How to Choose the Perfect GTM Strategy for Your B2B Startup
Over the years, there have been so many changes to Sales and Marketing methodologies and strategies adopted by B2B organisations from SPIN Selling to the Challenger Sale to Account-Based Marketing (ABM). But with so many GTM trends and models to choose from, it can be hard to determine what fits your business, products, or services and which approach will give you the most growth.
Understanding the Different GTM Models
1. Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing championed by HubSpot, this is all about bringing prospects to you by attracting potential customers through content marketing, SEO, and social media. It is about creating valuable content that answers your target audience’s questions and solves their problems, building trust and brand loyalty.
Works Best For:
Companies with longer sales cycles, typically more complex products and services
Products that require education or nurturing
Markets where customers are actively searching for solutions rather than a completely new innovative industry
2. Outbound Marketing
Outbound Marketing has been around since the beginning of time (or so it seems!) with sales and marketing departments directly reaching out to potential customers through tactics like cold calling, email campaigns, and different types of advertising. This is all about generating leads quickly and is often seen as more aggressive than inbound marketing.
Works Best For:
Companies looking for rapid growth with a sales process that requires sales engagement
New product launches needing immediate awareness
Markets where customers are not actively searching
3. Event-Led Marketing
Event-Led Marketing isn’t a new approach, marketers and sales leaders have been attending and presenting at events for many years but this strategy has become more focused on a integrated, more targeted approach to growth. Although it can be considered a costly way to drive new prospects, it can have a high ROI when approached in the right way. This requires leveraging events, (both virtual and in-person), to create brand awareness, build great relationships and to raise the profile of the business for long term growth.
Works Best For:
Businesses that thrive on personal relationships and long term engagement
Products requiring in-depth demonstrations and a “show and tell” approach
Markets with complex sales processes
4. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has been around for a number of years with many companies adopting the model and the widespread success of training courses, webinars and books such as the Account-Based Marketing for Dummies written by Sangram Vajre , and it also sparked the birth of a large number of ABM technologies such as Terminus, DemandBase and 6Sense. ABM is a strategic approach that focuses on businesses targeting high-value accounts and personalising marketing efforts to meet the needs of specific organisations or even individuals within those businesses.
Works Best For:
Companies targeting large enterprises or key accounts
Products with high price points and complex buying processes
Markets where decision-making involves multiple stakeholders
5. Product-Led Growth
Product-Led Growth (PLG) has exploded more recently, it’s very popular in the B2B SaaS space with companies like Notion, Canva and Twilio, adopting the methodology for fast and effective growth in their industries. PLG focuses on letting the product itself drive customer acquisition, expansion, and retention. This model often involves a number of key drivers such as offering a freemium version of the product to get users in the door, with the goal of converting them to paid users.
Works Best For:
SaaS companies and software products that require volume user adoption
Products that can deliver value to the user and fast
Markets where users prefer self-service
6. Partner-Led/Ecosystem-Led Growth
Partner-Led or Ecosystem-Led Growth involves leveraging partnerships with other companies, channels, or platforms to drive growth. This could be through integration, co-selling, or co-marketing efforts. The distribution of your products and services is key to success, especially when trying to sell into new markets, other languages and cultures where you need local knowledge and relationships to launch and promote your brand.
Works Best For:
Companies with products that complement and integrate with other solutions
Companies looking to sell into new markets and countries without huge overhead costs
Industries where partnerships drive significant market share
7. Community-Led Growth
Community-Led Growth focuses on building a synergy of engaged users, customers, or advocates around your product. Communities are often created by the users themselves, but more and more businesses have invested in building specific communities around their products and services to steer individuals towards them. Successful communities act as a support network, a source of feedback and collaboration, and a channel for new customer acquisition.
Works Best For:
Products with passionate user bases such as developers and tech
Industries where peer recommendations are powerful
Markets where customer support is a differentiator
8. Customer-Led Growth
Customer-Led Growth is not to be confused by PLG, it’s driven by deep customer understanding and feedback. It involves using customer insights to guide all aspects of product development, marketing, and sales strategies, ensuring that every decision aligns with customer needs.
Works Best For:
Companies closely aligned with customers with a strong feedback loop
Products that evolve purely based on customer use
Markets where customer loyalty is crucial
How to Determine the Right GTM Strategy for Your Business
Choosing the right GTM strategy or approach for your business requires a thoughtful and thorough understanding of your market, product, and organisational goals.
Step 1: Define Your Business Objectives
Start by identifying your key business objectives. What do you want to achieve? Are you looking to rapidly scale, penetrate a new market, or increase customer retention? Your objectives will directly influence the GTM strategy/strategies you select.
Step 2: Understand Your Target Market
Analyse your target market to understand customer needs, pain points, and buying behaviours. Who are your target customers? (and who are not your ideal customers) Are your customers actively searching for solutions, or do they need to be educated? Are they decision-makers in large organisations or SMBs? Which industries are they in? Do they have trends, behaviours or buzzwords specific to their industry?
Step 3: Assess Your Product Offering
Is your product or service a complex solution that requires a lengthly sales process with a lot of prospect handholding? Is it a straightforward product or service that users can use and transact easily without support? Does your product thrive in a community setting, or does it require high-touch sales?
Step 4: Evaluate Your Resources
What resources do you have today? What will you need in the future? How much budget do you have? what expertise do you have in your team and what are the gaps? How. much time or runway do you have to ramp up? Inbound strategies require more time and content creation, while outbound strategies might need a strong sales force.
Step 5: Choose and Customise Your GTM Strategy
You don’t need to limit yourself to a single GTM approach, you could combine a couple or have a short term and longer term strategy based on your needs. For example, a SaaS company might combine Product-Led Growth with Inbound Marketing, using content to attract users and a freemium model to convert them to loyal, retained customers.
Step 6: Test and Iterate
Once you’ve implemented your chosen GTM strategy, make sure you have a way to measure and track the success over time. Use data-driven insights to refine your approach and if an aspect of your strategy isn’t delivering results, over time, don’t be afraid to pivot.
Step 7: Scale What Works
As you identify which methods work for you, expand and increase your efforts. This might involve increasing your budget for content creation, expanding your channel partner network and building out better programs to support them, or doubling down on your ABM efforts.
Choosing the right Go-To-Market strategies can make or break your B2B startup or scale-up and by understanding the different GTM models, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your business goals, market conditions, and product offering. Remember, the most effective GTM strategy often involves a mix of these approaches, customised to fit your unique business needs.
Start small, run experiments, test your hypotheses, and scale the strategies that drive the most value.
Do you need help building out your GTM strategies? Book an exploratory call to learn more.
