The State of B2B Go-to-Market

Outbound is harder than ever

No channel is dead, but many channels certainly feel oversaturated today. Activity numbers are up, but quota attainment rates of reps are down. Buyers are drowning in more emails, calls, and ads than ever before, which is leading more and more to ignore emails, screen their calls, and install ad blockers.

• 500% increase over the last 5 years in the amount of outbound activities required to get an opportunity into the pipeline.
• 32% longer deal cycles.
• 50% of SDR teams missed quota in Q1 2024

On top of that, buyer behavior and expectations have evolved rapidly.

• 82% of buyers said a winning vendors social content had a significant impact on their buying decision.
• The majority of buyers pre-select 2-3 vendors before starting a buying process.
• 88% of buyers said they only buy when they view a salesperson as a “trusted advisor”

At the same time, the expectations around financials growth, and scaling a business have shifted from a growth at all costs mindset to a sustainable, profitable growth mindset. This means companies need to grow in a net positive way, where their unit economics make sense. The days of customer acquisition costs vastly exceeding deal sizes and 40+ month payback periods are behind us.

Some may look at these numbers and think “AI and automation will solve this for us," but in reality, this actually contributes to the very increase in activity that makes it less effective. It’s possible to succeed with pure outbound still, but ultimately B2B is suffering from a tragedy of the commons. Email, calls, and ads are all shared resources. Even if you do them exceptionally well, you’re still competing for attention against all the other sellers and marketers trying to get in front of your market.

You can break out of this cycle by embracing the trust and authenticity that comes from a Go-to-Network approach.

Why embrace Go-to-Network?

Increased Trust

Embracing a GTN strategy allows you to more easily build trust, and then create a transfer of trust between you and your market. Higher trust means better win rates, faster deal cycles, and ultimately better retention rates. In a world where copying product features is easier and faster than ever, your network of trust becomes your competitive advantage and moat.

A better understanding of customers

Go-to-Network puts your buyers and customers at the center of your strategy. Instead of trying to build a predictable system that’s designed for your company, you adapt to the buying habits and preferences of your buyers. Cultivating a network of relationships also means more frequent, higher quality feedback and insights to iterate your product, your process and your approach.

Reduced cost of support and content creation

Your members, customers, fans, and partners, when enabled correctly, will create content, support each other, and act as a network of mini megaphones amplifying everything you do. Customers will help customers by creating content about your product, sharing ways they use your product, and scaling you content and support efforts with you.

More organic word of mouth, cheaper marketing

84% of B2B buyers start a buying process with some form of referral or reference. Instead of trying to brings things to your market alone, you start bringing things to your market with your market.  It enables you to go from a single megaphone (your brand) bringing your messaging to market to a whole team of megaphones carrying the messaging on your behalf.

But ultimately, GTN leads to better and more revenue.

• Buyers are 5X more likely to engage with a salesperson via a warm introduction versus a cold call
• Deals sources from warm intros/referrals close at 50-70% (compared to 10-30% from cold outreach) (source)
• Customers from warm intros or referrals have a 37% higher customer retention rate (source)
• 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision (source)
• Warm intros/referrals are by far the highest converting sales channel at 72.3% (Lead forensics)

Read on to learn more about Go-to-Network and how to start implenting it yourself.

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