Craft Your Winning GTM Strategy: A 7-Step Guide to Thrive in the New Market

The market in 2023 has changed. The run-of-the-mill strategies won’t work with the new-age customers. The change is the market calls for a revamped GTM strategy. 

You might think it’s the same as before but your customers beg to differ. Most companies didn’t realize this and paid their price. Look at these stats:

1. Net new purchases went down by 17%
2. Sales cycles were longer by 25%
3. Average contract value lowered by 20%

We were no exception. After a horrible quarter, endless brainstorming meetings, and a hundred cups of coffee, we realized our mistake.

Being a B2B SaaS agency, we have an open window into the market and its changing trends.

We took this opportunity to research the “do’s” and “don’ts” of the very few top-performing companies. With a new pair of eyes, we created a strategy to thrive in the new market. It worked for us!

Along the way, we realized that the only way to stand strong amidst the market storm is to realign our efforts to what this new market demands. With this blog, we lay down the exact steps that helped us navigate the market. 

Step 1: Check if your ICP definition still holds

Spend a week figuring out if your ICP definition needs to be changed. Instead of taking a plunge at once, start from here:

1. Export the list of companies/segments based on the following:

• High churn rates,
• Strikingly low/high sales close rates
• High-value deliverability in terms of financial ROI.

2. Enrich this list of companies with the minutest data points. Right from their investors to department-wise employee count, include everything you can get your hands on.

Step 2: Use data to tweak your ICP definition

On the right, you have the list of companies. On the left, you have data on each of these companies. All you’ve to do is find trends or patterns that are common among these companies.

Instead of creating a new ICP definition from scratch, just answer these 3 questions and you’ll know where to pivot to:

1. What is common amongst customers who are churning the most?

You might notice that customers belonging to certain market segments are churning faster than others. This is an indication to pivot your ICP to a new market.

       2.  Which types of prospects have the highest and the lowest sales close rates?

While evaluating the list of companies that have high sales rates, you might come across regions that are performing well. So, you’ll know where to spend more time and effort.

        3.  Who are you delivering the most value to?

You might observe that companies with a specific employee size benefit more from your product than others.

This data indicates the attributes of prospects you should prioritize. Through this activity, you carve out a new ICP definition from the existing one.

Step 3: Know your sub-personas

Now that you know your ICP better, create sub-personas to tailor your communication. Take out the big guns and divide your business into different segments depending on:

1. Your product offerings
2. The global locations your business is spread out
3. Different funding stages of companies you cater to

You’ll realize how different the challenges, solutions, behavior, and workflows of a Series B startup are than those of a Series D.

This activity throws light on the different sub-personas you need to tailor your strategies to. Each will view you differently. In turn, you will have to keep these differences in mind to develop GTM strategies that resonate with each sub-persona.

Step 4: Position yourself in the new market

So far, you’ve identified ideal customer profiles and sub-personas for your business. With positioning, you’ll get the right eyes and leads. Good positioning helps you gain a competitive advantage, attract customers, build a strong brand, and achieve sustainable growth.

Here are a few things you need to keep in mind while positioning yourself:

1. Despite the pushbacks you might face, stand your ground.
2. Set short-term metrics. This helps reduce acquisition costs, increase sales close rates, and get more buy-in from other teams and stakeholders. Keep the entire team in the loop about your new ICP. Involve different teams and get their feedback. For instance, ask the sales team to experiment with a new sales script better suited to your new ICP definition.
3. Rapidly iterate on this activity. Instead of treating it like a regular positioning and narrative exercise, view it as an A/B test. Experiment till you’ve reached a narrative that your audience relates most to.
4. Focus on ROI. With employees having to justify their spending, your narrative must double down on the financial gains of your customers. Showcase higher ROI from competitors as well as other initiatives that they could’ve spent on.

Step 5: Change your outbound call flow

Outbound calls are a tough nut to crack. But we’ve mapped out a process that’s led us to a whopping 5-10% call booking rate. We disrupted the so-called good outbound flow which is:

1. List out the companies that fall within the ICP definition
2. Prioritize the list based on firmographic data
3. Find ways to personalize each email for each company. Let’s call these triggers.
4. Follow-up repeatedly.

This flow is time-consuming and ineffective. Try this instead:

1. Find the triggers. For example, you could make a list of companies that solve a similar problem using your competitor’s software. This way, you know that there is a need for software like yours and the prospect has the budget as well.
2. Create a list of companies as your outreach recipients.
3. Prioritize the companies.
4. Follow-up.

This simple change will increase your call booking rates manifold. You’re only reaching out to the people who have a need. Moving triggers to the top is true personalization, unlike the façade of adding a simple name and job title.

Step 6: Double your inbound call rate

Inbound calls can save you from a bad quarter. It’s the quickest way to close deals. But how can you get more queries for your software?

1. Use contextual messaging: Create additional value-driven content to inform the leads about changes in their market trends.
2. Multi-channel marketing: Use different channels to reach out to your prospects. You could create interest through ads on LinkedIn. Capitalize on the lead through outbound channels. Use first-party intent data to know more about the leads.
3. Optimize everything: Make sure your basics are in place but also move beyond the basics.
4. Don’t stop experimenting: You might uncover new opportunities that you hadn’t discovered earlier.
5. Think long-term: Don’t just measure the impact of marketing in terms of SQLs. Instead, measure the engagement of different accounts. Check if the right companies visit your platform and engage with your content.

Step 7: Retain your existing customers

We often forget that customers are distant influencers in more deals than we know about. Let’s look at ways to provide immediate value to your customers. Just ask your customer-facing teams and you’ll get many ideas on how to improve the life of your customers. 

Here are 5 such examples:

1. Create additional guides that increase the ROI of the overall vertical. For instance, this blog is an example of an additional guide that might come in handy to our customers.
2. Offer micro-products/services: Think of such micro-services that your client can benefit from. Maybe a feature update or quick integration with apps they use in their workflow.
3. Go beyond basics: When customers ask for features that are advanced and aren’t a part of their existing package, offer a free trial of the feature for a couple of days.
4. Research and inform: Collect and educate the customers with data on the changing marketing trends.
5. Be transparent: This could be as simple as a feature update or internal training to teams. These micro-changes lead your customers to believe that you’re improving every month.

Navigate change and relaunch your SaaS with Spear Growth

While changes are scary, that’s how good companies are formed. Following these seven steps increased our revenue and we hope it does the same for you. You might be thinking, “It looks simple from afar but each of the steps is multi-layered.” You aren’t wrong,

It takes time and commitment to follow through and enter a new market. You might have other priorities and deadlines beaming over your head. That’s why we’re offering a helping hand. From inbound strategies to tweaking your existing ICP definition, we can help you navigate unchartered territories.

We’re a B2B SaaS agency that has gone through similar problems. But we re-entered the market with a bang! If you liked reading this blog, you’ll love talking to Spear Growth’s founder, Ishaan Shakunt. Book a 30-minute free slot before it’s too late.