When it comes to Go To Market (GTM) strategy & planning, the traditional approach aims for a collective revenue growth target. The breakdown in targets per department follows without fostering true collaboration. This siloed mentality not only breeds conflict, it also results in misleading metrics that hinder – rather than fuel – growth. Let’s explore moving from a department-centric model to a buyer-centric approach, urging marketing & demand teams to extend their focus beyond conventional lead gen tactics & metrics, and embrace the entirety of the customer journey.
The pitfalls of stand-alone growth models
Splitting the company’s growth target and assigning respective shares to Sales, Channel, and xDRs might make sense in a top down planning model. In reality, it’s proven to be a breeding ground for internal discord. Yes, in theory, all departments contribute, but if you compensate xDRs and marketeers on early-stage pipeline, this is exactly what you get. And what if multiple teams report on the same opportunities? This all leads to pipeline inflation, distorting the actual contribution of each department. This misalignment comes with a horrible win rate and more than often requires 5 or 8 times more pipeline to satisfy hungry sales leaders, which makes the top of funnel marketing dependency go through the roof. If these conversion rates are taken into the GTM planning model, Marketing will be compensated to deliver crazy amounts of MQLs, which incentivises marketers to invest in lead-centric tactics like content syndication and paid ads, rather than revenue-driven strategies, even though the contribution to ARR is actually 1 or 2%. Ultimately, this approach will force departments to have conflict, work in silo’s, and have them focus on a particular vanity metric in the funnel that does not move the needle for the actual revenue at all.
Restoring teamwork: a buyer-centric perspective
To achieve improved collaboration, you must realise that Marketing is not a support function for Sales. Instead, GTM teams must adopt a buyer-centric perspective. Jointly uncovering consistent buyer journeys that drive revenue is the catalyst for revenue through cross-functional collaboration. Teams need to collectively identify and prioritize successful pipeline sources. When they start to uncover buyer journeys that consistently drive revenue, teams will be naturally drawn towards working with other departments and collaborate to accelerate sales velocity. This means that marketing teams need to be freed from metrics like leads & MQL’s. I still believe these metrics have meaning for marketing leadership to secure an optimized lead capture engine, but individual contributors should be inspired and incentivised to plan for quality contributions, not just quantity.
Empowering each other: the new face of team collaboration
If 80% of the B2B buyer journey takes place without involvement of your sales reps, the customer journey demands more than just launching a bunch of campaigns, aiming to deliver leads. Imagine if Marketing had a true stake in the entire end-to-end buyers process, not only the sales process. This automatically implies an investment in mutual enablement. I truly believe that marketing should collaborate not only with sales in GTM planning 7 strategy. In fact, everybody should collaborate on campaigns, messaging, value proposition, content requirements, handovers, and expectations. Imagine a feedback loop where Business Development, Sales, Partnerships, Product, ánd Customer Success teams help provide crucial insights into changing market conditions, shifting buyer behaviors, and feedback on campaigns for continuous development. Just by giving people a pipeline target will not inspire a company-wide culture of collaboration. It’s up to leadership to change the operating model and start GTM planning cycles with goals that are much more profound and meaningful than just revenue growth.
Breaking down organizational silos
Effective GTM strategies are built on an operating model that helps teams align on the right metrics, and inspire people to work together on programs and plays that meet customers on their buyer’s journey. The absence of feedback loops with Product, CS, and Channel teams often stems from legacy organizational structures and operating models. To thrive in the current business climate, teamwork emerges once again as the key to success. A big task for leadership, who’s role has to evolve to guiding teams in doing the right things, instead of managing that teams do things right. Introducing a compensation model that matches with the customer journey, behavior will be aligned with the overall goals. Today, more and more demand communities advocate teams to align on later stage (S3) pipeline, instead of the grind of pumping up vanity metrics that do not impact the bottom line.
Demand teams: paving the way for sales velocity
Demand teams play a pivotal role in unraveling the buyer’s journey that leads to increased sales velocity. Enhanced revenue analytics can help everybody’s understanding of win rates, sales cycle length, average deal value, pipeline creation & conversion. Instead of focusing on contributions by departments to early-stage pipeline, a deeper analysis of later-stage pipelines (with a chance of winning above 30%) provides a much more insightful perspective into the path to revenue growth. These insights are incredibly powerful fuel for effective GTM planning cycles and revitalized GTM strategies.
TL;DR
In the pursuit of GTM success, we have to transcend departmental boundaries. Building alliances and relationships, and steering on enhanced KPI’s across the entire customer journey is the new frontier for teams in high-growth companies. Embracing this holistic approach ensures not just growth in revenue numbers but sustainable success anchored in true collaboration and a profound understanding of the buyer’s journey.
--- With 15 years of B2B Marketing experience at high growth companies like Amplitude, Zscaler and Sigma Computing, I help B2B SaaS vendors with their global expansion by increasing marketing’s contribution to qualified pipeline & revenue.