What should my GTM look like?
A practical approach to GTM Design by stage
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Hi all —
I get this question all the time: “What should my GTM look like for our company at this stage?”
This is a crucial question. Get it right, and you’re on a path to profitability and efficient growth. Get it wrong, and a lot of bad things happen.
The answer is straightforward:
I built this in Miro - here’s the link to dig deeper.
For a B2B startup that doesn’t have a clearly defined “Hell Yes” customer - go find that person by whatever means necessary.
For a B2B startup WITH a clearly defined “Hell Yes” customer looking to grow profitably:
You *must* do outbound
You *probably should* do social
You *might* do inbound
Outbound
You have to do outbound. No matter what. There’s no excuse for not doing outbound.
You can automate outbound email via Apollo. You can automate outbound LinkedIn via Dripify.
At the very least, send automated emails and LinkedIn connections to your target customers.
There’s a lot more you can do here, of course. You’re always going to have to do unscalable things (see last week’s post), and might be able find ways to creatively use data to turn these things into your scalable channels.
Example: With Apollo, you can automatically send email sequences to companies that have just posted a job for a corporate chef.
You DO need to develop a scalable outbound motion, though. Maybe it’s by scaling something that’s originally unscalable (like the above example), or maybe you’re scaling a more traditional approach - eg working with a cold calling firm to call every McDonald’s restaurant, and managing their connection & conversion rates ruthlessly.
Inbound
Inbound is more binary: Are people searching for something that’s VERY HIGH INTENT, that’s likely to lead to them buying something? These are called “bottom of funnel” search terms, and IMO there are only two types that are worth pursuing for an early-stage B2B startup:
{your category} + “services” or “software” → are people googling Customer Onboarding Software and looking to buy? Great, inbound might work.
{a direct competitor’s name} → are there direct competitors you can win against? Great, inbound might work.
If neither of these are the case, you’re going to be targeting “Middle of Funnel” terms, like “Customer Onboarding Checklist”, which will lead you to maybe-convert people who aren’t really looking to buy anything. It’s life or death: Are you going to bet your company on Middle of Funnel ads?
If you do focus on Inbound - there are people who actually know what they’re doing. Work with a contractor on inbound who can connect Google Ads to your CRM. Generally doesn’t make sense to work with an agency (expensive + junior people executing).
Also - once you focus on BOFU ads + retargeting for ~3 months, you’ll have a good sense of which keyword searches create happy customers, and then it makes sense to invest in SEO.
Social
In general, you want to try to be an influencer.
I’m trying, and it’s f*cking dumb.
But it will work eventually, and I get a ton of opportunities from it. Buck up and automatically add your target customer on LinkedIn, and find a posting approach that’s fresh.
A recent LinkedIn observation I’m putting into practice: People want more “Help Me” content than “Tell Me” content.
TBD if it will work.