Aligning annual planning with GTM motions
How to get all of of your teams rowing in the same direction in 2025.
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In the fast-paced world of tech startups, the ones that win (or frankly, survive) understand that effective annual planning is intrinsically linked to their go-to-market (GTM) strategies. As we approach the planning season, it's crucial to ensure that your marketing activities, sales experiences, and even skillset/hiring decisions ladder up to your overarching GTM motions.
Let's explore how to craft a cohesive plan that aligns with your chosen market approach.
Building your GTM framework in "motions"
Not gonna lie – the first time I heard the term "GTM motions" I thought it was just another new buzzword.
And... it is.
But actually, I think it makes sense to apply a lens of movement to GTM strategy. Hopefully by the end of this article, you'll see what I mean.
A GTM motion is a holistic business strategy that you build to pull buyers out of the market and into your efficient buying journey. It involves all teams and initiatives that influence the customer journey – from initial discovery through to conversion.
Any good marketer will know that the activities you prioritise to build that buyer journey may vary dramatically depending on the profile of your ICP, the key channels to reach them, and how many of them are out there in the market.
A GTM motion brings all the functions together to align sales, marketing, customer success, and even the roadmaps of tech teams, behind a clear path to conversion. So hopefully you can already see that a GTM motion is, by definition, the movement of your ideal buyer through a journey.
Before diving into the planning process, let's talk about what goes into building a GTM framework. This understanding forms the foundation of your annual strategy and requires deep insights into three key areas:
1. Identifying ideal buyers and target markets
Whether you’re starting from scratch or taking a step back to refresh your planning process, the first step in developing a solid GTM strategy is to clearly define your ideal buyers and target markets.
Ask yourself:
Who are your ideal customers?
What industries, sectors, or geographies do they represent?
What specific pain points do they have that your company addresses better than anyone else?
Crucially, consider whether these buyers truly represent an underserved niche in the market. Your GTM strategy will be most effective when you're addressing a genuine gap or unmet need.
Tactical tip: To test the strength of your GTM foundations, deploy a sniff test. Copy the three questions above, pop them into a survey, and send them out to everyone in your company (including senior leadership). True, laser-focused GTM foundations will yield consistency in the feedback you get. If the survey returns random guesses and proverbial shrugs, that means you're operating without strong customer focus, and there's a higher likelihood of disjointedness when it comes to annual planning and getting all teams rowing in the same direction.
2. Quantifying your niche TAM
Once you've identified your ideal buyers, it's time to quantify your opportunity:
How many potential buyers exist within your target markets?
What's the total addressable number of these buyers?
This step is vital for setting realistic growth targets and allocating resources effectively – especially if you are supporting multiple GTM motions within your framework (which we'll get to later). A clear understanding of your TAM helps you gauge the potential return on your GTM investments.
Tactical tip: Use a tool like Lusha or Apollo to get a rough look at real buyers within your TAM. These tools can help you build buyer personas within the search function, filtering down to folks in your target market who'd be most likely to have the actual pain points you solve for.
3. Mapping the ideal buying journey
With your buyers and market size defined, the next crucial step is to map out the ideal buying journey:
What does the perfect path to purchase look like for your ideal customer?
What touch points are involved at each stage?
How do your sales and marketing activities support this journey?
Importantly, assess how your current operations align with this ideal journey. Identify gaps between your current approach and the optimal buying experience. I can almost guarantee there are gaps that can be solved, whether that's introducing better nurturing workflows that swat away objections before they reach your sales team, or finding ways to accelerate your buyer's 'time to value' without a sales person needing to guide them there manually each time.
So what happens if you're planning without a niche?
Let's say, like many startups, your company started out with a great idea for a product, and they went out searching for a target audience after launch. They fell for the "the entire world is my TAM!" bait.
Don't worry; there's a path forward.
This approach usually leads to serving multiple ideal buyers simultaneously, potentially at completely different ends of the spectrum (think SMBs and enterprise multinationals, all at once). The reality is that the buyer's journey could look totally different for those two ends of the spectrum – from different ideal champion buyer personas to the makeup of buying committees, the objections that arise, and even the marketing channels you invest in.
Setting up multiple GTM motions
To handle multiple target segments, you need to:
Identify your ideal buyer(s) within different target market segments
Map out their ideal buying journeys
Weigh up their respective TAMs
For example, if you're working with both SMBs and enterprises at the same time:
Converting enterprise buying committees: You might need to prioritise some marketing activities within your Enterprise GTM motion to close one high ACV deal, representing half your revenue target. What sales and marketing activities do you need to prioritize to get that one incremental deal over the line? Better persona-specific sales collateral? More pitch practice and demo training? More buyer enablement to help your champion buyer get budget approved?
Scaling long tail self-serve conversion: Or maybe you're going down-market, focusing on driving high volumes of low ACV deals through a lower-touch conversion path. What marketing activities do you need to prioritize to close these deals as quickly and efficiently as possible – with little to no sales team resources required? End-to-end tracking to understand where the breakdowns in a scaled buyer journey? A different SEO strategy?
The reality is that you can technically have as many GTM motions as you want. You're just amplifying the amount of work that's required to support multiple business strategies at once – often sacrificing efficiency, speed to PMF, and cross-functional productivity by trying to be everything, everywhere, all at once.
This is the beauty of picking the right niche ICP first... with enough TAM to represent commercial viability, so you can move then on to the next GTM notion with more wind in your sails (read: cash in the bank).
It's not about rejecting everything outside of your niche.
It's about sequencing it later, so you can protect focus now and accelerate your path to PMF.
Crafting your annual plan
With these insights in hand, you're ready to develop an annual plan that supports your GTM motions:
Align marketing activities: Design campaigns and content that speak directly to your ideal buyers' pain points and align with their journey stages.
Optimize sales experiences: Train your sales team to engage effectively with your target market. Develop talking points, quizzes, and enablement resources that support the ideal buying journey.
Strategic hiring: Identify skill gaps in your current team and hire strategically to support your GTM motions. This might include bringing on industry experts, data analysts, or customer success specialists.
Technology stack: Invest in tools and platforms that enable you to track, nurture, and convert leads effectively throughout the buying journey.
Metrics and KPIs: Establish clear metrics that align with your GTM strategy. These might include market penetration rates, conversion rates at key journey stages, or customer lifetime value.
Remember, your annual plan should be a living document. Regularly review and adjust your strategies based on market feedback and performance data.
Good luck this planning season!
By aligning your annual planning with your go-to-market motions, you create a powerful synergy that drives growth and efficiency for your company. This approach ensures that every marketing campaign, sales interaction, and new hire contributes directly to your overarching business strategy.
As you embark on your planning process, keep your ideal buyers, market size, and optimal buying journey at the forefront. With these elements as your north star, you'll craft a plan that not only resonates with your target market but also maximizes your resources and sets the stage for sustainable success.
Remember, the key to effective GTM planning is not just understanding your market, but continually evolving your approach to meet its changing needs.
Here's to a year of strategic alignment and growth!
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