Almost every product marketer and stakeholder gets jitters in their course of standing out and giving their product a wow launch. But here's the thing: every launch needs a killer script, just like movies, and for your product, that's the Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy.
However, launching a B2B product has always been challenging. In the competitive business arena, stats reveal a harsh reality: 20% of businesses fail in the first two years, 45% by year five, and 65% by year ten (U.S. BLS). But the go-to-market approach has been a game-changer in minimizing these odds.
Interestingly, traditional product development follows a linear route: research, prototype validation, and marketing. Yet, this model can result in late-stage revelations about market demand and consumer interest. And it is one of the reasons why most businesses have to face the odds.
That's where the content-led GTM strategy flips the script. It's a lesser-known, increasingly popular GTM strategy in B2B marketing – to accelerate brand awareness, sales, and growth. This article is a deep dive into the waters of content-led GTM strategy.
But first..
What is a GTM Strategy?
A Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy is your game plan for introducing your product or service to the world. It's a tactic that combines marketing, sales, and distribution to make your product a successful fit. To launch a remarkable product, you must have an actionable, effective go-to-market strategy – concise, focused, and aligned with your target audience.
Here's the follow-up question: Who typically needs a GTM strategy? In the ideal world of B2B, the GTM strategy is suitable for businesses:
- Introducing a new product in a familiar market.
- Unveiling an existing product in a new market.
- Testing the waters for a new product's growth potential.
One standout example of an effective B2B Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy is Salesforce. Salesforce has consistently demonstrated a comprehensive and successful approach to GTM in the B2B space. Their strategy revolves around the cloud-based delivery of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. Their go-to-market strategy extends beyond the product roadmap, aiming to secure a competitive advantage & getting products directly to customer’s hands.
A GTM plan gives you an edge – helping you beat competitors, set up scalable marketing, and use the right tactics. Skip this step, and you risk launching into the unknown without understanding what the market needs.
Welcome to the World of Content-led GTM
Rightly put, Content-led GTM is a humble mix of Marketing and Content.
The foundation of the content-led GTM strategy lies in leveraging high-quality content that acts as the catalyst to drive business expansions. Providing authentic value to customers, rather than constant hand holding, can significantly elevate a marketing strategy's impact, surpassing the influence of a sales-led GTM approach.
Also, trust-building takes time. At times, brand building takes several pieces of top-notch content. But in a nutshell, genuine content and promising offerings draw customers sustainably.
In this approach, it is vital to make information about your products and services easily accessible to prospects and recurring customers so they can pick what they need for their business. Think of it as an apple orchard where your ICPs are happily invested in the harvest. The low-hanging fruit is your content arsenal. Meaning, the content they find intriguing is readily available at their fingertips.
We live in a content-heavy world, and many customers may not fall for the same old gated content gimmick. Content-led GTM strategy lays the content platter on the table, allowing users to serve themselves. Self-serving is a critical feature of modern marketing, sans gating content that only spams ICPs with a series of email sequences. And they might not be up for it!
A quick note about content gating: Ungated content promotes broader sharing and outreach, reaching beyond your target audience. Thought leadership is vital, but hiding valuable assets behind forms hinders growth. To receive a credible product launch, better opt for a sound content strategy with contextual delivery for seamless audience engagement.
Why to Consider Content-Led GTM Strategy?
This transformative approach places compelling narratives and valuable insights at the forefront, becoming the ignition behind your market entry. Content led GTM strategy helps with:
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Early Market Validation: Content-led GTM validates market demand early, ensuring product-market fit.
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Risk Reduction: Minimises late-stage setbacks and failures, optimizing market entry risk.
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Cost-Effective Acquisition: Delivers a cost-effective approach to customer acquisition.
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Deeper Customer Connection: Establishes a profound customer connection from product development, ensuring sustained engagement.
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Significant SEO Impact: Drives advanced SEO, enhancing online visibility and attracting warmer leads.
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Brand Recognition: Improves brand recognition through strategic content that resonates with the target audience.
Power of Content in GTM Approach
The blazing success of 'content is king' holds the fort for many conversations. The power of Content in GTM strategy steers your messaging to captivate, engage, and deeply connect with your coveted audience. Content can leverage your GTM strategy in multiple ways, but to harness the maximum potential, you need to deeply understand the content that is rightly positioned for stages of the GTM strategy.
1. Educational Content:
Engaging content is the core of any marketing effort, precisely in today’s content driven world. Therefore, awing your audience with insightful blog posts and tutorials beyond product features draws them deeper to your business. At this point, invest in educating about your company and empower customers with knowledge that enhances their overall experience.
According to research, consumers are 131% more likely to buy from a brand immediately after they consume early-stage, educational content.
2. Promotional Content:
Highlight the value of your product through compelling product demos and case studies. Let your target audience understand and resonate with your product's concrete benefits and success stories. Here, you can vouch for tangible product benefits and feed their minds with real-world Success Stories.
3. Thought Leadership Content:
White papers, in-depth reports, and expert opinions supplement a brilliant content format to position your brand as an industry expert. You can build a foundation of trust and credibility among your audience by considering narratives an expert could have. Take the help of SMEs & scour through podcasts and interviews to get your facts right.
Integrating Content Marketing into a GTM strategy
In a recent study by Wyzowl, delving into buyer content preferences, the insights unveiled a fascinating landscape:
- 69% of buyers prefer short videos
- 18% of prospects opt for text-based formats
- 4% favor infographics
- 3% choose ebooks or reports
- 3% prefer webinars
- 2% lean towards sales calls or demos
In the present world, video content reigns supreme. It's not just about showcasing products; it's a direct path to guide users seamlessly towards making a purchase, down the funnel. In the world of content-led GTM, it's not just about accessibility; it's about satisfying the consumer's hunger for authenticity.
To integrate content marketing into GTM strategy, follow these steps to imbibe content rightly into your strategic blueprint:
1. Know Your Audience:
Understanding your target audience and creating buyer personas to guide your content efforts is like an imperative gut check. At this stage, focus on retrieving a wealth of information because modern marketing is based on how well you know your audience and ICPs. Given the long B2B sales cycle, drench your feet in doing extra homework, including the challenges and requirements of each role, such as end users, CFOs, and operations leads, in your buyer persona. Most importantly, forge meaningful connections by tailoring content to demographics, pain points, and interests.
2. Stay Ahead with Competitive Insights with a Refined Messaging
Your product and messaging are unique to your organization. Serve authenticity by making your unique messaging streamlined across all channels. To do that, analyze competitors' strategies to identify gaps and opportunities for setting your brand apart. Take this problem for instance,
Buyer Challenge: Affordable running shoes with necessary support are scarce, given the high prices ($100+).
Your Product Solution: All shoes in your product line are priced at $80 or less, ensuring accessibility without compromising quality.
Competitor Solution: Some options are below $80, but sacrifice support and durability, falling short of our comprehensive offering.
In crafting your messaging, always consider: "How would my target buyer perceive or understand this?" It's the key to ensuring your focus remains on addressing their needs.
3. Tailor GTM Content Plan:
Effective deployment is critical for content to excel in its performance. Create a content marketing plan leveraging your GTM strategy, addressing your audience's needs at each stage of the buyer's journey. It lets you expand your palette of content types and bucket them.
For example, SEO content attracts new visitors. Case studies and webinars engage those considering your product. Free trials funnel down & convince potential customers to commit.
4. Align marketing channels to your ideal audience:
Now, you need to meet your prospects. Choosing marketing channels that align with how your target audience consumes content makes sense. For instance, if your ideal customer uses YouTube but not Instagram or Facebook, you should focus on YouTube ads rather than paid social posts.
5. Collaborate Across Teams:
Collaboration across teams is the linchpin of a successful content-led GTM strategy. When sales and customer service teams are in sync, the resonance of your messaging is amplified, creating a profound impact on your overall strategy. Let’s say, sales teams armed with insights from content-led strategies can engage customers more effectively. They can leverage educational content to address customer queries and have a wealth of data to funnel prospects.
6. KPI Tracking & Laser Focused Objectives:
From the get-go, define marketing objectives clearly and track KPIs for a measurable assessment of content effectiveness. If you fall short of expectations, tweak your content-led go-to-market strategy. Regularly revisit the steps (at least quarterly) to ensure your research and persona stay current.
Examples of Successful Content-led GTM Strategy
In the physical world, every process delivers a unique result. The results of Content-led GTM strategies are no different where organisations have harnessed content power to establish remarkable product launch and overall business success.
There are several examples of successful content-led GTM strategies to look at, but one that has outdone every industry & plain astonished is HubSpot.
HubSpot has built its business model around inbound marketing and content creation. HubSpot's content-led GTM strategy involves creating high-quality, educational content that provides value to its audience, such as blog posts, ebooks, webinars, and social media posts. Needless to say, HubSpot’s content triumph lies in its educational depth and variety.
Additionally, the success of Canva's Design School is widely known. This online hub provides users with guided video tutorials, simplifying the journey to mastering graphic design. It lays well-structured courses, allowing users to gain design skills and accomplish their design goals. The genuinely valuable content automatically catalyzes increased sign-ups and heightened revenue.
Final Thoughts
Content-led product development is a thriving success mechanism in modern marketing. It reverse-engineers the traditional GTM strategy and starts with keyword research to assess market interest. It lets you connect with your audience early on to deliver the solutions they want instead of wasting valuable time and resources to convince them later. In your GTM journey, remember: content isn't there as a spectator; it’s your brand's voice, building trust and credibility.
Seeking impactful content that positions your business as an authority? Contact me—a seasoned content marketer who crafts rich, informative pieces to enlighten and engage your prospects.