Common B2B Go-to-market Strategies and Examples to Follow

Staff WritersB2B technologyProduct ManagementSales & Marketing

By STS Staff Writer On Jul 17, 2023

The ability to reach out to the right audience at the right is an ongoing challenge faced by B2B marketers and sales teams. Whether they are launching a new product or service, a go-to-market strategy can go a long way in chasing the right clients and saving you the time and money that will otherwise go wasted on launching an unsuccessful campaign.

What is a Go-to-market (GTM) Strategy?

A B2B Go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a step-by-step game plan a company creates to find the available market to target to win new business and retain the existing one. A detailed GTM will include the following:

Detailed identification of accounts, which can benefit from your range of products and services.
All the marketing and sales programs around the offering.
Identifying key spots in the market where your product or service fits.
Critical KPIs to determine the success of the program.

Whether you create a GTM strategy for a new range of products or services or make it a part of an existing outreach strategy for your brand, it can have a lasting and positive impact on your efforts as it aligns all areas of your business very well. A GTM removes silos and ensures a unified approach to align sales and marketing teams, minimize ad costs, and offers exceptional customer service.

So, after knowing the ‘why’ to create a GTM strategy for your next product launch, let us tell you how you can embark on this journey soon.

A GTM strategy needs strategic planning, competitive research, product testing, and innovation involved in your GTM approach so that you can fulfil the expectations.

Common Go-to-market Strategies – What Works When

No matter what type of GTM strategy you identify, all strategies must demonstrate a product market fit, target audience, competitive demand, and distribution.

While all the types of GTM strategies may have some commonalities, it is better to identify the individual traits of each one of them. Highlighting here the four most common B2B GTM strategies that help marketers reach out to their target market at the right time.

Inbound

Inbound marketing strategies are a suite of strategies that include content marketing, events, SEO, social media, and more. Adding inbound marketing to your GTM will strengthen your brand awareness and attract new prospects organically at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

The method is focused on attracting the right audience, at the right time, with the right type of content. Trust us, it can be an exceptional addition to any marketing plan.

Sales Enablement

We all know what is sales enablement. In the content of GTM, sales enablement strategies are used to increase sales and productivity by providing coaching services and content training for salespeople at every stage of the sales cycle. The strategy works well for your front-line managers, sales representatives, and all-round sales team.

ABM

When it comes to creating B2B go-to-market strategies, ABM has got your back. With the help of valuable content, technology, and comprehensive cross-channel campaigns, the marketing and sales team blend their expertise to locate, target, and engage with high-value accounts.

ABM strategies are great for companies who want to target the big fish from the pond. You can justify your ROI quickly when you land on a big catch.

Demand Generation

Last is demand generation GTM strategies that include a range of marketing activities that are more outbound and sales-centric than the other strategies. With this, marketers use tactics such as cold calling, list buying, email outreach, TV commercials, and more to win customers.

Which one is right for you?

We know you are already tempted to try all of these as they look appealing, but first research a bit and narrow down your choices by asking yourself some questions to identify your business case, market strategy, pricing strategy, sales strategy, support system, and finally the definition of success.

Marketing is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Every business needs different strategies to reach out to its target audience, and thus, every GTM strategy is different from one another. And as we know, a GTM will highly depend upon the product you are trying to sell.

It is important to clearly identify how your product fits and compliments the rest of your portfolio offerings. Once you have reviewed all the options, identify the one that you want to line up first. By creating a GTM strategy, you can gain a comprehensive sketch to direct your entry into the market. With proper research and a decent value proposition, you can achieve a good product-market fit.

BONUS READ:

GTM Fundamentals for 2023 with MarTechSeries and Demandbase; Chris Moody, Head of GTM Strategy and Thought Leadership at Demandbase shares proven tips and best practices. Download now!