B2B Go-to-Market Strategy: 78 Content Ideas to Build Clarity

Create a winning B2B go-to-market strategy with these 10 planning concepts + 78 content ideas that will transform your plan from vague to vivid.

Along with our sister guide on Creating a B2B Customer Journey Map, this one is part of a series created with Richard Brasser, Managing Director of Carlton Richards and former Boston Consulting Group partner.

I’ve included our video discussion so you can get a complete picture of his recommendations which are rooted in years of helping mid-market and large enterprises capture market share. Follow this B2B go-to-market strategy approach and you’ll increase your chances of succeeding in an exceedingly competitive marketplace.

1. Building Your Ideal Client Profile Foundation

The foundation of any strong B2B go-to-market strategy starts with a clear Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and then adds in other concepts to reach your buyers. You’ll also need content for each part of your strategy to add clarity for your team while documenting a roadmap they can follow.

As Brasser, explains, an effective ICP goes far beyond basic company details. “The right approach connects every aspect of the customer journey,” he notes. Your ICP should include three main categories:

One important lesson comes from a company selling enterprise software to the wrong market. A solution designed for organizations with thousands of salespeople needing complex compliance capabilities offered little benefit to small teams with just a few sales staff.

This mismatch between product value and customer need resulted in wasted resources and disappointing results. The enterprise software provided social selling capabilities and compliance features that large organizations valued greatly, but smaller companies had no regulatory requirements that justified the investment.

Watch my full discussion with Richard Brasser on building your ICP for your B2B go-to-market strategy:

2. Focusing on Customer Value

The most important element of your B2B go-to-market strategy is understanding value: how your product helps potential clients financially and operationally. When you know exactly how your solution benefits each stakeholder, you build a stronger foundation for your go-to-market strategy.

Understanding Different Stakeholders

Financial buyers want to know how your solution helps them meet targets. Operational groups want solutions that make their daily work easier. Sales teams have their own goals. When value becomes your focus, all other aspects of your ICP naturally align.

This value-driven approach helps companies move away from generic targeting strategies. Instead of casting wide nets hoping to catch any customer, you can build a specific B2B go-to-market strategy based on how your product solves real problems for specific customer types.

Value engineering involves breaking down exactly how your product delivers financial and operational benefits to each person involved in the buying process. This detailed understanding creates stronger connections between your solutions and customer needs. For enterprise software companies, this might mean showing finance teams the ROI analytics, demonstrating to IT leaders how the solution integrates with existing systems, and showing end users how it saves them time on routine tasks.

3. Aligning Teams Around Customer Success

Many organizations struggle with disconnects between departments. A common problem happens when BDRs over-qualify leads to meet their goals, sales teams make promises to close deals, and customer success teams inherit the resulting problems.

This disconnect creates a frustrating experience for customers who spend time explaining their needs to one person only to start over with someone new. It also leads to unrealistic expectations and eventual disappointment. In the worst cases, customers spend 45 minutes explaining their situation to a BDR, only to be transferred to a salesperson who asks them to start from the beginning.

Creating Cross-Functional Pods

An effective solution involves organizing go-to-market teams in “pods” that include people from lead generation, sales, pre-sales, marketing, customer success, and support. When these cross-functional teams share goals focused on customer success, accountability happens naturally.

Even if you can’t reorganize your entire company, you can create virtual alignment through dotted-line relationships or regular team sharing sessions. The goal is helping team members understand other roles so they see how everyone serves the customer together.

These pods can track mutual success metrics and share responsibility for customer outcomes. When compensation aligns with team success rather than individual metrics, everyone focuses on what matters most: creating happy, profitable customers. The pod structure works particularly well for complex B2B products where the customer journey spans multiple touchpoints from first engagement through implementation and ongoing support.

4. Developing a Product-Specific B2B Go-to-Market Strategy

A common mistake companies make is creating just one ICP for their entire business. Different products need different ICPs, and market segments require a unique B2B go-to-market strategy based on your capabilities, knowledge, and reputation.

Your ideal customer in a middle market may look very different than one in an enterprise market. This segmentation allows for more tailored approaches, recognizing that value propositions may differ across your product line.

Tailoring Your Messaging

When you develop product-specific ICPs, you can create more focused marketing messages. Your content, sales scripts, and customer success processes can all align with the specific needs of each customer type. This personalization makes your communications more relevant and effective.

For example, a financial services product might address efficiency for operations teams but focus on revenue growth for executives. The core product remains the same, but the messaging changes based on who you’re talking to. A comprehensive B2B go-to-market strategy will include messaging guidelines for each stakeholder group, ensuring consistent communication across all channels.

5. Using Data to Validate Your Approach

Data should guide every aspect of your B2B go-to-market strategy. One striking example involves a large tech company that spent $100 million on lead generation activities that produced zero customers. The sales team was generating their own leads, but because the company’s tracking system combined all leads together, no one saw the problem.

This wasn’t because marketing was doing a bad job – they were creating excellent content that built brand awareness. However, the disconnect between marketing activities and actual sales outcomes remained hidden due to poor data tracking.

Tracking the Full Customer Journey

To truly understand your market, track these metrics throughout the entire customer journey:

• Where leads come from
• How quickly prospects respond
• How long sales take to close
• What it costs to make a sale
• How long customers stay
• Total customer spending
• Your profit margins

These data points help identify which clients represent your true ICP. Breaking down data silos between departments provides a more complete picture of your customer journey.

New artificial intelligence technologies like Rev.ai can help identify patterns in buying behavior that might not be obvious from standard demographic data. These tools look at how companies act during the purchasing process, revealing insights beyond basic firmographics. For example, two manufacturing companies might look identical on paper, but one might buy through committees while the other makes decisions quickly through executive authority.

6. Looking Beyond Historical Data

Looking only at past successes can limit your B2B go-to-market strategy’s effectiveness. Companies that only analyze historical data may miss new market opportunities that could drive significant growth.

Finding Untapped Markets

A tax preparation company wanted new revenue but insisted on using the same approaches that had always worked. By looking at new customer segments that consumed information differently and received advice from different professionals, they found untapped markets. These new customers weren’t getting recommendations from accountants but from other types of advisors and peer networks – channels the company had never explored.

Finding these new opportunities requires asking different questions. Instead of only asking “Who has bought from us before?” also ask “Who might benefit from our solution but hasn’t discovered us yet?” Think of it like fishing in new ponds rather than returning to the same spots.

This forward-looking approach can help identify growing segments that might become your best customers in the future. It also helps you stay ahead of market changes rather than constantly reacting to them.

7. Structuring Smart Compensation Systems

People will do what you pay them to do. This simple truth often creates problems in a B2B go-to-market strategy. Compensation models often lag behind other business practices in terms of sophistication.

Avoiding Conflicting Incentives

In one example, a sales engineer received commissions only when their specific product sold. This created conflict when salespeople wanted to include some products for free in a larger package deal, even when the overall arrangement would benefit both customer and company. When constructing a deal involving five or six different products, the sales engineer fought against including their product for free, even though the overall package was best for both customer and company.

Technical experts should remain neutral about which products customers buy, focusing instead on finding the best solution. Consider shared bonus pools tied to customer success metrics rather than just individual performance to build team thinking.

Reviewing compensation structures should be part of any B2B go-to-market strategy update. Ask whether your current models support your customer goals or create internal competition. When teams compete against each other instead of working together, customers notice the disconnect.

8. Testing New Markets Carefully

When expanding your B2B go-to-market strategy to new segments, a test-and-learn approach works better than committing fully without proof.

Starting Small to Learn Fast

A commercial bank whose strategy centered on physical branch locations tested digital engagement in markets where they had no branches. They found a new customer segment – smaller, more nimble businesses looking for $8 million loans instead of $200 million ones. The bank initially justified the digital experiment as research to determine whether to open a physical branch. However, they discovered that digital channels worked effectively for certain customers, allowing them to serve an entirely new segment without the overhead of physical locations.

This careful approach helped them build digital marketing skills while finding a new customer segment without risking their entire business model. The experiment eventually led them to establish a new branch, but with the added benefit of digital capabilities that expanded their reach beyond the physical location.

Small tests can provide valuable insights even when they don’t succeed. A failed market test tells you where not to invest further resources, potentially saving millions in misplaced marketing efforts and product development.

9. Evolving Your GTM Strategy Over Time

Your ICP will change as markets shift and your company grows. Regular customer feedback helps, but you must filter what you hear wisely. Customers often ask for many features that may not align with your core value proposition.

Balancing Customer Requests and Innovation

At the same time, customers sometimes won’t ask for revolutionary products they’ll eventually love. The iPod serves as a classic example – no one specifically requested it, yet it changed how people consume music. Build an innovation culture that gathers insights from across your organization – engineering, sales, marketing, and service teams all see different aspects of customer needs.

Expanding One Step at a Time

When expanding your market, move just “one click” away from your established ICP rather than making big jumps. If 90% of the attributes match your current successful customers, with just small differences in market or application, you’ll likely find success.

For example, if you successfully serve manufacturing companies with 500-1,000 employees, you might test your approach with similarly sized companies in adjacent industries like distribution or logistics before trying completely different sectors. This “one click away” approach reduces risk while still enabling growth.

10. Measuring Impact and Refining Your B2B Go-to-Market Strategy

Creating a solid B2B go-to-market strategy depends on understanding who benefits most from your offering. Focus on delivering clear value to well-defined customer segments, align your entire organization around their success, and use data to improve your approach.

From First Touch to Loyal Customer

Your ICP should guide everything from your first marketing contact to customer renewal. The entire process works as a cycle, with each stage building on the previous one to create lasting customer relationships.

The most valuable metrics track not just acquisition but the full customer lifecycle:

• Cost of acquisition
• Time to first value
• Expansion revenue
• Renewal rates
• Customer lifetime value
• Net promoter scores

These comprehensive metrics help you understand whether you’re attracting the right customers and delivering meaningful value to them over time. For B2B companies with year-over-year growth targets of 50% or more, these metrics become especially important as they indicate both current performance and future potential.

Start Building Your Buyer-Focused Strategy Now

By applying these key elements of a B2B go-to-market strategy, you can avoid wasting resources on poor-fit prospects. Instead, focus your efforts where they’ll create the greatest returns.

• Begin with a small team focused on defining your ICP. Include representatives from sales, marketing, product, and customer success to gain multiple perspectives. Use both quantitative data from your CRM and qualitative insights from customer interviews.

• Start by looking at your current best customers: not just those who spend the most, but those who stay longest, require less support, and refer others to you. What patterns emerge? What industries, sizes, and behaviors do they share? These patterns form the foundation of your ICP.

• Next, test your assumptions with small market experiments before making major investments. Create content and outreach specifically for this audience and measure the response. Refine your approach based on what you learn.

Remember that your ICP is not set in stone. Schedule regular reviews as your company and markets change. What worked last year might need adjustment as new competitors emerge or customer needs shift.

The resulting clarity will improve every aspect of your B2B go-to-market strategy and set you up for sustainable growth. When everyone in your organization understands exactly who you serve and how you help them, your marketing becomes more focused, your sales cycles shorter, and your customer relationships stronger.

Creating Content to Get Clarity Fast

You will increase your chances of succeeding with your B2B go-to-market strategy by creating some of the content ideas that I recommended for each element. This might seem like a daunting task.

That’s where MakeMEDIA can help you fast track written content simply by talking through a guided interview.

Our seamless suite of AI marketing agents will transform your words, insights, and ideas into authentic high quality content in minutes. It even helps you build buyer personas and a detailed content plan.

Try it out free: