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The Demand Generation Playbook: Simple Steps to Drive Growth and Close Deals
November 12, 2024
A B2B Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy is a roadmap outlining how your startup plans to engage with its target customers in the most effective and efficient way possible. At its core, B2B GTM strategy focuses on two key factors: effectiveness, which measures how quickly you can reach and convert customers, and efficiency, which evaluates the profitability of these efforts.
In today’s AI-driven market, simply having a great product is no longer enough. A well-thought-out B2B GTM strategy is critical to ensuring your product not only reaches the right audience but also resonates with them. This strategy typically involves a combination of direct and indirect channels aimed at educating customers, providing support, and distributing your product effectively.
The objective of a GTM plan is to streamline the customer acquisition process, maximize return on investment (ROI), and drive sustainable growth for your business. From defining your target audience and refining your product messaging to choosing the right distribution methods, every aspect of a GTM strategy plays a crucial role in building a solid foundation for long-term success. Whether you’re launching a new product or entering a new market, a well-executed GTM strategy is the key to staying competitive and achieving your growth goals.
A solid Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy is vital for the success of SaaS (Software as a Service) companies due to several industry-specific dynamics. The fast pace of innovation, short buying cycles, and easy customer switching all necessitate a strategic and customer-focused approach to launching and scaling SaaS products. A well-developed B2B GTM strategy not only attracts customers but also provides a competitive advantage by addressing specific consumer needs and leveraging unique value propositions.
A B2B go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a comprehensive plan that outlines how a B2B product or service will be positioned, priced, promoted, and distributed to a target audience. The purpose of a B2B GTM strategy is to heighten market awareness, ensure the organization doesn’t waste money, time, and resources, and accelerate product adoption. By clearly defining the target audience and crafting a strategic approach to reach them, a GTM strategy helps businesses effectively introduce their product or service to the market. This involves understanding the competitive landscape, identifying the most effective marketing channels, and creating a compelling value proposition that resonates with potential customers. Ultimately, a well-executed GTM strategy ensures that every aspect of the B2B product launch is aligned with the company’s overall business objectives, leading to a more successful market entry.
A well-planned B2B GTM strategy streamlines the approach to entering new markets or launching products. By identifying the most effective distribution channels, target audience, and messaging from the get-go, businesses can significantly reduce the time it takes to go from concept to customers. This strategic planning allows companies to avoid common pitfalls and make informed decisions that accelerate the product launch process. With a clear understanding of the target audience and a focused marketing strategy, businesses can quickly build awareness and generate interest in their product or service. This not only speeds up market entry but also enhances the chances of early adoption and long-term success.
The B2B SaaS industry is highly competitive, with new entrants emerging frequently. To maintain a competitive edge, companies must quickly find product-market fit before competitors dominate the space. A flexible and responsive GTM strategy allows businesses to adapt to evolving market conditions, ensuring they can seize opportunities and pivot as needed to maintain momentum. This approach is crucial for both new and established products, especially when launching a new offering within an existing market.
SaaS customers are often looking for quick, hassle-free purchasing experiences. They expect to see transparent pricing and be able to sign up for services instantly through self-service options. Therefore, an effective GTM strategy should prioritize frictionless sales, offering seamless customer experiences from discovery to purchase, without unnecessary barriers or delays. This helps drive quicker sales cycles and conversions.
In the SaaS world, customers can easily switch between competing solutions with minimal switching costs. This makes customer retention as crucial as acquisition. A strong GTM strategy should focus on creating exceptional user experiences that foster brand loyalty and reduce churn. Engaging customers through value-added services and support is key to keeping them invested in your solution over the long term.
The subscription-based SaaS model provides the potential for high customer lifetime value (LTV), but only if customers continue to renew and engage with your product. A well-thought-out B2B GTM strategy should integrate customer success practices from the start, ensuring customers achieve meaningful outcomes with your product. By aligning your strategy with customer needs, you can increase retention, improve LTV, and drive sustainable business growth.
In summary, an effective B2B GTM strategy is critical in SaaS, helping companies quickly navigate fast-moving markets, offer frictionless sales experiences, and retain customers in an environment where switching is easy. By focusing on these key elements, SaaS businesses can position themselves for long-term success and growth.
There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to GTM strategy (that’s why there are so many in the first place!). But there are some ways to decide which strategy is best for your business. Your company’s goals, values, ideal customers, and product can all influence which strategy will work best.
Let’s dive into various B2B GTM strategies and explore how each go-to-market plan can serve different business needs, from building relationships to scaling rapidly.
Inbound marketing is all about attraction. You don’t chase customers — you draw them in with content that educates, entertains, or solves their problems by understanding your target customers. When done correctly, an inbound GTM strategy positions your brand as a thought leader, allowing you to build trust and credibility with your audience.
This strategy revolves around content marketing, where you create various types of content such as blog posts, social media updates, reports, whitepapers, podcasts, and videos. SEO plays a huge role here as well because the goal is to get your content in front of people who are searching for what you offer.
Here’s the thing: Inbound isn’t about quick wins; it’s a long-term investment that pays off over time. The trust you build with your audience by consistently providing value eventually leads to conversions. It’s ideal for companies that want to position themselves as thought leaders and have the resources to consistently create high-quality content.
However, inbound requires patience. You won’t see overnight success, but once the flywheel starts turning, your pipeline can almost fill itself as your audience begins to rely on your brand for information, education, and solutions.
On the other hand, outbound marketing flips the script. Instead of waiting for customers to come to you, you go directly to them. Outbound strategies focus on reaching out to your ideal customer persona (ICP) and initiating a conversation around their specific pain points. Identifying your target market is crucial in this process, as it helps tailor your marketing messaging and promotional strategies to effectively reach and engage the right customer segments.
Tools like email outreach, cold calling, and social selling are essential in outbound marketing. It’s a more aggressive approach compared to inbound, and when done right, it’s highly effective for companies that know exactly who their target audience is. By personalizing your outreach to address your prospects’ unique challenges, you’re more likely to engage them and guide them toward making a purchase.
If your product has a niche audience or serves a specific, well-defined market, outbound is an excellent choice. The advantage here is that you can control the pace of your outreach and precisely target your most valuable prospects.
A product-led strategy (or product-led growth, PLG) is all about letting your product take center stage. The idea is to reduce friction in the buying process by offering a self-serve model where users can try, experience, and ultimately purchase your product on their own terms. Think of tools like Slack or Dropbox — these products are intuitive, easy to use, and require little to no human interaction to get started.
PLG works best when you have a product that offers immediate value and caters to a broad audience. Often, companies using this strategy employ a freemium model that allows users to try out the core features for free, with the option to upgrade for premium features or functionality. Additionally, an effective pricing strategy is crucial to balance production costs, perceived value, and market demand.
This strategy is ideal for early-stage startups that want to disrupt the market or for businesses looking to scale quickly with a lower customer acquisition cost. But the key to making PLG successful is having a strong product that delivers exceptional user experiences. If your product isn’t up to par or lacks constant updates, PLG can fall flat.
In a product-led model, your team will likely focus on customer feedback, iterating and improving the product based on user behavior and demands. This creates a feedback loop that drives faster product innovation and helps you stay ahead of competitors.
While product-led strategies focus on letting the product shine, a channel-led approach involves expanding your reach through partnerships with other businesses. Here, instead of solely relying on direct sales, you build relationships with retailers, distributors, agents, or online platforms to help sell your product.
This strategy is particularly effective for companies that want to scale their distribution without making a huge upfront investment. By leveraging your partners’ existing resources and customer bases, you can extend your market presence without the heavy lifting.
Channel-led strategies require a focus on supporting your partners. Whether through training programs, incentives, or co-marketing initiatives, you must ensure that your partners have the resources they need to succeed. The beauty of this approach is that it allows you to tap into markets that might be difficult to reach on your own.
It’s a solid strategy for smaller companies selling physical products or for SaaS companies looking to expand globally without setting up an extensive sales force.
In an ecosystem-led strategy, your business forms partnerships with other companies to create a more integrated solution for customers. This is all about collaboration, where you work with complementary products to deliver an enhanced experience for your customers.
A great example would be integrating a project management tool with a time-tracking solution, offering customers a more comprehensive workflow solution than either product could deliver on its own. By building an interconnected web of partners, your offering becomes part of a larger ecosystem, providing additional value that goes beyond what your company alone can provide.
An ecosystem-led strategy works well for companies that are trying to offer a more holistic, end-to-end experience for their customers. It’s not limited to one-off partnerships; it’s about creating a sustainable network of products and services that enhance each other.
This strategy helps expand your reach, allowing you to enter new markets or industries by partnering with other companies that share a similar audience but offer complementary solutions.
A community-led strategy is perhaps one of the most organic approaches to GTM. The idea here is simple: Build a loyal community of customers who are not just buyers but also advocates for your brand. This is done by creating an engaging environment where your audience can connect, share ideas, and collaborate with others who share similar values or interests.
The key to success here is authenticity. Customers can tell when a brand is disingenuous, so your community-led approach must be grounded in real value. Platforms like Slack, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, or even Discord can serve as meeting places for your community to interact.
What’s more, your role as a business is to nurture this community by providing them with resources, insights, and a space to collaborate. Over time, a well-managed community can grow organically, with members taking on roles as advocates, creating a flywheel effect that fuels acquisition and retention.
It’s a long-term strategy, but if done right, community-led growth can create trust and loyalty that is hard for competitors to break. This approach is particularly effective for brands that have strong values or whose products require a deep understanding to use effectively.
A sales-led GTM strategy is centered around the efforts of a skilled sales team to generate leads, nurture prospects, and close deals. Unlike product-led strategies, which rely heavily on automation and self-service, sales-led approaches emphasize one-on-one interactions with potential customers.
This strategy works especially well in industries where products are more complex or have higher price points, and potential customers need more education or reassurance before making a purchase. It’s also effective in competitive markets where human relationships can make or break a deal.
The key to a successful sales-led approach is investing in sales enablement. Your sales reps need to be well-equipped with knowledge, tools, and best practices to close deals effectively. Companies with a sales-led strategy also tend to focus heavily on customer relationship management (CRM) systems and detailed customer personas to ensure that every interaction is meaningful and moves the customer closer to a purchase.
A demand generation strategy blends inbound and outbound approaches to generate interest in your product and bring qualified leads to your sales funnel. The goal here is to create a buzz around your product, making prospects aware of its value before they even reach the consideration stage.
Activities like content marketing, email campaigns, and paid lists help to create demand and push warm leads through the funnel. The main difference between demand generation and other GTM strategies like inbound is that demand generation focuses more on targeted outreach, ensuring you’re talking to the right people.
Demand generation can work for businesses at any stage, but it’s particularly beneficial for companies that are looking to scale quickly or want to reduce the costs of converting leads into customers. By narrowing the focus to a specific ICP, this strategy reduces wasted effort and increases conversion rates.
Lastly, an account-based GTM strategy is hyper-focused on landing large, high-margin deals with specific target accounts. Unlike demand generation, which casts a wide net, account-based marketing (ABM) zooms in on individual companies or decision-makers, offering highly personalized content and outreach.
This strategy is resource-intensive but has a high payoff. ABM is ideal for companies targeting enterprise customers or those selling high-ticket products where a few large deals can significantly impact revenue.
In an account-based strategy, your marketing and sales teams collaborate closely to build relationships with target accounts. Every communication is tailored to that account’s unique needs, and the approach is slow but methodical, aiming for long-term, high-value contracts.
HubSpot, the popular CRM platform, is a classic example of a successful inbound marketing strategy. From day one, HubSpot has focused heavily on producing high-quality content to attract potential customers. They publish blog posts, webinars, eBooks, and free tools aimed at marketers, salespeople, and customer service professionals.
HubSpot’s inbound strategy revolves around creating educational resources that solve customer problems. This builds trust with the audience, who are more likely to purchase when they need CRM or marketing software.
HubSpot became synonymous with inbound marketing and established itself as an authority in the space. Their long-term content efforts generate consistent organic traffic and warm leads for their products.
Outreach, a leading sales engagement platform, uses an outbound strategy to target enterprise clients.
They reach out directly to sales leaders through cold emailing, LinkedIn outreach, and strategic paid advertising. Outreach’s sales team personalizes communication based on the pain points of sales teams, focusing on improving pipeline visibility and team performance.
By using an outbound strategy, Outreach can connect directly with key decision-makers and showcase the immediate value their product provides to sales teams, driving faster conversions.
Slack, the team collaboration tool, is a prime example of a product-led growth (PLG) strategy.
Slack provides a freemium model where users can sign up and start using the platform for free with limited features. Once teams get accustomed to using it, Slack offers premium upgrades for additional functionality like unlimited integrations, search history, and more.
Slack's product-led strategy allows users to experience the value of the tool before committing to a paid plan. This natural adoption creates an easy, low-friction sales funnel where teams are already sold on the product before ever talking to sales.
Shopify, the eCommerce platform, leverages a channel-led strategy to scale its business.
Shopify partners with third-party developers, agencies, and influencers to expand its reach. The Shopify App Store allows developers to create tools that integrate with Shopify, and agencies can refer their clients to Shopify while earning a commission.
By leveraging an entire ecosystem of developers and agencies, Shopify can tap into new markets and create a diverse set of offerings that they wouldn’t be able to build alone. This approach has allowed Shopify to become a dominant player in the eCommerce space.
Stripe, the payments processing company, exemplifies an ecosystem-led strategy by integrating its platform with a variety of other services.
Stripe has formed partnerships with other SaaS tools like Shopify, Xero, and WooCommerce to provide end-to-end payment solutions for businesses. By offering APIs that developers can easily integrate, Stripe becomes part of a broader software ecosystem that delivers value to merchants, developers, and businesses alike.
This strategy allows Stripe to reach a wide audience across various sectors without building every tool in-house. By becoming the backbone for many online businesses, Stripe can focus on providing seamless payments while other platforms handle the rest of the user experience.
Notion, the all-in-one workspace tool, is a standout example of a community-led strategy.
Notion’s growth has largely been driven by its passionate user community. They’ve built a strong presence on platforms like Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube, where users share templates, tips, and workflows. Notion also actively engages with its community through events, partnerships, and by showcasing user-generated content.
The community-led approach has turned Notion users into brand ambassadors, creating a sense of loyalty and ownership. This organic growth drives user acquisition without heavy reliance on traditional marketing.
Salesforce, the cloud-based CRM, is a quintessential sales-led organization.
Salesforce has a strong team of enterprise sales reps that engage in high-touch, consultative sales. They work closely with clients to identify pain points and offer tailored solutions. Salesforce also invests in sales enablement, providing its reps with the tools and training needed to close large deals.
By focusing on one-on-one relationships with large enterprises, Salesforce can sell complex, high-value solutions that require customization and support. This sales-led approach has helped them dominate the enterprise CRM space.
Drift, a conversational marketing platform, is known for its demand generation efforts, which combine inbound and outbound strategies.
Drift uses content marketing, email campaigns, and webinars to attract leads and generate interest in conversational marketing. At the same time, they employ outbound techniques such as personalized email outreach and cold calls to engage prospects who fit their ideal customer profile.
Drift creates demand by educating their audience on the benefits of conversational marketing, all while targeting specific industries and buyer personas. This mixed approach increases the likelihood of converting leads into customers who are already interested in the solution.
Terminus, a leading account-based marketing (ABM) platform, uses its own product to implement an account-based GTM strategy.
Terminus identifies high-value target accounts that fit their ICP and uses personalized marketing campaigns, one-to-one outreach, and tailored content to engage decision-makers at those accounts. The goal is to build long-term relationships with a select few companies rather than casting a wide net.
ABM helps Terminus focus its resources on a small group of potential clients, allowing them to offer a more personalized experience. By doing so, they increase their chances of landing large enterprise deals and reducing customer churn.
Figma, the collaborative design tool, blends both product-led and sales-led strategies.
Figma offers a freemium model, allowing users to try the core product for free. As teams grow and their needs become more complex, Figma’s sales team steps in to offer enterprise-level solutions, such as security features, user management, and additional support.
This hybrid approach allows Figma to scale organically through product-led growth but also ensures high-value clients get the attention and custom solutions they need. It’s an excellent model for balancing organic growth with targeted sales efforts.
Building a Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy, also known as go to market strategies, is crucial for any B2B SaaS business looking to establish its presence, acquire customers, and scale sustainably. While the concept can seem daunting, particularly for early-stage startups, breaking it down into practical, actionable steps makes it manageable. This guide will walk you through the key steps to develop an effective GTM strategy, in a conversational and easy-to-understand tone.
Before you get into tactics, you need to have a laser-focused understanding of who you're trying to reach. Too many SaaS companies fail by trying to be everything to everyone, which dilutes their message and drains their resources.
Your GTM strategy will hinge on how well you can tailor your outreach to this audience. The more specific you can be, the easier it will be to craft messages that resonate with your potential buyers.
Once you’ve nailed down who you’re targeting, the next step is to communicate why they should care. This is your Customer Value Proposition (CVP)—the core message that explains what makes your product unique and why your target audience should choose you over competitors.
To create a compelling value proposition, answer these three questions:
A solid value proposition isn’t just a marketing pitch. It helps shape your messaging across all channels—ads, landing pages, emails, etc.
Your GTM strategy needs to determine how you’ll deliver your product to your target audience. This means selecting the right distribution channels and marketing platforms. For a SaaS business, this often involves a mix of digital channels like:
For startups, it’s often best to focus on one or two primary channels in the beginning. Experimenting with too many can dilute your focus and resources.
In SaaS, particularly B2B, your sales process often involves nurturing leads rather than making a quick sale. This means mapping out how you'll guide prospects through the customer journey—from discovering your product to signing up or purchasing.
Understanding your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is key to building a sustainable GTM strategy.
CAC=Total Sales and Marketing Costs/Number of Customers Acquired
Knowing your CAC allows you to evaluate whether your sales and marketing efforts are cost-effective. For SaaS companies, lowering CAC while maintaining growth is crucial to achieving long-term profitability.
Some tips to optimize CAC:
Think of your GTM strategy as an ongoing experiment rather than a fixed plan. You’ll likely need to tweak it based on early results and feedback.
Running Experiments:
For example, if you're running Google Ads, you might test different keywords and ad copy to see which ones yield the lowest CAC. Similarly, if you're relying on content marketing, you can experiment with different types of content (long-form blogs vs. short videos) to see which generates more qualified leads.
Key Metrics to Track:
As you refine your GTM strategy and see traction, you can begin to scale your efforts. However, scaling prematurely can lead to wasted resources and missed opportunities.
Start by scaling what works:
You can also begin scaling your sales and marketing teams at this stage. Hiring the right salespeople or adding marketing resources will help you reach new customers more quickly, but make sure that your initial playbook is proven before throwing more fuel on the fire.
Sales enablement plays a crucial role in the success of a GTM strategy by empowering sales teams with the tools, resources, and information they need to easily engage with prospects and customers. Key aspects of sales enablement include product knowledge and training, content development and distribution, sales playbooks, sales training and coaching, onboarding of new sales reps, and sales and marketing alignment. Effective sales enablement tools and resources can help bridge the gap between sales and marketing, ensuring that both teams are working towards common goals and objectives. By providing sales teams with the right materials and support, businesses can enhance their sales strategy, improve customer interactions, and ultimately drive higher conversion rates. This alignment between sales and marketing efforts is essential for executing a successful GTM strategy and achieving sustainable growth.
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