How To Rebuild a GTM Strategy

“You don’t have a sales problem, you don’t have a marketing problem, you don’t have a client service problem -- you have a Go to Market (GTM) problem.”

These words hit me like a truck.

“But my LinkedIn says I’m a GTM Strategist. How could I have a GTM problem?”

As it would turn out, those words perfectly describe the challenges facing many modern organizations. In 2023, the sales environment changed drastically. Quotas were harder to hit, buying groups increased, as did sales cycles. The buyer journey changed on a dime and “budget pressure” became an all-too-common phrase.

As our sales team worked out how to adapt to this new reality, it soon became clear that our entire GTM strategy was in the crosshairs. We were traditionally a sales-led growth organization, but was that still effective in today’s world? — what does product-led growth look like for us? And how does community-led or ecosystem-led growth fit in?

If your sales organization can relate, read on to find out how to evaluate your GTM strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy, and it will take careful collaboration to rebuild and optimize the foundation of your GTM plans.

What is a GTM strategy?

Go to Market (GTM) strategy is a tactical action plan involving sales, marketing and client services that outlines the steps necessary to succeed in a target market. It originates from the need to bridge the gap between the development of a product or service and its successful launch in the market. It allows organizations to identify their value proposition, target customers, and sales and marketing tactics needed to reach their audience effectively.

A sales-led GTM strategy relies heavily on a sales team to drive growth. In this model, the sales team is responsible for demonstrating the value of the product or service to potential customers. This approach is often used by B2B companies with complex offerings, where personalized demonstrations and negotiations play a significant role. Companies such as Oracle and SAP have successfully employed a sales-led GTM strategy.

Product-led GTM strategy, on the other hand, focuses on the product itself as the primary driver of customer acquisition, conversion, and expansion. In this strategy, the product serves as the main channel through which customers appreciate the value of the offering, leading to increased usage and advocacy. Companies like Slack and Dropbox have significantly benefited from the product-led approach, which helped them grow by delivering products that customers love.

An ecosystem-led GTM strategy is about building and nurturing a network of partners who can complement and supplement your offering. Here, the emphasis is on creating symbiotic relationships that allow for mutual growth and success. This approach is often used by technology companies who build platforms which other businesses can use to offer their services, such as Microsoft's partner network.

Lastly, a community-led GTM strategy involves leveraging a community of users to drive adoption and growth. This strategy hinges on creating a loyal user base that not only uses the product or service but also actively advocates for it within their networks. Companies like GitHub and StackOverflow have successfully employed a community-led GTM strategy, harnessing the power of their user communities to drive growth.

Finding the right fit

Choosing the right GTM strategy for your organization should be a carefully considered process that takes into account several key factors. Here are some aspects to consider:

1. How complex is my product to use?

Understanding the nature of your product or service offerings is crucial. If your product is simple, user-friendly, and its value can be easily understood by the customer, a product-led strategy might be the best fit. This approach focuses on showcasing the product's features and benefits to drive customer adoption, often offering a free version of the product to get them started.

On the other hand, if your product is complex and requires demonstration or negotiation to effectively communicate its value, a sales-led GTM strategy would be more beneficial. This strategy involves a more hands-on approach, where sales teams engage with potential customers to address their specific needs and guide them through the buying process.

2. How complex is my product to onboard?

Consider the onboarding process for your product or service. If it requires extensive training or support to get customers up and running, a sales-led GTM strategy, paired with a customer success team, could be appropriate.  If the product requires integrations to function appropriately for the customer, an ecosystem-led strategy can help you overcome some of the barriers to delivering value.

3. What are the characteristics of my user base?

Understanding your customer base is crucial in determining the right GTM strategy. If you have a highly engaged user community that is eager to share their positive experiences with others, it might be worth considering a community-led approach. This strategy harnesses the power of word-of-mouth marketing and advocacy to drive growth. Conversely, if your product solves a problem for multiple users within an organization, a product-led approach could allow you to build groundswell, especially if you can get users hooked on a free version of your product.

4. What are the characteristics of my decision-makers?

Consider the key decision-makers involved in the purchasing process. Understanding their needs, preferences, and decision-making criteria can help shape your GTM strategy. For example, if your target audience consists of C-level executives who prioritize ROI and long-term value, a sales-led GTM strategy that emphasizes the financial benefits and strategic value of your offering could be effective.

By carefully considering these factors, you can find the right GTM strategy that aligns with your product, target audience, and overall business goals.

Addressing IBISWorld's core GTM issues

At IBISWorld, we wanted to incorporate a hybrid GTM strategy, but to be sure, we needed to reassess how our buyers operated. Looking at our sales funnel, it was clear that buying cycles had changed and buyer behavior with it, leaving room for improvement. We were also getting ready to launch the next evolution of our product, but we weren't 100% ready to let it sell for us, and we were only in the infancy of building our ecosystem-led approach. All these factors indicated that while we’ll continue to build a multi-channel approach, sales-led was still the core foundation of who we were.

Once we reaffirmed how our GTM strategy would evolve, we turned our attention to rebuilding 3 key elements of that strategy.

Adapting to today's buyer

From the beginning of ‘22 to beginning of ‘23, we saw a decrease in sales velocity, a metric that helps businesses understand how effective they are at generating revenue. As we pulled apart the core components of velocity, we identified our biggest issue to be opportunity creation. We simply weren't generating enough quality opportunities to support our sales cycle. Of the ones we did generate, too many were lost early in the funnel, but there was no clear trend in the reason for these losses.

So, we kept digging; we broke down all performance metrics over the past 5 years in our core markets and analyzed which characteristics indicated they’d convert above baseline. Some of these key characteristics included LTV, tier, vertical, sub-vertical, revenue, employee size and much more. What felt like a painstaking, never-ending journey helped us truly understand that our best approach was staying true to our core markets and allowed us to better understand what our Ideal Client Profile (ICP) looked like.

From there, our Marketing team spent time analyzing who our buyers are, their behaviors and what matters to them most, in order to update our customer persona maps. This left revenue staff with a clear picture of who we were speaking to and, more importantly, how to speak to them, with one singular voice. We began to use this data and insight to better structure our content to support the buyer's journey, recreating our content calendar to support our seller and align with our ICP and buyer personas.

Questions to ask yourself:

• How effective is our current strategy in generating quality opportunities in the sales funnel, and what factors contribute to any decrease?
• Do we have a clear understanding of our Ideal Client Profile, considering factors like LTV, tier, vertical, sub-vertical, revenue, employee size and core buyer behaviors?
• Who are our core buyers, and how do we effectively communicate with them?
• How have our core markets performed over the past 5 years, and should we explore new markets or focus on strengthening our position in core markets?
• Are our territories, playbooks, and reporting structures aligned with insights from performance metrics and buyer behaviors, and how can we leverage data-driven decision making to support our sales team?

Aligning Seller Motions

Once we became comfortable with who our core buyers were and how we wanted to communicate to them, it was time to look at all our motions. What were the biggest roadblock in our funnels? How could we increase conversion at each stage? Did we have the right resources and visibility?

We started to identify key roadblocks in our funnel. Knowing we had an early-stage conversion problem, we began to rebuild and optimize our lead forms and create on-site product tutorials to assist in the buyer journey.

After we created a clear process for how and when a lead should move from stage to stage and the tools required to execute, our Enablement team was able to rebuild how our tech stack supported the seller’s journey. We relaunched and onboarded some key tools that better addressed glaring issues, bringing closer both the buyer and seller experience.

These processes allowed us to create a core common language across functions. This simple outcome proved to be quite impactful, limiting the need to rehash definitions every time we spoke and ensuring each stage and key metric had an owner. We left this exercise with two clear processes for how our inbound and outbound motions should look, shared amongst cross functional teams.

Questions to ask yourself:

• What are the major roadblocks in our sales funnels, and how can we enhance conversion at each stage?
• Do we have the right resources and visibility throughout the buyer's journey?
• How can we create a common language across functions to streamline communication and processes?

Breaking the silos of core functions

As 2024 drew closer, it became time to put it all together. We had successfully rebuilt our sales-led approach, focusing on high value content to support the buyer journey, a singular voice throughout all motions and complete and clear process pre- and post-sale. We had begun integrating our product-led strategy via self-led product trials, product tutorials and enhanced lead forms and at the same time, we began building our ecosystem-led strategy, whose core goal is to provide a better experience for our users and join partners who have the same, customer-obsessed ideals that we do.

For us, some of the initiatives we took on were completely new, and not all functions sit under the same roof; therefore, this quickly became about collaboration and communication. One of the most important things we did on this journey was a dedicated week spent with senior leaders from around the business to discuss how all the parts blended.  This brought together months of work, aligning everyone around a brand-new picture of how we wanted to go to market, solidifying a shared vision and ensuring a unified approach across the organization.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Have we clearly defined our go-to-market strategy?
• How are we fostering collaboration and communication among different functions, especially when they may not be physically located under the same roof?
• Have we invested time in educating and aligning senior leaders and key stakeholders on new initiatives and strategies?
• Are we consistently communicating and collaborating throughout the implementation of new initiatives, or are there gaps that need to be addressed?