The Complete Guide to a Successful Go-to-Market Strategy

A Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy is the foundation for predictable commercial growth in B2B companies. This blog explains why many SaaS and tech companies struggle with fragmented commercial activities and how a well-thought-out GTM strategy can solve this. By combining eight essential building blocks—from objectives to tactics—you create a structured approach that connects teams and accelerates results. With the right GTM strategy, you not only achieve better commercial results but also gain more control over your growth strategy.

Table of Contents

• What is a Go-to-Market strategy (and what isn't)?

• What a GTM strategy is not

• Why is a GTM strategy so important?

• Why are growing companies often lacking a GTM plan?

• The 8 building blocks of a strong GTM strategy

• Typical mistakes in SaaS, tech, and IT services

• What are the concrete benefits of a good GTM strategy?

• How do you develop an effective GTM strategy?

• Ready to make GTM your accelerator?

  
  

In many growing B2B companies, commerce is driven by a mix of dedication, experience, and opportunism. Teams work hard, campaigns are rolled out, and sales is constantly thriving. But as the company grows, a nagging feeling arises: we're busy—but not always with the right things. The pipeline is erratic. Collaboration between marketing and sales is strained. New propositions are launched without a clear target audience or message. And who is responsible for the bigger picture? That often remains unclear. In this phase, it often becomes apparent that something fundamental is missing: a clear Go-to-Market strategy—often abbreviated to GTM. Not as a buzzword, but as a guiding framework that guides decisions. It provides direction for campaigns, structure for sales, and ensures that teams work together—rather than in isolation—towards growth. Yet, many companies in SaaS, tech, and IT services don't have this clearly defined. GTM is seen as complex, something for later, or is confused with marketing plans or sales objectives.This leads to fragmentation, delays, and loss of control. In this guide, you'll learn what a Go-to-Market strategy really is – and why it's a crucial building block for scalable growth. We'll show you where things often go wrong, which elements are essential, and how you can re-establish commercial cohesion as an organization – whether you're a founder, CEO, or investor.

What is a Go-to-Market Strategy (and What Isn't)?

A Go-to-Market strategy is the plan your organization uses to bring its offerings to market in a commercially successful and scalable way. It's the connecting link between your product, your target audience, your message, your channels, and your commercial objectives.

A good GTM strategy essentially answers three questions:

• Who are we solving which problem for?

• How do we bring that story to market?

How do we ensure that marketing, sales, and customer success teams work together to achieve this successfully?

The goal isn't just to market your product, but to build a predictable, repeatable commercial machine (also called the Revenue Factory by Winning by Design). This machine works with the right customers, through the right channels, at the right price, with the right message – and where the entire team knows what they're working towards.

What a GTM strategy is not

In practice, a GTM strategy is often confused with:

• A marketing plan. This describes campaigns, channels, and content – ​​often without a clear customer problem, without alignment with sales, and without clear goals.

• A sales plan. Focused on targets, incentives, and sales tactics – but usually without marketing and customer data firmly integrated.

• A positioning or branding document. Important, but primarily focused on image, not on actually guiding leads to customers.

• A component of your business strategy. Your GTM strategy is closely linked to your broader business strategy, but it is not a summary of it. Your business strategy states what you want to achieve. Your GTM strategy shows how you will achieve this commercially.

Why is a GTM strategy so important?

Without a clear GTM strategy, your work becomes fragmented. Marketing and sales operate independently. Propositions aren't communicated consistently. ICPs (Ideal Customer Profiles) are either too vague or too broad. And your pipeline lacks predictability. This not only results in a loss of efficiency, but also trust, direction, and growth opportunities.

A good GTM strategy is precisely what ensures:

• Sharp choices (target groups, channels, propositions)

• Better collaboration between teams

• Greater control over funnel, conversion, and revenue

• And a shared narrative for the market

Why is a GTM plan often missing in growing companies?

Most SaaS and IT companies start with a focus: one customer type, one solution, one or two people handling sales. In the early stages, that works. You sell based on relationships, enthusiasm, and direct contact with the market. But as the team grows—and marketing, sales, and customer teams each take on their own roles—things start to chafe.

That's when a sharp Go-to-Market strategy becomes crucial. But it rarely happens in time. Why?

1. GTM feels like something for later

Many founders and commercial teams see GTM as something for when "we really start scaling" or "when things get more complex." But as soon as you have more than one salesperson, run campaigns, or add a marketing team, you need GTM. Especially if you serve multiple propositions, markets, or ICPs (Ideal Customer Profiles). If you wait until you absolutely can't do without it, you're already behind the curve.

2. Everyone's working – but no one has a complete overview

Marketing generates leads. Sales follows up. Customer Success ensures onboarding. Everyone's rowing – but not necessarily in the same direction. You see this reflected in poor conversion rates, vague messaging, and misunderstandings about the target audience. Or worse: leads that go nowhere, customers that drop off, and teams that unintentionally get in each other's way. Without central control over GTM, initiatives don't reinforce each other – and your growth will slowly but surely stagnate.

3. GTM sounds like "strategy"—and therefore abstract or complex.

Go-to-market strategy is often seen as something that takes months, costs a lot, and ends up in a long presentation. That's off-putting—and so people postpone it. But a good GTM strategy is concrete, action-oriented, and immediately applicable. Moreover, it should be translated into clear tactics, tasks, and a team rhythm. Not a separate document, but a foundation for your commercial operation.

4. There's no clear owner

Marketing focuses on brand and leads. Sales on revenue. Customer Success on retention. But who is responsible for the entire customer journey? For the coherence between channels, messaging, conversion, and retention? If that's unclear, GTM becomes an afterthought. No plan, but a collection of individual efforts. And that's reflected in the results. A clear GTM strategy provides direction, ownership, and coherence. In the next section, you'll learn how to build such a strategy – step by step and without lengthy consultancy processes.

The 8 Building Blocks of a Strong GTM Strategy

An effective Go-to-Market strategy is a cohesive plan that defines your commercial direction: who you serve, what problem you solve, how you enter the market, and how you translate that into growth. It's not about completing individual components, but about creating an integrated, action-oriented model that provides direction and rhythm to your commercial organization.

The key building blocks of a mature GTM approach are outlined below:

1. Objectives: What do you want to achieve?

A good GTM plan starts with your commercial ambitions. What is your sales target – not just for the coming year, but also for the next 2 to 3 years? How much revenue do you want to achieve? What does this mean for the growth you need to accelerate? This determines the scale of your approach. A company that wants to grow by 20% will make different choices than an organization that wants to triple its size in three years. Your GTM must therefore align with your envisioned growth curve – in timing, resources, and market approach.

2. The problem: What problem are we really solving?

Customers rarely buy a product—they buy a solution to a problem they recognize and want to solve. Behind every purchase is an underlying problem, which leads to a specific need. Therefore, an effective GTM strategy starts with the most painful, urgent problem you solve—not with your solution.

💡 Example: You're building a SaaS solution for expense processing. You're not selling "smart OCR" or "automation," but rather solving the problem of employees losing their receipts, financial administrators losing days on audits, and managers having delayed insight into expenses. The value lies in solving that problem—not in the technology behind it.

3. The market: where is this problem most acutely felt?

Not every target group experiences your problem equally strongly. Your GTM strategy therefore makes clear choices: in which market segments, industries, or growth phases is the urgency greatest? This is where you develop your ICPs: what are the characteristics of organizations that recognize the problem, are willing to address it, and for which your solution fits in terms of scale, needs, and budget? The sharper your segmentation, the more targeted your messaging, and the more effective your sales.

4. The solution: what do you offer that truly helps?

Only when the problem and the market are clear should you define your solution. Not as a feature list, but as a concrete answer to the pain your customer is experiencing. What makes your approach or offering relevant and credible for this target group? Which elements of your proposition are essential to truly solving this problem? Your customer doesn't need to understand everything—just why you solve this better, faster, or more efficiently than others.

5. Distribution (channel): What's the smartest way to reach these customers?

Who is best positioned to reach these future customers? Which routes will quickly bring you to your ideal customer—with the least resistance? Will you sell directly with your own team? Will you work through implementation partners, integrations, marketplaces, or co-selling with a major tech player? Or will you choose a combination of channels, depending on your segment and buyer? A good GTM strategy makes conscious choices in this regard—based on return on investment, feasibility, and speed.

6. Competition: Who else is solving this problem?

Every market has alternatives. Sometimes they're direct competitors, but more often they're different solutions—such as in-house work, spreadsheets, or maintaining the status quo.

A good GTM therefore includes a clear competitive strategy:

• How do you position yourself compared to alternatives?

• Which customer doubts do you need to address?

• What are you demonstrably better at?

Your proposition will only gain strength if you know what you are contrasting and where you are making a distinction.

7. Velocity: How fast and scalable is your growth plan?

Ambition is great, but feasibility is truly important. That's why you calculate how many leads, opportunities, and deals you need to achieve your goals—and whether your organization is equipped to handle them.

• What is your target sales productivity (number of deals per rep)?

• Is your market large enough for the volume you need?

• Do you have sufficient capacity (in sales and marketing) to support this plan?

Velocity forces you to test your GTM plan for realism and scalability.

8. Tactics: How do you bring the plan to life?

This is where many companies fail: translating strategy into action. An effective GTM strategy determines which tactics you use to guide your buyers through their journey efficiently and with sufficient volume. Think of outbound activities (phone and email), event sponsorship, Account Based Marketing (ABM), partner activation, or co-selling – depending on your market and maturity.

These choices should logically follow from all the previous building blocks:

• Is it a good fit for your target audience?

• Is it a good fit for your market complexity?

• Is it a good fit for your team capacity?

Without actionable tactics, your GTM remains a theory – with little impact in practice.

Did you know that coherence makes the biggest difference?

You can have every component perfectly developed. But without coherence, your strategy remains a collection of ideas.

🔍 Did you know that organizations with good sales-marketing alignment…

• achieve 32% higher revenue

• retain 36% more customers

• achieve 38% higher win rates

(source: Aberdeen Group)

In short: it is not only what you choose in your GTM plan that determines your success, but especially how well it is aligned.

Typical mistakes in SaaS, tech, and IT services

Many organizations claim to have a go-to-market strategy. But upon closer inspection, it often turns out to be a collection of disparate documents, sales plans, or positioning slides. Well-intentioned, but insufficiently coherent or applicable. Below, you'll find the most common mistakes we encounter with our clients. Often recognizable—sometimes painful.

1. GTM is confused with branding or marketing

"Our GTM? Yes, we just launched our new corporate identity and website." When GTM is confused with branding, positioning, or marketing campaigns, the foundation is often shaky.

Branding is how you look. Marketing is how you attract attention. GTM is how you sell consistently and repeatedly to the right customers, with the right message and via the right channel.

A GTM strategy is about structure, choices, and alignment. Not just about visibility.

2. ICPs are too vague – or not shared across teams

Almost every company claims to have a “focus.” But often, ICPs are broadly defined and internally interpreted differently. For example, marketing focuses on large financial services firms with an international presence, while sales focuses on SMEs in the financial sector – or even on a completely different industry. The result? Confusion, conflicting campaigns, vague messaging, and poor conversion.

Without a shared, clearly defined ICP – including pain points, context, and buying behavior – everyone is talking to a different target audience.

Moreover, if sales and marketing aren't focusing on customers who are most at risk, it's not just bad for conversions – it's risky for your entire business model.

You see it reflected in key metrics:

• Higher Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC), because sales has to put in too much effort to convince "decided" customers.

• Lower customer retention, because the customer wasn't actually a good fit.

• A negative impact on Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)..

3. Tactics are inconsistent

There's a webinar. And a whitepaper. And an outbound campaign. And someone is doing 'something' with LinkedIn. But who's coordinating these actions? No one. As we mentioned earlier: everyone is working hard—but not necessarily in the same direction. Without clear GTM coordination, it feels like "we're doing everything," but the results are lacking. Initiatives don't reinforce each other, there's no rhythm or coherence, and learnings from the market are left unseen.

4. Sales and marketing work in isolation

• Without a clear GTM strategy, familiar situations arise:

• Marketing forwards leads, but sales doesn't trust them

• Sales wants a different target group than marketing's

• There's no shared pipeline definition, so there's no data-driven optimization

• Customer Success doesn't know what was promised in the pre-sales phase

Everyone's on their own little island. And if targets aren't met? Then everyone looks to each other. And that's a shame. Because, as we've shown before:

Companies with strong sales-marketing alignment achieve 32% more revenue, 38% higher win rates and 36% higher customer retention

5. Focus on the solution, not the problem

Many GTM approaches are product- or solution-driven. "Our AI tool helps you automatically report." But if you focus solely on your solution, you'll only reach the 3% of your market who are already actively looking for a solution and have largely completed their buyer's journey. The rest—the 97%—only recognize symptoms, frustrations, or inefficiencies. You connect with them by starting from the problem you're helping to solve. If you want your GTM to resonate with your market, you need to get buyers thinking—not promote your product.

6. GTM isn't buyer-centric enough

Selling is no longer just a matter of "having your pitch ready."

Selling is helping to buy.

And that means: you have to connect with your buyer's journey. What triggers their orientation? Where do they drop off? How do they make internal decisions? If your GTM only looks at your internal pipeline (MQL → SQL → deal) and doesn't sufficiently consider how the customer actually buys, you'll miss the connection—and thus the momentum.

7. No one is responsible for GTM as a whole

GTM isn't something that just happens automatically. It needs an owner. Without one, it remains fragmented.

• Marketing focuses on reach, leads, or MQLs

• Sales on revenue

• Customer success on retention or NRR

Everyone has their own metric – but no one feels accountable for the whole.

And so, silos arise. GTM is precisely intended to break down these silos. To ensure that marketing, sales, and customer teams are working towards the same goal – with shared goals, a single language, and a consistent strategy.

What are the concrete benefits of a good GTM strategy?

We've discussed why a GTM strategy is often lacking, what its building blocks are, and where things go wrong. Perhaps you've already done the math in your head, or seen the mistakes reflected in your own organization. But what does it actually bring you – in practice?

Here again, concisely and concretely: this is why it pays to have your GTM in order.

Better data & progress management

GTM forces you to clearly define goals, ICPs, pipeline, and tactics. This not only makes it easier to adjust, but also helps you understand why something works (or doesn't). No more guesswork, but:

• Clear pipeline performance

• Insight into velocity metrics

• Reliable forecasting accuracy

• ROI per channel or segment

More peace and clarity – also for you as a founder

Perhaps the biggest benefit: control. You know where you stand, what the next step is, and how to achieve it. Your teams work with the same compass. No more noise – just rhythm. And you? You no longer have to be in the middle of everything.

And what else?

Without repeating everything (because we already did), GTM also ensures:

• Higher conversion

• Less ambiguity between teams

• Better retention and LTV

• Faster growth, less waste

• Greater alignment = better results

GTM isn't a nice-to-have. It's your growth accelerator.

How do you develop an effective GTM strategy?

(And how do we do that at LeapLogic?)

A good Go-to-Market strategy isn't a theoretical report. It's a plan that lives, provides direction, and is actually executed. But how do you ensure you quickly get to the heart of the matter—without getting bogged down in post-its, opinions, or complexity? At LeapLogic, we do that with a single, consistent starting point: FunnelCamp™.

FunnelCamp™: A concrete GTM plan in no time

FunnelCamp™ is an intensive, goal-oriented workshop series. Over the course of 1 to 3 days, we'll work with you and your (senior) stakeholders to develop a fully developed Go-to-Market strategy.

We don't just map out where you are—we ensure that you and your entire team know where you're going, how to get there, and what it specifically requires.

You will receive:

• Insight into commercial objectives and growth direction

• Clear choices regarding market, ICP, proposition, competition, and approach

• A concrete GTM strategy with tactics, channels, and role allocation

• A 100-day sprint as a jump-start for execution

• Comprehensive tactical briefings, ready for implementation by your team, LeapLogic, or other partners

• And all of this is visual, tangible and supported by your team.

And then? No plan without action.

A GTM strategy only works when it comes to life within your organization. That's why LeapLogic also offers support during the implementation phase. This can be done in several ways:

• Through a fractional GTM expert who helps you manage the execution.

• Through coaching and support from our GTM consultancy team.

• Or by engaging our team of specialists for topics such as positioning, content, tools, campaigns, or sales enablement.

Together we determine what is needed to not only put your strategy on paper – but to make it work in practice.

Why this works

Our approach isn't a made-up model or an AI-designed approach. We use a proven method developed by Align.me, based on the results of over 4,000 GTM plans worldwide. By using FunnelPlan™ software, we also work quickly and systematically towards a strategy that works – and is easily translated into concrete actions, dashboards, and recognizable for your team.

No wasted time. No conflicting opinions. Just a GTM that works.

Whether you're working on your next growth phase, funding round, or a later exit – GTM is at the heart of what makes you scalable.

At LeapLogic, we help you achieve this—with a practical approach, not elaborate plans. Schedule a free consultation and discover what GTM can deliver when it's truly done right.