B2B Go-to-Market Strategy tips and samples

A B2B go to market strategy is a comprehensive approach to developing, launching, selling your product, and maintaining relationships with the customers.  In terms of definition, a go to market strategy spans activities such as:

1. identifying the market need for your product, 
2. building awareness around it, 
3. standing out from competition, 
4. realizing the leads, and 
5. building customer relationships. 

When we talked about a B2C go-to-market strategy. it was more about a straightforward process: find your target customer, identify one most efficient channel to reach them, and then do iterations of scaling and refinement. In contrast, a go to market strategy for B2B products is completely different. For one, B2B’s is done a lot behind the scenes and it is not as easy to research your competitors. Secondly, B2B has multiple decision makers and reaching each of them requires multiple channels. Moreover, you usually want to nurture a network of channels and not cut it to leave the most productive one.

To compare, B2C is like tuning for a radio, you try different frequencies, identify clear reception, and then amplify the volume. It is likely that in some time you might want to switch to something nearby or completely different. B2B, on the other hand, is more like casting a net of satellites: it caters to different types of users. Also, it is complex and it is built for long-term and high-value service.

We’ll start by explaining the key components of a B2B go to market strategy that make it successful. Then, we’ll also discuss the hyped product-led strategy versus time-proven sales-led one. To conclude, research-based tips will be provided to help you navigate the B2B market which, while having higher revenue per customer and longer customer relationships than B2C, requires a certain degree of tolerance to its complexity.

What are the key components of a successful B2B go-to-market strategy?

The latest McKinsey survey of B2B players in various sectors and geographical areas point out that successful B2B companies take a system-wide view:

“…market leaders continue to experiment, invest, and commit to omnichannel sales.”

As such, B2B go-to-market strategy is not one key flow executed to perfection. It is rather a system with set-up experimentation, reinvesting in product, and combining analytics from all channels to drive sales and company’s growth. 

Also, McKinsey proceeds to define four key trends that ensure overall success of B2B go to market strategy. They are:

1. The rule of thirds such as in-person / remote / self-service channels;
2. Unified omnichannel experience;
3. A must-have e-commerce;
4. Generative AI.

Component of the go to market strategy for B2B products #1: The “rule of thirds” 

• One third is that 1 out of three customers expects an in-person on-premise contact. 
• The other 1 third of customers would prefer remote options of contact. 
• And, the last third of your customers do not want any contact and prefer self-service. 

An interesting point here is that it involves touch points across all stages of the customer journey. Whether it is awareness building or making a deal. 

B2B go to market strategy example

So, let’s imagine a classic B2B digital SaaS product – a project management tool. A B2B go to market strategy example will include the following touchpoints as mentioned in the table below.

The point of the rule of thirds is that, sure, each of these bear different costs, but at the same time their efficiency is different. The bottom line is that dropping one of these means dropping the third of your clients, and, hence, revenues. Granted, there might be exceptions due to the nature of some businesses.

Development implications

When you are developing the MVP version, you still have to consider all three channels when building your B2B go to market strategy. For instance, a landing page should have:

• a corresponding section for your blog,
• CTA to book a call,
• the Featured section for showcasing your participation in industry events,
• onboarding,
• online pricing calculator,
• and so on.

Component of go to market strategy for B2B products #2: Omnichannel experience is a new standard

Above, you have seen three broad interaction categories such as in-person, remote, and self-service. Within these, there are different interaction touchpoints. According to McKinsey, in 2016, customers used on average 5 touchpoint. Now, they use 10, and… want a seamless experience between these. The latter means you have to keep the integrated history of contact so that the customer does not have to repeat themselves or start over. After all, to sign up one business customer, you might be in contact with several representatives from that business. So, within your B2B go to market strategy, you might introduce your business at a conference in-person. Then, you would continue the conversation with the other person from that company remotely. And, the final decision-maker will make a purchase online using a self-service option. There are usually more interactions: demos to team leaders, employee training, follow-ups for Q&A, and so on.

Even though these right here seems like a marketing thing, it puts quite a requirement load on development. Creating an omnichannel experience which means tracking interactions with customers and making it available to your employees is rooted in a CRM system with underlying sophisticated DB design. 

In addition, the front-end (e.g. client-facing side) should implement an event-based architecture. For instance, it should track user’s events which might be “user X joined the webinar”, “opened email”, “clicked Y link”. This not only allows you to ensure seamless omnichannel experience but also create personalized sales pitches and build relationships with your customer.

Component of go to market strategy for B2B products #3: e-commerce is a must

In-person sales, while still substantial, dropped in their share by 5% in favor of e-commerce. According to McKinsey, even customers with purchases over 500 million US dollars require in-person contact less and less. So, with the three channels mentioned above, even if the customer decision-making originated in the in-person channel, sealing the deal occurs much more without needing any kind of personal contact, thus, requiring e-commerce. 

This trend is projecting a brighter future for marketplace development, as more and more sales are moving to online mode. This is also great news for those looking to build a B2B marketplace platform. 

Component of go to market strategy for B2B products #4: generative AI for the win

An end goal of any B2B go to market strategy is sales. For this, generative AI technology helps to almost double the efficiency of your sales processes. Especially, when it comes to capturing the market share. As reported by McKinsey, companies that make gen AI a part of their go to market strategy for B2B products are: 

“…1.7 times more likely to increase market share than those that do not.”

And this trend is fast-growing. Current usage of gen AI in sales teams is at 19%. However, 23% more are experimenting with it in sales processes. 

This is data for existing B2B businesses. 

Startups are actually in a more advantageous position when it comes to building their B2B go to market strategy with gen AI. During development, you can already incorporate AI-powered integrations into your CRM. You do not need to break existing processes or add AI on top; you build processes from scratch around AI. 

B2B go to market strategy samples: sales-first or product-first

We have previously discussed some notable samples, and you can check a go-to-market strategy example of some well-documented companies. Unlike B2C GTM strategies, go to market strategy for B2B products are less public and many things are done behind-the-scenes. Channels, experimentation with messaging, continuous GTM iterations are not frequently exposed to the public, so a common B2B go to market strategy example will not be very detailed. 

Here is a sample sales-first process presented below that a most common B2B go to market strategy example will follow. This process starts off with the product you already have and then through a series of steps develops a sales-driven strategy. 

The current debate in the field of B2B GTM strategies is what is the departure point. Instead of thinking: here is what we have to sell and let’s tune sales for it; the companies are moving toward product-led growth. 

Product-led strategy of go to market strategy for B2B products

It is strategically different because it works on the principle of making a product that sells itself. The rationale behind it is that by simply tuning sales channels but keeping product as a given, the company is bound to experience increasing Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC). This puts the company at a strategic disadvantage. However, by allowing the users to interact with the product to reach the optimal value proposition (usually using free trials and alike), the product growth becomes more organic lowering the CAC. 

Some examples include:

• SaaS company – Keyhole, a B2B go to market strategy example – changed to product-led strategy and bumped its recurring revenues by 25%;
• Another B2B go to market strategy example – Octadesk – did not reveal their revenue results, but indicated that the product-led strategy substantially decreased support calls by 97%, increased NPS by a quarter, and improved the bottom line.

Overall, product-led strategy has been seen as a ‘go-to’ option by many lately. 

However, 2023 McKinsey research into the issue indicates that:

“…only a few companies that use it actually achieve outsize performance, and they do so by increasingly developing a hybrid motion known as product-led sales (PLS)” .

So, it is true that on average product-led companies perform financially better. But it occurs due to few outperformers while others do not see any change from shifting to product-led strategy. 

From the exhibit above, the difference between the average and top-performers is too big suggesting that change to product-led strategy is only marginally better for the average majority. But what about the cost? Product-led strategy does decrease the CAC, but it increases expenses related to R&D and operations expenses for the free tier. Moreover, the change is often pricey and is rooted in a culture change which can take a while.

Solution: product-led sales of go to market strategy for B2B products

The takeaway is that the hybrid of both is a much better option. And, indeed, the later B2B McKinsey research indicated that experimentation leads to B2B success. And, luckily, for startups the solution lies in a cost-efficient MVP development that is driven towards data-informed iterations. Which is simply MVP development with focus on smart product analytics (e.g., event-driven architecture, measuring user events, integrating channels, prioritizing CRM with 360 view, etc.)

Conclusion: Go to market strategy for B2B products tips

Tip #1: Move from CRM to CDP

To implement product-led sales of your B2B go-to-market strategy, there needs to be a Customer Data Platform, or CDP. It should act as a central hub for customer information across channels with three essential data points: 

• Company characteristics,
• Purchase History,
• Web activity.

Tip #2: In-app usage analytics for mining product insight

A good product-led sales strategy should rely on the way users extract value from the product. So, signals about product use, shared elements with other users or within integrations should be reliably tracked. 

Tip #3: Scoring systems for individual users and teams – PQL and PQA

Since the product-led part of strategy relies on free trials or completely free users, there should be warnings in place for when the user is ready to convert. Event-based architecture should track key events. For instance, before an individual user becomes a PQL – Product-Qualified Lead, they perform ‘3 project initializations’, ‘invite a team member’ and such. Then, before a team becomes a PQA – Product-Qualified Account, your system should be able to track at least 3 or 5 individuals from the same company to be active within a specific time interval.

FAQ: B2B Go-to-Market Strategy