Part 4: Post GenAI GTM Challenges Series

Finally - Part 4 is here, and it was worth the wait!

First, apologies for the long delay in this one - we had a series of events that conspired to keep me away from this topic, but we’re back at it. There is a clear silver lining to the delay - we first saw the sharp decline to traditional GTM strategies in Q4 of 24 and now here well into Q2 some new information is surfacing that we’ll be incorporating. There are also many more people writing about this as it’s become clearer that a. it’s not temporary b. it’s worsening and c. the impact is hitting companies of all size shape and industry. Here’s a good example from A16Z’s andrew Chen that I enjoyed. Every marketing channel sucks right now.

Positional awareness

Here’s the schedule for the series and if you are just coming in, welcome, we recommend starting back at part 1 as it’s being laid out linearly.

• Part 1 (Feb 11): Organic Traffic is Falling off a Cliff

• Part 1.5 (March 8): More Data about Plummeting Organic Traffic

• Part 2 (March 11): What to do about it - 9 Strategies for post-GenAI GTM

• Part 3 (March 25): 12 Tactics for Post-GenAI GTM: Strategies 1,2,3

• BONUS: We talked about all of these topics at the RDSW Tweener Workshop and you can read more in the first half of this post.

• Part 4 (May 12): 12 Tactics for Post-GenAI GTM: Strategies 4,5,6 ←YOU ARE HERE***

• Part 5: (coming soon!): 12 Tactics for Post-GenAI GTM: Strategies 7,8,9

• Part 6: (coming soon!): Playbook for The Post-GenAI GTM Challenges

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Nine Strategy Refresher

As a reminder, the Nine Post-GenAI GTM Strategies are:

• Strategy 1: Clicks are dead, Attention is King (+4 tactics)

• Strategy 2: Authenticity and the Walk West/Earfluence 4Ps (+4 tactics)

• Strategy 3: Focus on Quality and Relevance (Time to E-E-A-T!) (+5 tactics)

Tactic sub-total: 13

• Strategy 4: ABM - Account Based Marketing ABM (+4 tactics)

• Strategy 5: GEO is the new SEO (+7 tactics) 😲 WOW!

• Strategy 6: Diversification (+4 tactics)

Tactic sub-total: 15 (28 running total)

Coming in Part 5:

• Strategy 7: Leverage GenAI to beat….GenAI?! (+4 tactics)

• Strategy 8: Company Distributed User Generated Content (+4 tactics)

• Strategy 9: Intent-First Content Mapping (+4 tactics)

Tactic sub-total: 12 (40 tactics overall!)

By the end of this post you’ll have another 15 actionable tactics companies of any size can utilize to reverse the GTM fall most are experiencing.

By the end of the series you’ll have 9 strategies and 40 tactics to help you complete retool your GTM playbook. If you like this content, this is a friendly reminder to:

Let’s jump into it with Strategy 4

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Strategy 4: “Account Based Marketing (ABM)”

Key Theme: With ABM, we are putting down the axe and picking up the cleaver. Another common metaphor - we’re going from the shotgun approach to the rifle. Or we’re going from our flashlight to a laser. You get the gist.

With ABM, what we’re doing is saying, ok marketing where we’re shouting our message (outbound) and sprinkling targeted content breadcrumbs (inbound) aren’t working. Let’s ‘go small’ to go big. How can you leverage ABM? Here’s 4 ABM tactics to get you going:

I’ll note that this strategy is primarily for b2b business models, but where you can connect to a consumer model is in ‘personas’ - take your audience a create 4-6 personas and then go from there.

ABM Tactic 1: Create a “Top 50” (or 100) Target Account List

• Tactic: Gather sales, marketing, and CS to finalize a short list of accounts that match your ideal customer profile (ICP). Within your accounts, build 2-3 target people you want to get a meeting with to pitch your solution.

• Implementation Tip: Use tools that measure website, content and social media (LinkedIn in b2b) engagement and intent data (website visits, relevant content downloads) to within your Top 50-100, create a segment for which account sare already “warm.”

• Outcome: Everyone works off the same strategic list, ensuring no resources are wasted on irrelevant prospects.

• Tools: ABM has become a huge part of enterprise b2b GTM motion, so there are a ton of tools here that are important, expensive and helpful. There are so many tools here that it can be a full-time job to figure this out. In this list are a small subset of tools that have come recommended to me or I’ve used. If you want to go wider, here’s a great list to get you started.

  • CRM: At the heard of this is a CRM/SFA that’s loaded with all of this data. I like to even create a whole ‘system’ around it - for example, everyone in the co should be able to pull up a T100 tracker, dashboard and execs should be able to see when each account was last ‘touched’, some score of how we are getting into them, etc. The top CRM for these strategies used to be Salesforce, but startups have found salesforce has priced themselves out and they have gotten a bit too clever/aggressive with their pricing IMHO. As a result, Hubspot is cleaning up in this segment and there are always some challenges in here. With the challengers they aren’t as integrated to these other tools which is important.

  • Figuring out co’s to target: 6Sense

  • Building out your ABM information: Clay

  • Website intent- Warmly.ai , RB2B

  • Getting to individuals: In today’s GTM world, LinkedIn despite all it’s oddities is one of the best ways to get to your ICP/ABM/Individuals. Becaus LI is a walled garden there are tools that automate things, but use at your own risk, there are stories of people

    • Sales navigator - there’s a whole ‘Super-de-duper LI for sales people’ that everyone uses called LI Sales Navigator - it’s confusing because it’s a whole different system with light/confusing connections to ‘old LI’. The cost her is $100/m or $1k so for many it maybe out of reach, but it’s foundational to ABM, so if you want to do this strategy, you’ll need a CRM and this LI Sales Nav IMHO.

    Important Note - DO NOT use any of the below unless you have LI Sales Navigator.

    • LinkedInHelper - sits ‘on top’ of LinkedIN and automates things

    • PhantomHelper - same as above.

• Example: At Spiffy we targeted fleets - there were 6 subsegments and we knew the top 20 in each of those - TOP120 - we then knew 3 targets at each - 360 people we were targeting. We built this all up using elbow grease and tools like this.

ABM Tactic 2: Develop Multi-Channel “Air Cover”

• Tactic: For each target account, run a coordinated campaign across LinkedIn Ads, email nurtures, direct mail, personal outreach, etc.

• Implementation Tip: LinkedIn’s Ad system enables you to target people by company, title, etc. LI ads are highly effective, especially when married with Tactic 3. What you want to do is serve each target account relevant brand messaging, including references to industry pain points or known challenges.

• GET IN MY FUNNEL!: What you are doing here is making sure your T100 sees your companies name at least 3 times. In today’s world, I think it’s more -somewhere in the 6-10 before you break through the noise. What we’re doing in Tactic 2 is warming them up for an inbound call, email campaign, meet up at a tradeshow, etc. You want to get them into the top of your funnel by making dang sure they know your brand and what you offer at the highest level.

ABM Tactic 3: Orchestrate coordinated content, marketing and sales micro campaigns

• Tactic: Create micro-landing pages or short videos referencing the specific company’s name, logo, and problem. Then coordinate between marketing at sales to have a weekly one-two punchs scheduled. jab-jab PUNCH, jab-jab PUNCH 🥊

• Implementation Tip: Leverage GenAI research- create content that has some general stats / case studies, but lead with something specific to the target account - ‘Here’s out T100 Company X can increase revs 20%’, then GenAI can recommend. Your CRM should track this and when you get a T100 engagement, it should be all hands on deck, founder/CEO should be avail for calls or send emails as they tend to get much higher response rate than execs, then can pull exec in once really warmed up to ‘quarterback the discussion’.

• Outcome: Prospects see that you’ve done your homework and are far more likely to respond.

• Pro Tips: Be consistent, extremely customized, not cheesy, talk about your product feature/outcomes and how it can impact something they care about. Know their business better than they do. Never send GenAI writing only humans - GenAI is for brainstorming/outlines - we are in an era where human authenticity is 10X importnat and going to 1000X!

• Example: Mon/Tues - marketing drops Wed-Fri, sales reps are on phone/email/LI talking about the same topic. jab jab punch!

ABM Tactic 4: Analyze and Iterate Rapidly

• Tactic: Track key ABM metrics—e.g., “account coverage” (how many stakeholders engaged), pipeline velocity, and account win/loss.

• Implementation Tips: Do a monthly ABM “stand-up” to see which accounts are moving forward or stalling. Refine messages, channels, or offers accordingly. I like to have a T100 war room - the walls should have print outs, pictures of people, create a lot of energy around this. As CEO you should lead by showing you are super on top of this initiative.

• Outcome: ABM is iterate, you try and learn, try and learn - it’s like Growth (hacking) - you need tight loops, learnings positive and negative should be shared immediately. Sometimes it helps to frame this as X-week sprints. (1 is too short, 4 is too long, so 2 or 3 - I like to go fast, so choose 2.