GTM News by Taylor Wells

I know you feel it. In today's highly saturated market, acquiring new B2B customers has become increasingly challenging. Traditional outbound marketing and sales efforts were followed by the rise of inbound marketing and marketing automation, which allowed for a more personalized approach to the customer's journey. However, as these channels and tactics become more accessible to everyone, their effectiveness is diminishing, leading to higher costs in customer acquisition. To combat this issue, forward-thinking B2B go-to-market teams are turning to owned media assets and building their own audience of potential buyers. Owned media (vs. earned or paid media) refers to creating content that your audience chooses to engage with, whether it's through a newsletter, webinar series, or podcast. The key is to provide content that entertains, educates, and inspires, focusing on solving real problems and delivering actual impact. Unlike content that solely promotes your product, owned media aims to build a long-term relationship with your audience. It's about selflessly providing value and impact, rather than pushing sales. By leveraging first-party interactions and data, you can establish a deeper connection with potential customers, gaining their trust and loyalty. Bolaji Oyejide 🔥🎙 came on the GTM.news show to talk all things building an audience and the new era of go-to-market we are in. Let's listen in: BIG WARNING: This is not just another content marketing strategy to throw on your marketing team. This really needs to be an entire organization / go-to-market strategy (internal, customers, partners, etc) effort to make this work. Why would anyone want to watch your content when there is a million choices out there? There is now the need for content differentiation as everyone is competing for each other's attention. Think of owned media / building an audience as your organization's first product. Really invest in making it great. Other cool GTM stuff to check out: I did a conversation with Anthony Kennada from AudiencePlus on owned media earlier this year. Check out our conversation if you want more info on the subject. Sara Stella Lattanzio shares a great post on mind bending logic shift when it comes to outreach emails Great post from Wil Reynolds on why you should be careful what "thought-leadership" and success stories you read Mark Kilens talks about the success he's seen without using a pitch deck in his sales calls Until next week my friends, Taylor P.s. What are you learning in the world of B2B growth and go-to-market? Share your favorites in the comments. Love to learn from you!

Let's be honest, creating content can be a bear. Whether it's for your own personal brand or for your organization. Brendon Hufford, a thought-leader in the B2B SaaS space around content and marketing came on the show to talk through his simple Content IP framework. Yes, this framework can help you get views but the real power is driving business outcomes & revenue. We discussed: Why building a category is less important than really going deep on your customer's problem How to create content that resonants with your audience The power of a simple template How to think about case studies and sharing social proof How to tie all these different pieces of content into a journey to educate or connect with your buyer How to work overtime to get inside our customers shoes to try to understand them better And a bunch of rabbit trail / tangential topics! David Spitz posted on the power of ​vertical markets​ (did anyone say niche down?) Rand Fishkin shares an important lessons around ​why the best marketing channels are the least provable​ (basically the best 5 minutes you could spend all week) Taylor Wells (wait, is it ok to feature myself??) shared a post on ​how go-to-market motions have changed and which ones you should avoid ​based on your ACV - See you all next week! Taylor

With AI, the cost of creating great content is potentially going to go to zero. Google is also creating more zero click search results (SGE). So how will ranking on Google search change in the future? Gregory Brooks with SearchTides, an expert in all things SEO (search engine optimization) comes on the GTM News show to talk about the future of SEO as a go-to-market strategy. We discussed: What’s working now to get ranked on Google search Domain authority and how to analysis ranking factors What types of content is working now and theories on what will work in the future How Google organic search is a zero sum game Are backlinks dead? How we are in the age of the practitioners / influencer Who should and who should not invest in SEO as a marketing strategy Thoughts on Google’s zero click search results (SGE) and what that means for the future

We all get so many spam emails, sales calls, and people sending us annoying sales pitches on Linkedin. So, do the traditional outbound channels still work and if they do, how do we do it in the right way? Scott Martinis, a B2B outbound expert came on the show to shares his insights on how to stay ahead of the challenges of outbound. We discussed: - How to create the right type of outbound content - How to analysis your ideal customer profile & target the right prospects - How to reverse engineer your buyer's journey to match your future customer's expectations - What data providers, email senders, and other tech work best - How to leverage social networks and thought leadership to boost your outbound efforts #gotomarket #b2b #outbound #sales #growth

There is already so much content on the internet and AI is just getting started. So, how does your content stand out, continue to provide value, while driving revenue for your organization? Ross Simmonds, a dynamic content practitioner and expert in the B2B tech space, came on the show to shares his insights on how to stay ahead of the constant content changes. We discussed: - Selfless vs. selfish content - How to use AI to make your content better - How to use customer insights and research to craft the right content - How to turn one piece of content into dozens or hundreds of other pieces of content - Why you need to market your content better - And much more

Video podcasts can be one of the most powerful ways to create content at scale, provide value, and build an audience you don't have to rent or pay for (owned media). Here are some of the benefits: - Create a lot of content to repurpose - Associate your brand with industry experts - Showcase customers and even have your prospects on! - Build an audience that you don't have to rent or try to earn - Tap into other peoples audiences This 1-hour long session I went behind the scenes on how I created GTM.news and other B2B shows/podcasts. Here is what you'll learn: - My system for hosting & producing a video podcast - How to easily repurpose and 100x your reach with the content - All the tools and tech you need (under $75/mo) - How to get guests on the show easily - How to build your own audience from it Want to follow along with the deck? Click here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tXBojuRADKpkV8Cdow3E9XnG6ti91WI3/view?usp=sharing

The stats for B2B sales teams hitting quota in 2023 are not great. Many organizations are struggling to hit pipeline goals. Any one in sales is under the microscope. Thankfully, there are folks like Samantha McKenna pushing the boundaries on how to effectively engage the modern buyer. On this week's show, she shared her thoughts on to engage your potential buyers. We discussed: Modern selling Specific social selling tactics How to leverage information online How to write a great outbound email AI and creating efficiencies

You've probably never heard of Klaviyo unless you are a Shopify customer or in the e-commerce space. I didn't know much about them either and totally looked up how to pronounce their name (more on that later.) So what's so special about Klaviyo? Klaviyo filed their S-1 to go public last Friday - As Tomasz Tunguz said in his newsletter "one of the first software companies to do so since the beginning of the economic downturn in late 2022. It’s a marvel of business with strong growth, great efficiency & the potential to reignite interest in SaaS IPOs." I dove into their S-1 to see what all the fuss is about and learn why they achieved such incredible results. What I found was pretty awesome from a go-to-market standpoint. Very cool combination of growth strategies. First before I jump into the learns, here is what they have achieved so far: - Almost $500m in revenue in 2022, growing 60%ish year over year - Profitable as of June 2023The company raised $455m in venture capital, but has used only $15m - Cost of acquisition payback period of only 14 months - 119% Net Dollar Retention - When the company spends $1 in sales & marketing expense, Klaviyo produces $1.03 in gross profit next year. - Lots of strong competitors such as: Adobe, Salesforce, Mailchimp, and Braze but still growing like crazy So how did they do it? I take a deep dive into 7ish go-to-market learnings I found from Klaviyo on this week's GTM News show. Here is summary of the learnings: 1. Great product that has an cute market need (yeah, I get it no brainer but shouldn't be discounted) 2. Growing market & focused on one vertical to start (e-commerce & retail) 3. Demonstrated impact through their version of ROI: Klaviyo at scale (KAV) 4. "Maniacally" focused on easy self service expansion 5. Crushed one GTM motion (PLG) and then went up market naturally (enterprise customers came to them) 6. Strategic Partnership with Shopify: ecosystem growth but didn't rely on Shopify to drive all the growth 7. Partner-led: over 5,000 agencies/consultants referred customers in 2022 (!!) 7.5. A good name is everything? I don't know about that. Can't tell if their name is brilliantly random/unique or it doesn't matter. And oh, they completely made it up. - What a cool company. I love to see companies create a great product, do awesome marketing, and get to profitability without blowing a ton of money along the way. What do you think of Klaviyo? P.s. S-1 and other public information are the only metrics or "benchmarks" I really trust these days. So much of the success metrics and benchmarks are lacking context. By law S-1s have to be overly transparent and share all the negatives and risk factors.

Building strategic partnership isn't a new concept. But one that is so important in 2023. There is so much noise in the market. The average person sees someone between 5,000 and 10,000 ads per day (Forbes) So how do you stand out? One amazing strategy is leverage partnerships with other organizations that serve your same ideal customer. Isaac Morehouse, CMO of Reveal and Co-Founder of PartnerHacker, shares their take on it: Nearbound

As Bob would say, "the time are a changin" B2B buyers behaviors are fast catching up to B2C / consumer behaviors. Buyers don't want friction. They just want it now. ​McKinsey recently came out of report​ that stating about 70 percent of decision makers are prepared to spend up to $500,000 on a single e-commerce transaction. Higher than the report I read last year from them. Also B2B organizations reported their best sales channel was self-service e-commerce vs. in-person, video, phone, etc. This "e-commerce" buying experience is also product-led growth in the B2B world. Could be a self-service freemium, free trial, etc. There is also ways a traditional sales-led (i.e. you have a sales person close the deal) organization can adapt these concepts to improve pipeline & sales velocity Julia Gilinets & I unpacked product-led growth and more in our recent conversation. - Trying something here: Here are some additional top picks & posts I found this week Interesting post from Tyler Pleiss on a ​lunch 'n learn ABM 1:1 strategy​ that I'm going to try soon Comprehensive post from Justin Rowe ​on how to do Linkedin ads right​ (and really any content distribution + advertising) My favorite B2B tech pick of the week on Linkedin ​​​ - P.s what other go-to-market related topics would you like to learn about? Taylor