[0:05]Hello everyone and welcome to our B2B marketing webinar in association with the Think Tank. My name is Kavita Singh. I'm head of Growth Solutions content at B2B Marketing. And today we are going to be discussing everything you need to know about your go-to market strategy, including what it is, how to achieve it, and who it lies with. Before we get started, it's worth noting we have a live Q&A at the end of today's session. So do get in your questions throughout and we'll be sure to address them at the end. And don't be shy if you have a question, someone else definitely does as well. So, without further ado, I think it's time to introduce our panel. We're joined by Liam Bateman, the founder of The Think Tank, as well as Sarah Roberts, the Global CMO at Boldon Networks, and finally, last but not least, Sarah Sutton, the CMO at Send Technology. Welcome all. How are we doing today? Good to see you. Nice. Yeah, great to have you guys. Um, before we jump into the questions, I think it'd be great if we just did some quick intros. Um, maybe just tell me a little bit about yourself and your role, and Liam, why don't we start with you for that? Yeah, absolutely. I'm Liam Bateman. I'm managing director and the founder of the Think Tank. we're B2B marketing agency, and uh, I, I, I do a lot of the strategy work and uh, the elements around these sort of go to market and things like that. So that's that's why I'm on this webinar today. Perfect. Um, Sarah Roberts. Um, hi everyone. I'm Sarah Roberts. We're keeping it simple, Sarah and Sarah today. Um, so I'm, uh, Global CMO at Bolden Networks. We're a, uh, Telco infrastructure business. Um, for a lot of you that may not mean much, um, if you've been on some form of transport today, maybe you've been on the tube, maybe you've been on the New York subway.
[1:53]Um, we're the the people that provide you that connectivity. Um, we do that globally, um, through transport, through venues, through, um, enterprise. Um, and I've got a global marketing team, um, through the US, through the UK, Europe, and Asia. Perfect. And Sarah Sutton. Hi, this is Sarah Sutton. I'm CMO at Send. We're an insurance tech software company. Um, we're based in London. Um, I'm going to give a perspective today of the other end of the scale of of of Sarah, which is I'm in a I'm in a scale-up business. So when I joined, it was start up. Um, very different to the enterprise experiences I've had before. So I, I know what it's like with go to market in a, um, in a larger organization and also what it's like in a smaller organization. So hopefully we can, we can balance that perspective today. Amazing. Um, and normally we wouldn't be addressing people by their surnames or last names, but I think for the purpose of the webinar, um, I I'll probably be calling you Sarah Sutton and Sarah Roberts. Liam hopefully you don't feel left out. It's better than Sarah one and Sarah two, so I'm all right. Yeah. Okay, great. Well, um, I think it'd be great if we could just jump right into the questions. It's really interesting to have all of your perspectives as well. Um, I guess the first question we have is sort of a simple one. Um, how would you define a go-to market strategy? Um, just because I think people might have different definitions of it. Um, I think it'd be really great to kind of iron that out. Um, and Sarah Roberts, why don't we start with you for that? Sure, well and I, I, yes, in theory it's a simple one, but I would argue it's probably maybe one of the most contentious points we may have a discussion about um today. So obviously fundamentally, you know, a go to market is how you introduce a product or a service to the market. Um, and a lot of people that maybe haven't been very close to go to market is what that's what they think it is. Um, for me personally, I'm a huge believer, it's much, much more than that and it all centers around customer. Um, and the reality is, it's about how you can create a seamless and compelling customer journey right from kind of that awareness to purchase and, you know, beyond that. And it's how you create that experience, that customer experience.
[4:16]Um, so it means that they have, you know, fantastic first touch point, you know, post-purchase support right through to, you know, how you then reinforce value proposition and build long-term customer loyalty. So, yeah, for me, go to market is is all about the the customer at the heart of what you're doing. And if you start with that kind of mindset from from the beginning of of whatever you're doing with the go to market strategy, then I think you're, uh, in a in a good place. So that's kind of my take on it. Amazing. Um, and Liam, I see you nodding, do do you sort of agree with what Sarah's saying? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean it's it's also that thing. You can think of it as a bit of a road map as well. Um, where we try to come from is, is when we're looking at this is is making sure that it's encompassing a business strategy of an organization, rather than just marketing strategy. I think it's about integrating all elements of a business, the marketing, the sales, the product, customer success functions, to really get to the objectives set out in an overall business strategy, rather than just a marketing strategy. It's commonly misused term that's become quite narrow in its meaning. Um, and it emphasizes what is a real struggle in a lot of organizations, which is about siloed culture. Um, and that, that can really damage taking, uh, brands, products, businesses to market. We've been um, carrying out some research, both in the UK and the US, uh, which will be published in a, in a, in a report that's, um, with B2B in the coming weeks, but we found that less than 50% of markets in the UK and US actually understood the broader meaning of a go to market strategy. And, in reality, it, it's a really, it's a really fundamental concept in delivering success. And, and it's essential for marketers to understand and implement within their plans and make sure they they don't get stuck in that siloed um, siloed area within their business. I mean that's that's a really interesting stat you mentioned Liam around how many marketers simply don't understand the meaning. And I think just getting that getting on the same page around its definition is I mean it just makes it more important, doesn't it? Um, Sarah Sutton, uh, do you want to kind of finish off and, um, Sure, I don't think just marketers. So I, so I think of anyone who's in that revenue function, so anyone who's contributing to growth, needs to be part of that cross-functional team. And that's the team that looks at anything from product, you know, how do you get your compelling product that hits the right market need, with the right audience, out the door, how do you generate that revenue? So everyone who's involved in that, um, conversation and effort, needs to be part of that go to market. And, I think, I think the view is, go to market, it's, you know, quite narrowly within marketing. I think we can have a discussion about who owns go to market, but I still think it needs to be cross-functional. And that's when you get to the really good stuff. Hm, absolutely. I I 100% agree with all three of you. Um, I guess that leads me to my next question. Um, now that we've kind of established what the definition is, what key components make it effective, um, in today's B2B landscape? And how can it sort of be linked to commercial success? I know that we've kind of teased that out a little bit. Um, but Liam, why don't we start with you for that? Yeah, sure. I mean, uh, coming back to that, those silos, as I mentioned, it's about trying to trying to remove those silos within the organization and get everybody working together. I think um, marketing can play a really pivotal role in bringing those different aspects of the business together. Um, at the end of the day, we're communicated. So that that really helps uh, in being able to do that. Um, and I think when you start to think about what go to market is and you look at it from a commercial aspect, you need to then have this change in the marketing mindset, which is about becoming commercial marketers. Um, it's about a wider understanding of the business, the business objectives, where that company is going and feeding that into everything that you do as a marketer, rather than just sitting and doing campaigns. It's you know, it really isn't about that. Um, and if you can do that from a strategic perspective, then that's going to really help drive through across the business, across teams, the activity you're going. And I think there's kind of six key components in that successful GTM strategy. You got to start off with very structured planning because as I said, we're we're across teams, you need to make sure that everyone's engaged. Sophisticated audience segmentation. We need we need to make sure audiences are looked at in the right way and make sure you're targeting is correct. There needs to be a very strong integrated measurement framework because you're not just talking about marketing um stats. You're talking about stats across the business, whether that's customer success, whether it's products, whether sales. You need to think about how you're going to measure for each part of the business. Alongside that, a balanced channel strategy because again, you're not just talking about marketing channels, you're talking about other channels within the business and other touch points your customers may have once you go to market. And finally, last but not least, sales and marketing alignment. Um, and what can help that is uh, strategic technology, um, integration, bringing that into the mix as well. So combining all of that can be quite a challenge, but if you get that commercial mindset, thinking about the wider picture, thinking about the business objectives and revisiting those continually as you build out your go-to market strategy, you're going to deliver um, a really good strategy and break down those silos. And and our research again coming back to that, just um, only one in seven brands reported sort of high levels of alignment between their sales and marketing functions. And that became worse the the larger the size of company that you were. So, um, yeah, it, I, I my view is that, you know, marketing can be absolutely pivotal in the, in an organization to, uh, to run this and make sure that they're they're this is success. Hm, 100%. Yeah. Um, Sarah Sutton, do do you agree with everything Liam's saying or you sort of on the same page? I do. I I like I like the way you've set that out Liam, that's really clear in terms of those six components. The, the, the key thing for me, I think, as well is that, um, it's this aligned commercial play. So we've talked about that a little bit around removing the silos. Um, I have found that easier in a smaller organization than I did when I worked in an enterprise company. It it just gets harder when there's more teams and they're more disparate and more spread out. Um, but what we've tried to do at Send is we've tried to create this one revenue team mentality. So, we've each got our own function. We've got our own KPIs. We've got the things that are important to the work we're doing, but the goal of what we're doing as a team remains the same, and that is all about pipeline growth and revenue growth. Um, and sales will look at that through their lens. Customer success through theirs and marketing through ours. But it's very much about, um, aligning on that. And I, I don't want to say that lightly, because I totally understand. I mean, your point, one in seven is is a really harsh stat. And, and there's another, there's another webinar right there, Kavita, on the topic of how how we fix that. Um, but I, I totally agree with, with when you get that alignment right at the beginning and all the way through, and, and I think Liam, you hinted at the fact that it's, it's dynamic and it's live and it's something, it's not a one and done, it's something you continue with.
[11:45]Um, you, I I can, I, we see a lot of success where we've, when we've been able to do that.
