When it comes to growing your B2B SaaS business, there are two main strategies that often come into play: Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and Go-to-Market (GTM). That said, both have a lot to offer and they, at the same time, are as different as night and day. And if you’re like many business leaders, you’re probably wondering: What is the correct strategy for me?
Okay, let’s admit it—which of you wouldn’t agree that no matter whether you’re introducing a new product, targeting a new market or market segment, or simply attempting to gain new customers, your marketing and sales strategy is what will determine the success or failure of your business. ABM is centered around specific high-value accounts, which means very personalized. While getting traffic to your site is a good way of presenting your product, GTM has a wider, universal way of doing it.
But here’s the thing: so, this is not a matter or either or situation where you have to favor one case over the other. It is about knowing what each of the frameworks are capable of and how you may plan on benefiting from it. It might seem that GTM versus ABM is a clear-cut choice between two strategies when, in fact, it is not regardless of whether you are heading a fast-growing SaaS venture or a large organization. That’s why in this article we’ve outlined all the facts, frameworks, and fictional B2B SaaS examples you need to persuade and/or convince you to choose one over other.
No sales pitch, no bias. Just the information you need to choose the best path for your business.
ABM: A Targeted Approach
What is ABM?
Did you know that 97% of marketers gain improved ROI by adding ABM into their marketing strategies?
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is the approach where marketing personalizes the approach towards a particular high-value account with the aim of fulfilling the needs of key decision-makers. ABM is the opposite of spray and pray, it is all about being very engaged and targeted to a few clients.
Key Elements of ABM
- Personalization: ABM campaigns are highly personalized, with content and outreach designed to resonate with key stakeholders at specific accounts.
- Sales-Marketing Alignment: Sales and marketing teams work closely together to create unified messaging and campaigns that drive engagement and conversions.
- High-Value Focus: ABM focuses on accounts that have the most potential for high lifetime value (LTV) or strategic importance to the business.
Fictional Example: “SoftwareHub” and ABM
Supposing there was a SaaS firm known as the SoftwareHub that specialized in enterprise level project management software. SoftwareHub realizes that many of its key accounts are construction contractors, so it creates an ABM approach targeting some of the contractors such as MegaBuild Co. and ConstructPro Ltd. SoftwareHub has a marketing team that develops content that meets the needs of each company to solve with its tool the problem of complex construction projects and time optimization. To make the campaign engaging, the marketing and the sales teams of SoftwareHub have partnered to design personalized ads, white papers and the Webinar content for these companies. Marketing provides prospects and leads to sales teams in specific accounts with detailed information about these accounts the sales teams work with to close deals. In this case, the application of ABM is effective in narrowing down its targeting to reach out key construction firms and sign up massive long-term contracts for SoftwareHub.
| You can also read: Powering Sales: The Impact of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) |
GTM: The Bigger Picture
What is GTM?
According to sources, 85% of executives agree that a successful go-to-market strategy is critical to their organization’s success, with 55% planning to raise their spending in this area over the next 18 months.
GTM or Go-to-Market strategy is a more expansive concept that gathers sales, marketing, product, support teams for unified cooperation concerning product launching or entering a new market. It is a strategy of mapping out a plan to bring into the market products or services and creating the right market at the same time.
Key Elements of GTM
- Cross-Functional Alignment: GTM ensures that all departments work together, not just marketing and sales. Product teams, customer success, and even operations are often involved.
- Customer-Centric Approach: GTM is deeply rooted in understanding your customer segments and addressing their needs through clear messaging and relevant products.
- Adaptability: GTM strategies are flexible, adapting to market feedback, competitor actions, and customer behaviors.
Fictional Example: “CloudTech” and GTM
A second, also hypothetical business which delivers SaaS is called CloudTech and offers cloud storage services. It has decided to go to market with the product that’s intended for SMBs that don’t require services that are provided for enterprises. Thus, CloudTech creates a GTM plan with initial market investigation that defines SMB main characteristics and their needs – cost-efficiency and simplicity. From there they establish communication that is tailored throughout the website, sales pitches, email newsletters among others. The product team makes sure that the service can be easily connected to other platforms that may be used in SMBs while the customer success team is equipped to assist new clients with the easy onboarding process. CloudTech marketing department focuses on the channels that are most effective for SMBs including social media, advertising, and emails. Due to the coordination of all departments of CloudTech, it is able to introduce its new product to the right clients at the right time. The GTM strategy also enables this company to grow in a new market within a short span.
| You can also read: Craft a winning gtm strategy in 6 steps |
ABM vs. GTM: Comparing the Approaches
Now that we have a general understanding of both ABM and GTM, let’s break down the key differences.
| You can also read: ABM vs. GTM: Understanding the Differences and Implications for B2B Sales and Marketing |
Choosing ABM: When Focus is Your Strength
ABM is a great fit when your business model revolves around a select group of high-value clients or accounts. It’s best suited for:
- Enterprise SaaS Companies: If your product is designed for large organizations and your sales cycles are long and complex, ABM allows you to build deep, personalized relationships with potential customers.
- Strategic Client Acquisition: ABM works well when you want to target accounts that align with your long-term growth strategy. By focusing on high-potential clients, you can maximize revenue from each account.
- Niche Markets: If your target market is small or highly specific, ABM allows you to effectively target and engage with the key players in that space.
Fictional Example: “CyberGuard”
A Saas cybersecurity firm in CyberGuard goes for large financial institutions as its software was designed to meet the challenging needs of the financial industry. This is particular so should CyberGuard adopt ABM, which helped them target accounts such as SecureBank and FinanceTech, which may require specific and more rigorous security content. This achieves the desired objective of enabling CyberGuard forge long term business relationships with clients, who have invaluable lifetime values.
Choosing GTM: When Scalability is Key
On the flip side, GTM is ideal for companies looking to scale quickly or launch new products. It’s the right approach when:
- Product Launches: If you’re introducing a new product to the market, GTM ensures all teams are aligned and ready to support the launch.
- Expanding to New Markets: When you want to tap into a new market, whether by geography or customer segment, GTM helps you navigate the complexities of market entry.
- Broad Customer Base: GTM is perfect for companies that serve a wide range of customers and need a comprehensive strategy that scales across multiple segments.
Fictional Example: “HealthSync”
HealthSync, a SaaS for the healthcare management market that is set to be launched, will have a novel solution specific to use by small clinics and independent practitioners. Through GTM strategy, HealthSync gets the right customer avatar, develops the right messaging, and gets their sales, products and customer success teams aligned. That way, HealthSync is able to quickly deploy a new service across thousands of small clinics, guaranteeing its success.
Exploring GTM Frameworks
Go-to-Market (GTM) strategies are holistic frameworks designed to bring a product or service to market. They involve cross-functional alignment and a focus on reaching the right audience at the right time. Here are five core GTM frameworks, each offering unique advantages for your B2B SaaS company.
- The GTM OS
The Go-to-Market Operating System (OS) is a framework with one major purpose: to drive agility and ongoing improvement into your GTM plan. Think of it like the software that runs your entire business: It puts together scattered concepts, including sales, marketing, product, and customer success in a coherent strategy. Fictional Example: InsightFlow is a Saas company that provides original business intelligence for its corporate customers. Organizations use the Go-to-Market OS to optimize the interaction among the company’s departments. In this regard, InsightFlow is positioned to new market trends, and release features more frequently relying on the customers’ feedback. This agility aids them to compete effectively in the ever growing market.
- MOVE: The 4-Question Go-to-Market Framework
The MOVE framework is a simple yet effective GTM strategy. It revolves around four critical questions:
- Market: Who is your target audience?
- Operations: How will you deliver your product efficiently?
- Velocity: How quickly can you enter the market?
- Expandability: How will you scale your operations?
Fictional Example: TaskMaster is a project management SaaS application which targets startups as its intended users. This way TaskMaster identifies its ideal customer profile, which is early-stage tech companies by using MOVE. They then optimise their onboarding process to enable the adoption to be faster (Velocity), and ensure that they have contingencies for product growth as their customers grow (Expandability). The result? TaskMaster enters the market with the capability of charting a strategy for its growth as their client number expands in the market. For small and mid-sized B2B SaaS business, MOVE is a kind of free-form structure that stresses speed and momentum.
- The Scorecards
From the Scorecards it is clear that this concept revolves around measurement. These scorecards enables businesses to monitor their marketing and GTM results by use of Business Important Indicators(BI),specific to their business goals and direction. They entail transparency and allow different companies to base their decisions on facts.
Fictional Example: Information about GTM scorecards is also fascinating: with the help of these indicators, FinSync, the SaaS company providing the supplies necessary for efficient financial planning, determines the effectiveness of its product launch. Some of the popular KPI’s that FinSync can use include the customer acquisition cost (CAC), churn rates, and lead conversion rates which help to quickly identify a loop hole in the strategy that needs to be addressed. The scorecards help the companies to maintain positions on their goals, thus they continue to adjust the particular business model due to timely indicators.
- Matching ROI to Buyer Personas
This framework has been tailored to provide the maximum Return on Investment (ROI) when marketing to different persona. The idea is simple: this means that the more knowledge you gain about your target audience, the accurate your communication and product creation will be.
Fictional Example: DataGuard is a SaaS cybersecurity platform; the vendor defined three primary user categories: IT managers, CTOs, and compliance officers. Consequently, DataGuard is able to increase the engagement rate as well as the conversion rates because it regularly adapts the messaging to the persona. For example, a content on industry regulations is shared with compliance officers while others are exposed to demonstrations of how DataGuard could enhance their daily activities as IT managers. B2B SaaS organizations will find this framework helpful to ensure that marketing and selling strategies are created with your prospects’ need sets in mind, thereby, optimizing the marketing cost.
- Total Relevant Market (TRM)
Total Relevant Market (TRM) is therefore a system that seeks to capture the whole measure of your market. This framework enables B2B SaaS organizations to measure the size of their total addressable market, categorize it and view it through ‘bulk-sell’ lens with the objective of focusing on the most valuable opportunities.
Fictional Example: TRM is used by CRM SaaS for the aviation sector, SalesPilot to segment their markets which includes private aviation firms, airline, and airport logistics firms. It’s nice to see that SalesPilot is building around the idea of the customer value score and targets the highest value segment at first (commercial airlines), thus, this GTM strategy is efficient to maximize the leverage. Being aware of your TRM can assist to implement the vendor decision processes relevant to market entry and valuable resource distribution.
| You can also read: Choosing the Right Sales Channels for Your GTM Strategy |
ABM Frameworks:
Unlike the broad reach of GTM strategies, Account-Based Marketing (ABM) focuses on a highly targeted approach. It’s about narrowing in on high-value accounts and tailoring your marketing and sales efforts to meet their specific needs.
Here’s how an effective ABM framework works:
- Marketing-Sales Alignment
Marketing and sales have been described as being aligned to a great extent in ABM. In particular, coordination between the marketing and sales teams of both teams is required for the smooth transition of the customer from the marketing phase to the sales phase. This entails understanding responsibilities and duties, especially the utilization of resources and people.
Fictional Example: The California-based SaaS firm NetSecure which provides network security solutions constructs an ABM strategy targeting big supermarket chains. They have a functioning marketing team that drives campaigns directly at decision makers within RetailCorp, creating content based on such problems as data leaks. At the same time, the sales team continues the conversation, providing a customized demo in response to what marketing has learned. In this case, the integration of marketing with sales fosters a continuous buying experience, which in turn results in faster deal cycles and greater account value.
- Account Qualification
The next issue is how account selection is done: Account Qualification is the process of adopting the best and right approach of reaching out to some potential buyers depending on the company’s sale objectives and targets.
Fictional Example: For example, TechSync that offers SaaS solutions of cloud storage and access qualifies accounts to know which accounts to target. Number one, they have financial information which evaluates whose account has the budget for enterprise cloud solutions number two, they have account scalability that in evaluating potential for growth on the account and thirdly they have competition analysis that determines who else is out there competing for that account. It makes it easier for TechSync to work only with leads that are likely to be converted and hence do not waste time on opportunities that won’t bring a lot of business.
- Go-to-Market Approach in ABM
After having aligned sales and marketing and having defined the accounts, it is possible to define a Go-to-Market strategy for ABM. The emphasis is made to provide clients with the outstanding and individualized experience in providing the target accounts, as well as to create the seamless hand-off across the funnel stages.
Fictional Example: MarketPro, a SaaS platform offering marketing automation for B2B companies, creates an ABM GTM approach for a handful of high-potential enterprise clients. They build a tailored customer journey, from personalized email campaigns to custom product demos and high-touch sales follow-ups. With this personalized GTM approach, MarketPro increases the likelihood of closing deals with these high-value accounts, ensuring a tailored experience from initial engagement to the final sale.
When ABM and GTM Intersect
Interestingly, ABM and GTM aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, many B2B SaaS companies are finding success by blending both strategies. For example:
- GTM with ABM Components: You might use a GTM strategy to launch a product into a new market but still employ ABM tactics to target high-value accounts within that market.
- ABM Supported by GTM Infrastructure: Conversely, you could use the infrastructure of a GTM strategy to support the execution of ABM, ensuring that marketing, product, and sales teams are aligned.
Fictional Example: “FinTrack”
FinTrack which is a company that deals with selling SaaS software that contains several financial analysis tools is introducing an enterprise product. Although their overall GTM strategy is to popularize the product across various states they hone in on ABM specifically for top-end FinTechs like PrimeBank and WealthTech and provide content that speaks directly to them. This way, FinTrack makes certain that they are bringing in the big picture of growth and at the same time making sure that they are in closer touch with some of the more valuable and potentially more profitable clients.
The Challenges Ahead
Although both ABM and GTM are highly advantageous there are some issues with both of them. For instance:
- ABM Pitfalls: Some of the problems that users of ABM have reported include, The major drawback of ABM is scalability. Due to this, the companies must be certain that the accounts they are ultimately pursuing are valuable accounts. There is also the danger of customer concentration which makes the business too reliant on one or several large-scale accounts, one of which may not purchase as expected.
- GTM Pitfalls: One of the weaknesses that are often associated with GTM strategies is that they can produce over-generalization. If the approach is too general, then you lose sight of potential affiliations with individuals or groups that could possibly provide high value to your firm. On the same note, misunderstanding on which activities are part of a work can cause incoordination and hence delays.
ABM, GTM, or Both?
But in case of a dilemma between ABM and GTM for your B2B SaaS company, there cannot be a definite right or wrong approach. Choosing where to apply ABM as a strategy is effective when it is necessary to foster highly targeted, individualistic connections with selected accounts, although GTM is effective when you plan a mass-market rollout of your product.
The kind of strategy that is effective also depends on your objectives, the number of stages which are involved in the sale process, and the kind of customers that are being targeted in the sale process. You might even discover that some of the business’ requirements would suit both strategies and integrating the two approaches would be the most appropriate solution.
In summary, ABM and GTM are both helpful to the B2B marketer in optimizing his plays in the field. The trick is to know what your business requires and use (or mix) the method that will help you achieve your targets of growth.
