Go-to-Network for Marketers

What is Go-to-Network?

Go-to-Network (GTN) is a strategic approach and model where a business activates their networks including investors, communities, partners, customers, etc., to drive growth.

While traditional Go-to-Market strategies focus on direct channels and a linear funnel, GTN focuses on network creation and pulling the market into your sphere of influence.

The increasing complexity and cost of outbound, paired with the reduced effectiveness of it makes GTN an effective strategy for companies to embrace.

Executing on Go-to-Network requires investing in two halves: network creation, activities that bring buyers into your sphere of influence; and network activation, how you turn those networks into business value.

About this resource

Marketers, did you know you have an untapped source of pipeline in the networks around your business? That's why we created this guide—to help you transform those networks into revenue!

In this guide, you will learn how real marketers are creatively filling their funnels by building relationships with fans, customers, advisors, investors, partners, community members, and employees.

You will be joined by our mascot, Bronto Benny, who is also on a journey to becoming a Go-to-Network marketer as he runs his lemonade business! He will pop in occasionally to ask some helpful questions and guide you as you read through the playbook.

Our hope in creating this resource is that you are able to create warm, sustainable revenue for your organization that compounds through network relationships.

Select a section below to read more. Happy marketing!

1. Why Marketers Need to Add Go-to-Network to Their Strategy

In collaboration with Pete Vomocil and Mark Kilens



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"The cost of renting land from the Facebooks and the Googles of the world is getting more expensive, so blending in an approach where you have familiarity, high conversion rates, and warm introductions certainly helps from an acquisition cost perspective. In a new paradigm where efficiency rules, we need to leverage all the resources that we can."

Josh Norris

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Have you felt it?

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve felt the tectonic shift that has occurred in the B2B industry over the last few years.

Many of us remember the “growth at all costs” mindset where liquidity was plentiful and cheap and waste was high. Now, it has transitioned into a capital-efficient, precision execution, performance-driven machine. For us marketers, this often means you’re expected to drive more revenue with less resources.

Yikes.

Do we answer this shift by simply ramping up our marketing activities? More ads, more campaigns, more case studies, more testimonials, more webinars? If so, we eventually need to ask, does volume bring a solution or is it simply part of the problem?

Our answer to this movement is different. Radically different.

Our answer is rooted in the ability to leverage trust and reputation to achieve results, and, surprise—it’s been right under your nose this entire time!

"The cost of renting land from the Facebooks and the Googles of the world is getting more expensive, so blending in an approach where you have familiarity, high conversion rates, and warm introductions certainly helps from an acquisition cost perspective. In a new paradigm where efficiency rules, we need to leverage all the resources that we can."

Josh Norris

In this guide, we posit that the networks around you are your greatest source of untapped pipeline. Your business is surrounded by them. Networks of advisors, investors, employees, customers, influencers, partners, and so on—networks full of people who have either built relationships with your potential customers or, even better, are themselves your potential customers.

Instead of starting from scratch every time you go to market, consider building upon the trust your networks have already established with your buyers.

The Go-to-Network approach harnesses existing trust and relationship equity, helping you source more leads, drive more pipeline, and create a stronger brand.

Let’s get started.

2. Understanding and Identifying Networks and People

In collaboration with Pete Vomocil and Mark Kilens



One note before we get started:

Implementing a Go-to-Network approach may seem daunting at first. But you can rest assured that a Go-to-Network approach doesn’t require you to overhaul every process you’ve already built.

What it does require, however, is a mindset change. As you engage in your normal Go-to-Market tasks and activities, start to ask yourself how and where you can involve the people in your networks to influence outcomes.

If you are working in a customer marketing capacity, could you ask a strong customer to record a live case study? If you’re working on building pipeline, find out who has networks that are closely associated with your ICP.

Here are the most common networks that surround a business:

Figure out who you’re trying to reach or what you are trying to accomplish, and immediately think about which network around your business can support those efforts. What type of network does the task require? Next, who in that network can support this outcome?

That’s a great question, Bronto Benny!

Here are the most common networks that surround a business:

• Customers
• Partners
• Advisors
• Investors
• Community Members
• Employees

While each of these networks share a common investment in your business’ success, they are all unique in the purpose they serve.

To get started, let’s categorize these networks into three categories:

Networks to attract people

These types of networks are vital for top of funnel marketing activities designed to bring people into your funnel. Partner, advisor, and employee networks are great ones to leverage for this job.

Activity examples:

• Collaborate alongside partners to create content that reaches their audience
• Make space for employees to build personal brands that can expand your reach

Networks to engage people

You’ve attracted people, now you need to keep them engaged! Typical networks you can tap into to keep people engaged include customers, community, newsletter subscribers, and employees.

Activity examples:

• Write a go-to industry newsletter to keep your audience engaged and learning alongside your brand
• Build a community for professionals to connect with others and grow their own personal networks

Networks to close business

Remember your north star is driving revenue! That means after you’ve attracted and engaged people, closing business should be a priority. Typical networks you can tap for this effort include investors, partners, customers, and employees.

Activity examples:

• Connect skeptical buyers with satisfied customers to build trust and assure them of your product
• Ask your strongest customers for a referral to someone they know!

3. Sourcing Leads from Rented and Owned Networks

In collaboration with Joshua Bailey and Christina Le



That’s exactly right, Bronto Benny! Just like we discussed in the previous section, your networks can be used to attract people, engage people, and close business.

Let’s discuss rented networks and owned networks - what they have in common, how they’re different, and ultimately, how they help you drive revenue in a non-transactional, community-led manner!

Rented Networks

Rented Networks are any platform or network of people that the company does not own, but can temporarily use to reach its audience.

Over the years, social media has moved away from being the low-level marketing function we hand off to the most junior employee. Today, it is an integral part of a brand’s marketing motion.

A strategic social media presence impacts buyers throughout the entire marketing funnel, from raising awareness and educating them, to helping close new business. Beehiiv, Plot, and Semrush are great examples of companies that do this well.

Christina Le, Head of Marketing at Plot, breaks down her approach into three key principles:

Social media is not just about getting attention.

1. Lean into the communities around you. Consider the sellers in your own organization. Do any of them have an online presence or following that is relatable to what your brand offers? Use these communities to your advantage to enhance relatability and trust in your brand.
2. As social media marketers, we can often be too preoccupied with brand awareness and attention. Use social media as a tool to create business impact by showing how your product solves real problems. The people who engage on business-impact content are often much warmer leads.
3. Share the story of your brand. Involve your audience in the development of your product. Create emotional connections and build trust through genuine relationships with people. Listen well and build what the community needs. This strengthens engagement and, ultimately, loyalty.

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Here are some best practices and activities you can start doing today to drive warm, sustainable revenue through rented spaces like social media:

Engage quickly and engage often. In sales there’s a phrase called speed-to-lead that describes how quickly a seller responds to a hot lead that either comes inbound or responds to outreach. If you’re a social media marketer, have the same speed-to-lead mindset. The bar is extremely low for how brands engage with their audiences. When a brand engages back with someone in mere seconds, your prospects notice and helps them feel noticed!

Consistency in tone. Consider your brand’s tone across all communication channels. Is it consistent from LinkedIn to how you communicate in sales emails? Does your brand tone resonate with your target audience? If it resonates, it will be more engaging and memorable.

Collaboration between departments. As a social media marketer, you need to be able to collaborate across all departments. Be able to have conversations with individual contributors and executives alike. Whether it’s about brand consistency or collaborating on a particular sales deal, your ability to be a connector will help you reach your north star of driving warm, sustainable revenue.

Casual vs. corporate branding. Consider how your brand communicates with its audience. Using a casual tone as if you’re speaking with a friend can break down barriers and present your brand as a more personable figure. If your audience doesn’t take to the informal tone, Christina suggests leaning all the way into a unique, corporate voice.

What does success look like? For Christina, success is when prospects book demos from a positive interaction and not because of a transactional, impersonal experience.

Final thoughts. To drive warm revenue from rented spaces like social media, you need to be building and maintaining trust with your audience. Find ways to make your brand personable through having fun, engaging quickly, and engaging often.

Owned Networks

Owned Networks, on the other hand, are any space where a brand has control over the platform and the community, like Salesforce’s Trailblazer community, the Atlassian community, and even Commsor’s own community for GTM professionals, The Herd!

Creating owned spaces like online communities are vital to creating warm, sustainable revenue. These spaces are where your brand has the opportunity to build trust and create value for the networks around your business before you ever ask for anything of them.

When done well, your company’s community can serve as a moat around your business. If you build a community that establishes itself as the central spot for knowledge, conversation, and relationships, your business becomes extremely difficult to replicate! You can copy software and ideas, but you can’t copy relationships.

Joshua Bailey, VP of Community at Saleboat, breaks down his approach to creating revenue through community:

Creating a value-driven community. Be the platform that serves as a hub for resources and knowledge that is tailored to your ICP. Provide helpful resources that your ICP can keep coming back to for different jobs they’re already doing. Remember, people buy from those they trust, and learning and education is a vital way to build trust. Your buyers already have plenty of places to talk with their peers. If you build a space that provides value and conversation, you’ll have a winning combination!‍

Building an engaging community. Reciprocity is paramount. Engage with members by offering help, responding to questions, and sharing resources. Let’s be candid: if your main goal is to squeeze revenue from the community, you should avoid building the community in the first place. Your community is a space for learning and relationships! Selling irresponsibly and erratically in a community will destroy the trust you’ve worked so hard to build in a matter of no time.

Keep track of interests, goals, and ideas that people share in common, and then find ways to connect them with others in the community! Identify your superusers and leverage their expertise to create content, start conversations, and keep others engaged. “It’s about engaging in a regular conversation like you would in person, not acting like a template,” Josh remarks.

Driving revenue through the community. Create deeper relationships and build members’ networks by finding ways to collaborate. These relationships often result in people asking how they can help you. As a marketer who is responsible for capturing leads, it may be tempting to ask for a meeting at that moment, but it’s important to think beyond the short-term revenue opportunity. Consider asking the person if they know anyone who is looking for the solution you offer. It strengthens each party’s network, can result in revenue, and preserves your relationship with that community member.

As a marketer, you are responsible for capturing leads. It may feel like you’re not doing your job well when building a community because it doesn’t always return immediate financial value. But remember, if you’re building a sustainable community, you’re building the foundation for future revenue in the years to come. As for the short term, remember that people are curious and they’ll eventually want to see what your company does, perhaps opening an opportunity sooner than you expected.‍

“The cost of renting land from the Facebooks and the Googles of the world is getting more expensive, so blending in an approach where you have familiarity, high conversion rates, and warm introductions certainly helps from an acquisition cost perspective. In a new paradigm where efficiency rules, we need to leverage all the resources that we can.”

Josh Norris

4. Driving Revenue from Partner Networks

In collaboration with Will Taylor


As a Go-to-Network marketer, you are more than just a connector—you are a strategic thinker who can truly understand the partner ecosystem around your business and can uncover where each partner can bring value to your organization (and vice versa).



Not all partners serve the same purpose, however. Just as you tap into different networks for specific goals, you should approach partners in the same way. Some are an awareness play—their association with your brand boosts credibility because they’re already trusted within the industry.

Other partners will help you drive revenue directly, where the combined efforts of both orgs create a "better together" kind of story that ultimately brings more value to the end user.

Finally, there are partners who see your organization as the aspirational brand they want to align with—this is where you can tap into sponsorship dollars.

What sets you as a Go-to-Network marketer apart from the traditional partner marketer is your ability to navigate these nuances and understand how each relationship brings value, and not just to the business but to the customer experience as well.

It’s not just about co-branded campaigns—you are working to build a level of trust that surrounds the customer at every touchpoint.

The scope of a Go-to-Network approach is far more comprehensive than just acquiring new business, but because our north star in this guide is driving sustainable, warm revenue as a marketer, we’ll focus on acquisition through partnerships here, and retaining, expanding, and driving referrals from that new business in a later section.

Here is a simple breakdown of how you should look at partnerships to acquire new, warm revenue as a Go-to-Network marketer:

1. Awareness / Attract

To drive greater exposure of your company and solution inside of an existing ecosystem.

How partners help:

• 2x the reach
• Broader expertise creates more value for customers
• Tap into existing trust, the hardest currency to develop in an ecosystem

Which department(s) are most involved:

• Marketing

Partner types:

• Media partners
• Communities
• Influencers
• Key opinion leaders
• Content-level co-marketing tech partners

Why partners are critical to this phase:

• The awareness stage, also known as the “top of funnel,” casts the widest net.
• Buyers become aware of your brand, product, or service with one goal: to learn about the ecosystem.

The Play:

Run a multi-partner event

Set the stage: Figure out which partner(s) you should include based on the topic, target audience, and the information from your overlaps.

Approach your partners with a specific direction (take the lead but leave room for creativity and suggestions):When: General date and timeline.

• What: Topic – what industry trend will you discuss?
• Who: Who you want to include from their team
• How: Format of the content

Divide and conquer based on strengths

• Outline a task list and delegate based on each of your team’s strengths and your partners’ strengths. This should include things like back-end work and promotion. If you’d like, you can implement a few if X, then Y stipulations. For example, if [partner] drives a certain number of clicks, then they get a lead list.

Run the show

• Show up the day of, ready to make the content valuable and entertaining for anyone in the audience. Further mobilize your team by understanding whose accounts are registered. That means specific folks on the sales team to ensure they are actively networking with those who have engaged with the content.

Repurpose content

• Take all of the content you created and find ways to repurpose it into articles, social posts, video clips, and more to drive value to the ecosystem.

2. Educate / Nurture

To nurture potential customers about the problems the market faces that you can uniquely solve.

How partners help:

• Endorse your offering
• Share their trust and influence with people and teams they already work with
• Pair your partner’s industry knowledge with your “net new” learnings to their audience, blending the value and making use of the existing momentum
• Allow you to surround your customers with trusted nodes of influence

Which department(s) are most involved:

• Marketing

Partner types:

• Influencers and practitioners
• Key opinion leaders
• Strategic technology and service partners
• Content-level co-marketing tech partners

Why partners are critical to this phase:

• The education stage of the buyer’s journey is where they learn about how your solution solves their problems and decide whether or not it will be helpful.

The Play:

Create a co-branded report

Figure out which partner(s) you should include based on the topic, target audience, and the information from your overlaps. Pull collective data and create key benchmarks that point to significant pain points that you and your partner’s joint audience are facing, and how your joint solution can solve them.

Co-create a plan with your partner (take the lead on this project, but leave room for creativity and suggestions):

• When: General date and timeline
• What: What is the value your joint audience will glean from your report?
• Who: What population do you want to survey and why
• How: Format of the report

Divide and conquer based on strengths

• Outline a task list and delegate based on each of your team’s strengths and your partners’ strengths. This should include things like back-end work and promotion.

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Engage

To help buyers become solution-aware and solution-ready, leading to conversion.

How partners help:

• Access to critical intelligence
• Can influence purchase decisions
• Make intros with key decision-makers
• Co-sell together

Which department(s) are most involved:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Customer Success

Partner types:

• Independent software vendor (ISV) integration partners
• MSPs and other service partners
• Consultants & agencies
• Strategic alliance partners

Why partners are critical to this phase:

• In the engage stage of the buyers’ journey, buyers are making major decisions about whether or not to purchase your product or service

The Play:

Customer stories

• Work with your partner to find a joint customer that aligns with the target audience and best tells your better-together story.
• Co-create a list of interview questions for the customer that keeps the conversation focused on the story you want to tell. However, remember to stay open to the things the customer is most excited about; this is how you discover unique use cases in your product.
• You, the partner, and the customer conduct a recorded interview
• Find and clip the best moments in the conversation to use as promotional materials, and to uplift both the partner and customer.
• Write the story. Remember that the goal should be to tell the story that solves a problem for your buyers and customers, not to focus solely on your product.
• Share promotional assets with your partner and the customer. Make it easy for them to share with their network.
• Share the story with your customers who are prospects of your partner, and have your partner do the same with your list of prospects.
• Reuse the story in other content, such as subsequent strategic articles or sales and customer success decks.

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5. Leveraging People in Networks to Create Offers and Content

In collaboration with Pete Vomocil and Mark Kilens



The most effective way to create content today is through the power of the networks around your business.

As a Go-to-Network marketer, you need to break out of your silo past company-first resources. In order to drive warm, sustainable revenue through content, you will need to actively engage with the thought leaders and the experts that surround your business.

Just like every other section in this guide, the red thread woven throughout Go-to-Network marketing is trust. Buyers no longer trust company-first materials and resources because it feels inauthentic and transactional.

Your buyers want to trust the people they’re buying from, and expert-driven content is where it all begins!

Identify and activate your networks. Everything in a Go-to-Network approach starts with your networks. Start by making lists of a few top names from your customers, employees, advisors, and investors (Commsor can help with this!). Consider other networks around your business as well!

Create Expert-Driven Content

Creating content from a Go-to-Network approach is inquisitive in nature. It’s about assuming you don’t know the answer and setting out to find it through the right people. “Write what you want to know, and seek out those who have the expertise to help you learn more,” Chelsea Castle says. If you go to your network (pun intended) for the answers, you’ll ensure that the content you distribute is authoritative and resonates with your intended audience.

Find your experts:

• Start thinking about the types of content each person in these lists can contribute to, and go from there. Build a criteria for how you approach influencers, creators, experts and thought leaders. It can be tempting to look outward for these people, but don’t overlook the people right under your nose!
• “Consider your internal network,” Amber Rhodes says. “It can be tempting to go straight to the people with high follower counts, but in doing so, you may overlook Jim in finance who has just as much to offer as a subject matter expert.”

Chelsea Castle’s 3 C’s for finding the right voices:

• Credibility: They are proven experts in the particular field. Integrity is key as well.
• Character: Does this person align with your brand values? Character values? Do they put out content that presents themselves in a way that you want to be associated with?
• Community: Consider engagement over just follower counts. Who engages with their content? Are they talking to the same people you’re trying to reach?

Yer a Journalist Harry

If you’re a marketer, you’re a journalist!

• Have an understanding of what information you’d like to gather from others. This requires an understanding of where your knowledge gaps are so you can begin to shape the questions you’d like to ask your experts.
• Remember that “good content marketers truly believe there are no stupid questions. Humble yourself and ask someone who knows their stuff,” says Amber Rhodes. She also mentions that asking stupid questions can often be where the most interesting, impactful content comes from.
• Involve multiple voices, distill their perspectives, find overlapping themes and build it into a cohesive narrative that is valuable to your audience.

Distributing and Amplifying Your Content

Creating the content is just the beginning. Once you’ve found the right people, asked the right questions, and distilled the content into a digestible medium, it’s time to distribute and promote the content. Remember, no one is as invested in your content as you are, so it is vital to be respectful of people’s time and effort.

Set expectations early

• Outline what the contributor’s involvement will look like. If it’s an interview, let them know if it will be recorded and share questions ahead of time.
• Ask them what they expect to come from this contribution. If they’re a bigger voice, do they expect compensation?
• Prepare them with ways that they can share the content with their audience as well.

Send personalized gifts

• Show your appreciation! Even if the person asks for no compensation, send them a highly personalized gift (not a $10 Starbucks gift card; think more like personalized dog collars, etc.) as a thank you. It creates a memorable experience that keeps relationships warm as well.

Track and measure

• Finally, keep your eyes on how your network shares and amplifies the content. Watch how audiences engage with the content and step in where possible to add to the conversation. Reply to those who consume your content to help people put a face to your name. You can use this information to adjust your approach in creating content with your network!

6. Using Influencers to Get in Front of the Right Buyers & Accounts

In collaboration with Pete Vomocil and Mark Kilens



What is Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing happens all around us. Whether it’s a celebrity or athlete in a commercial on TV, or a creator on social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok, influencer marketing is a viable way to drive sustainable revenue if done the correct way.

“Influencer marketing is when a brand uses the personal brand of an individual to increase people's trust in their product and in themselves.It is a transfer of trust from the individual creator to the corporate brand. It can take many different forms, from paying for a post to a collaborative video. It can be having an influencer show up to an event and just mingling with people.”
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Josh Norris

Why Include Influencer Marketing in Your Go-to-Network approach?

Just as trust is the red thread of a Go-to-Network approach, so is it in influencer marketing.

Earlier, we mentioned how Go-to-Market has shifted away from the “growth at all costs” mindset toward a capital-efficient, precision execution, and performance-driven approach.

This tightened mindset can create risk-averse leaders who must be cautious in the tools they use, the companies they work with, and the people they associate themselves with. Mistakes here could cost them. As a buyer, influencers take the guesswork out of whether or not to move forward.

As a brand, influencers can offer a shortcut to your revenue goals with the trust they’ve already built with their audience.

When Should I Use Influencer Marketing?

Josh Norris has four criteria for when to use influencer marketing:

The optional details that can help make influencer marketing better: your company has a strong and well-known brand, and your company has a product that people can go try immediately.

The two must-have details: your company has a clear target audience, and when your company has validated product-market fit.

If these elements aren’t in place, influencer marketing can harm the company and the influencer’s reputation. If the wrong people are using the product and it doesn’t help achieve results, the brand suffers and the influencer’s reputation suffers.

How do I choose the right influencers?

Your customer base is the easiest and greatest place to start looking!  Your customers make up one of the most invested networks of people in your business.

They championed your product in the procurement process, they are end users of the product right now, and if they’re a seasoned customer, they are achieving results from your product. Nick Bennett suggests “Carefully selecting influencers whose audience closely matches your ICP and key buyer personas. This will ensure your message reaches the right decision-makers.”

Outside of your customers, look for end users. Remember, trust and reputation are on the line here, so using the product is a must! Follower count doesn’t always mean success either – pay attention to the engagement and quality of the influencer’s content.

How do I find a great subject matter expert?

• Follow creators in your industry
• If you are not already, ask a customer who they follow
• Look for the creators who bring receipts and show the success they’re having by the numbers
• If nothing else, look for an influencer marketing manager

Should I Use Short-Term or Long-Term Influencer Campaigns?

It depends! Consider the outcome or goal you’d like to achieve by implementing influencer marketing. If you have a product-led growth product that is usable by individuals, short-term campaigns like one-time posts can be helpful to drive sign-ups.

However, these sign-ups can have a high turn rate if the influencer never mentions the product again. Conversely, short-term campaigns can mean that you miss out on deep trust that comes from long-term partnerships where a company and influencer hitch their brands together.

Whether you choose a short or long-term campaign, influencer partnerships are a great way to accelerate your presence within your industry ecosystem which will open doors to new networks and opportunities!

How Do I Get Started?

• Define the goal: A KPI or metric you can put on a dashboard that you want to impact.
• Content strategy: Determine what kinds of content you want the content to be: Video? Longer form? Now, what influencers would be a great fit for this? Send them a DM, or even better, ask for an intro if you need to get in front of them. Josh Norris mentions these types of DMs have an extremely high reply rate! Pitch them on the structure and type of content.
• Onboarding and support: Ensure your creators are successful in getting into your product.
• Cadence: Determine the cadence for posting. Josh Norris suggests no more than once per month if it’s promotional but if it’s unrelated to sales, a more frequent cadence is great!
• Payment: Pay monthly: the number of months in the contract plus one (Ex. 7 payments for a 6 month contract: one at the beginning, one every month, and one last payment after all commitments are fulfilled)
• Communication: Communicate well with your creators. Provide them with a content calendar and even invite them to a shared Slack channel where all influencers can sit in a single space.

What Does Success Look Like?

Nick Bennett suggests looking beyond vanity metrics when evaluating influencer marketing. Here are some things to consider when you’re measuring the success of an influencer campaign:

• Engagement quality (depth of conversations, not just likes)
• Audience sentiment shifts
• Impact on pipeline and customer acquisition
• Long-term relationship building (both with the influencer and their audience)

7. Leveraging Customers to Boost Revenue

In collaboration with Pete Vomocil and Mark Kilens
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That’s a great question Bronto Benny! Let’s ask Christian Jakenfelds from Commsor to jump in and explain what he calls the three waves of customer success, and where marketers fit into this equation.

The First Wave:  Maintain revenue by retaining customers

“Back in the early 2000s, Salesforce was growing at an explosive rate. But then they realized they weren't actually growing. They were adding customers each quarter and churning just as many each quarter. If they did that for another six quarters, they were going to start to run out of customers.

Having great sales will not mean much if you can’t keep those customers long term!”

The Second Wave: Grow revenue by expanding customers

“Later, in the 2010s, there was this realization that revenue teams could expand existing customers. If your company added another product or introduced seat-based licensing, you could grow revenue without signing a single new customer. We went from just focusing on annual recurring revenue (ARR), to net recurring revenue (NRR).”

The Third Wave: Expand business through customer referrals

“The third wave, I believe, is the next iteration of customer success. Having worked in both customer success and sales, an issue from the first two waves has emerged, causing a clear divide between the two. On one side, you have sales who are compensated on ARR, and then you have customer success who are compensated on NRR. Yet, no one is looking at existing customers and thinking about generating new business through them!”

This is Where Marketing Comes in

Exactly! Your company has focused on retaining the customers, customer success has then expanded the customers. Now you, the marketer, create the Third Wave by creating new customers from the networks of your existing customers through referrals.

This is your wheelhouse: getting high quality leads with a limited budget. Customer referrals close faster for higher revenue, less negotiation, and everyone stays longer.

First, recognize that to make this a success, collaboration between sales, marketing, and customer success is critical.

As a marketer, you are the one to lead the charge. Why? It all goes back to the core of your role: lead generation and opportunity creation with limited resources. Though all revenue teams are working toward a single goal, collaboration between these groups can prove difficult. Other teams can be protective of their client relationships, so it may be difficult to ask for access to those relationships.

However, not doing so can lead to stagnation and what Christian Jakenfelds calls ”marketing soft work.”

If a marketer gains access to a Customer Success Manager’s book of business and the marketer operates in a way that sours the relationship, that CSM is the one who has to deal with the repercussions. To avoid stepping on toes, in general, marketing has opted to do the soft, safe work like simply grabbing case studies for the website.

On the other hand, asking your most satisfied and influential customers for warm introductions to other prospects (the “hard” work) is infinitely more fruitful.

What Does Success Look Like Here?

Understand who your customers are, where they are in the journey, which ones are willing to say nice things about us, who they know, and then map all of that back to the prospects your sales team are trying to get in front of.

Figure out how to leverage each individual customer to touch each individual prospect. It's hard work because it’s a one-to-one transfer of trust that we’re trying to impart from the customer into the prospect!

• You’re looking for individuals, not accounts. Sure, an account might have a 10/10 Net Promoter Score so they’re getting results they need, but they may not have anyone who would shout about your product from the rooftops. Remember, accounts don’t impart trust, people do!
• You don’t always need to look for senior level individuals. Your buyer is already likely a senior level person, so there’s a high chance they’d rather meet with an end user, not a VP.
• Look for random moments of delight! Keep an eye out for the email snippets and the LinkedIn comment praise. This is why it’s critical to work in tandem with your Customer Success Managers

Connecting Customers with Prospects

Connecting customers with prospects is vital to your organization’s growth.

What we just covered above is a very intentional method that requires handpicking relevant customers and prospects in order to meet. There is a more top-of-funnel approach to get customers from the consideration to decision stage that is just as effective and, as a byproduct, creates community.

Strategic GTM Advisor, Corrina Owens, pioneered this at Gong where she developed an Account-based Marketing (ABM) program that matched skeptical late-stage prospects with experienced customers (former skeptics themselves) to help push stalled deals over the finish line and ultimately build greater trust with buyers.

Traditionally, a vendor's salesperson connects their prospect with a pre-selected customer reference. But “there is a lot of distrust in that,” Corrina says. Vendor involvement can come across as a conflict of interest.

But with this program, “We were completely removed from the process. All we did was send them to the community.”

Here’s how she did it:

• She built a matching program on Matcha.so that connected their customers (the former skeptics) with late-stage prospects in a 1:1 setting.
• The sales team at Gong was completely removed from this process.
• Instead of sellers inviting their prospects to join, Corrina stepped in to invite the buyers to the community (with the blessing of sales, of course).
• She set it up, stepped back, and let the connections happen organically.

What she didn’t do:

• Control who was matched
• Prep customers in advance

The results:

Within the first year, over 600 introductions were made, and 1,500 in total since January 2024. The program has generated over 1,500 buyer-to-customer introductions since its inception!

“The cost of renting land from the Facebooks and the Googles of the world is getting more expensive, so blending in an approach where you have familiarity, high conversion rates, and warm introductions certainly helps from an acquisition cost perspective. In a new paradigm where efficiency rules, we need to leverage all the resources that we can.”
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Josh Norris

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In this guide, we posit that the networks around you are your greatest source of untapped pipeline. Your business is surrounded by them. Networks of advisors, investors, employees, customers, influencers, partners, and so on—networks full of people who have either built relationships with your potential customers or, even better, are themselves your potential customers.

Instead of starting from scratch every time you go to market, consider building upon the trust your networks have already established with your buyers.

The Go-to-Network approach harnesses existing trust and relationship equity, helping you source more leads, drive more pipeline, and create a stronger brand.

8.What should you do now? Practical ways to get started.

You just read all of this, now what?

Influencer marketing happens all around us. Whether it’s a celebrity or athlete in a commercial on TV, or a creator on social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok, influencer marketing is a viable way to drive sustainable revenue if done the correct way.

If you’re a Marketer

• Remember, driving revenue through networks requires a mindset shift. It doesn’t require you to overhaul every single process. Start thinking about ways you can invite other people into the tasks you’re already doing.
• Share this with your manager, see if it inspires any new ideas or tactics. Take just a small portion of your time and start trying out some of the tactics here without sacrificing the activities you’re currently being asked to do.
• Finally, collaborate well and collaborate often with your sales and customer success teams. It will pay off greatly in the long run.

If you’re a Marketer Leader

• The Go-to-Network mindset, is for you too! Similar to the marketers on your team, this approach requires a mindset shift. If you’ve read this guide, chances are you are looking for new ways to drive growth and revenue.
• Now is the time to give your marketing team some elbow room to work with people in the various networks around your business.
• Work with them to change some key performance indicators, change up their dashboards, and most importantly, be their bridge to executives within the business and outside the organization! You can affect great change by simply advocating and opening doors.