First, it’s important to recognize that “go-to-market” (GTM) can be an ambiguous term. Many definitions oversimplify it as merely a product launch. A GTM strategy is far more comprehensive—it’s your roadmap for driving sustained growth.
What it's Not:
A product launch. While product launches have their own GTM plans, each product needs its own GTM strategy.
Your GTM can be “solved” during an executive offsite. Because of changing markets, customers and products, it’s an iterative process and not a static plan.
One person can figure this out. The transformation happens with increased alignment around all GTM functions. No one department should own a company's strategy for growth.
Start With Your Process
The opportunity for transformation lies in creating a strong GTM process - a feedback loop with cross-functional teams to shape the plan. Rather than each leader creating their own process to solve growth decisions (a leader-based approach), a GTM process includes a framework to answer strategic questions. Such a process unifies all GTM functions—like Marketing, Sales, Success, Service, RevOps, Enablement, and Product. Each process is a team of cross-functional stakeholders with a department leader facilitating the process.
An established GTM process can answers questions like…
Who are the best organizations to target for new growth?
Leader-based: The marketing leader determines who to target.
GTM Process: ICP team solves how to find the best greenspace.
Who are the best customers to sell new products?
Leader-based: The sales or marketing leader determines next quarter’s expansion play.
GTM Process: A customer expansion team answers “how else can we upsell customers”.
What’s the best GTM Motion?
Leader-based: Leaders have a few conversations to determine motion.
GTM Process: A “Pipeline Velocity” team answers which GTM motions get you to revenue fastest.
How to Use a GTM Process to Hit Revenue
Hitting a revenue target isn’t just about the math. For example, if your revenue goal is 30% higher than last year, one approach is to calculate how many leads do you need, salespeople to hire, and budget required. Below is a snapshot of how a GTM process can better evaluate how to hit a revenue increase.
10% of Revenue from New Customers
ICP team answers: Are we able to identify high-fit, high-intent accounts for targeted engagement? Do we have a strong differentiated value for our target audience? How has past pipeline performance been for this segment?
Pipeline Velocity team answers: What motions get us to revenue fastest? Does sales have insight into account activity and the best accounts to prioritize each week?
20% of Revenue from Existing Customers
Customer Expansion team answers: Who are our happy customers? What would they buy? Do we have enough of them to reach our goals?
Pipeline Velocity team answers: What motions get us to revenue fastest? Do we have buyer intent data to help AE's prioritize accounts?
Story: I was on a large marketing team with a big new logo goal. We had the right segments with named accounts, but didn’t have enough reachable contacts. The director of demand needed a budget to get better contact info and time to clean it up. This was a marketing ops dependency that a strong GTM process identified early in the planning process.
Types of GTM Motions
A few factors go into how you determine motions such as buyer preferences, cost of product and internal readiness. Keep in mind that each motion is actually a program that requires a sizable investment.
Inbound
Outbound
Product-Led (PLG)
Partner-Led
Community-Led
Motions | Approach | Example Tactics |
Inbound | Content marketing | Ads, email, webinars, blogs |
Outbound | Contact cold accounts | SDR’s, Sales-led |
Product Led Growth | Product is key driver for acquiring and retaining customers | Free trials |
Community-Led | Happy customers drive engagement and sales | Groups, forums, or events |
Partner-Led | Indirect selling programs | Referrals, reseller, affiliate |
Multiple GTM Motions
A company might create a separate GTM motion for small nonprofits compared to enterprise companies.
Audience | GTM Motion | Products Sold |
Small Nonprofit | Inbound | Grassroots |
Enterprise Nonprofit | Partner-Led, ABM | Platform |
Different Plays for Maturity Stages
The right strategies and investments depend on your company’s stage of the 3 P’s—whether you’re in problem-market fit, achieving product-market fit, or platform market-fit. To evaluate your GTM stage, take the maturity assessment from GTM Partners.
For example, if you’re a company in the product-market fit stage, you have a solid base of happy customers, with sales and marketing working in sync to target ideal customer segments. You also have an established, repeatable processes to stay aligned.
Next steps to transform your GTM:
Quality acquisition of best-fit accounts
Prescriptive plays vs. relying on star AE’s
Align departmental operations
KPIs by segment: Engagement, Pipeline coverage, Deal velocity, Average deal size