may become major growth drivers later as your understanding deepens. For example, a young B2B software startup might initially find cold outbound emails efficient for booking meetings. But as the company scales and gains brand recognition, inbound marketing driving prospects to discover the brand could become the highest leverage channel.

It's important to have context around expectations and focus areas for the content and go-to-market motions at each stage. A seed stage company would not be expected to have a conference strategy with paid booths and speaking engagements. But a Series C company viewing events as a productive channel might spend six figures to host its own user conference, and be a major sponsor of a handful of other conferences each year.

The goal of GTM is an integrated, multi-touchpoint approach guiding prospects seamlessly from awareness to closed deal - consistently aligning messaging, branding, sales processes and more. A unified, cohesive voice and value proposition conveyed across all components is essential to provide a seamless buyer's journey.

A holistic approach is critical, but we need to define each component. In our next post we will cover the 8 building blocks of a strong go-to-market motion.

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