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Insights for the modern marketer
Imagine launching a groundbreaking product, only to watch it falter due to poor market reception.
A well-structured Go-To-Market (GTM) team could have prevented that.
That’s essential for ROI. 46.4% of professionals acknowledge that product launches have a notable impact on revenue.
However, only 33.3% have a systematic approach to their GTM process.
This article offers actionable insights to help you build an effective in-house GTM team, ensuring your product not only reaches the market but thrives within it.
Let’s dive in.
P.S: Building a high-performing GTM team requires more than just strategy – it demands execution. If you need expert support in demand generation, inbound strategies, or content marketing, inBeat can help. Our team specializes in data-driven marketing efforts that convert leads into customers. Let’s talk.
A strong GTM team is critical for product success, yet only 33.3% of companies have a structured GTM process.
A GTM strategy aligns product, marketing, and sales efforts to deliver value and drive adoption.
Key GTM roles include GTM Manager, Product Marketing Manager, Product Manager, Sales Enablement Manager, and Customer Success Manager—each with defined responsibilities.
Top 10 in-house tips for building a high-performing GTM team:
Common challenges include budget limitations, siloed teams, and rigid structures—overcome them with shared goals, flexible staffing, and integrated tools.
Real-world examples from Google Cloud, Accenture Song Media, and GoDaddy show how GTM success hinges on alignment, tech integration, and customer focus.
Conclusion: A GTM team must be built with intention and evolve continuously. Clear goals, tight coordination, and data-driven execution are non-negotiable.
A Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy is a plan for launching a product, finding customers, and standing apart from competitors.
Companies with a solid GTM plan are 50% more likely to succeed.
Knowing your audience and offering a clear value makes it easier to attract customers and stay ahead.
A GTM team is a group that helps launch a product and keeps it successful.
As Chris Mills, Vice President of Product Marketing and GTM at Wrike, states:
"Go-to-market teams are responsible for bringing products to market. The team will discuss the best marketing channels, sales strategies, and pricing models to ensure the product’s ongoing success. Generally speaking, within every GTM team, you’ll have several senior positions and a number of teams reporting to them."
But why is having a dedicated GTM team so crucial?
That brings us to the next section:
Forming a dedicated Go-To-Market team can seriously boost your business in a few key ways:
Next we'll dive into the specific roles and responsibilities that make this team effective:
What does an effective GTM team structure look like?
Let's dive into the key components and their functions:
A well-structured GTM team integrates multiple departments to ensure a successful product launch:
Next, let's uncover the roles that make it all work:
Here's an overview:
A Go-to-Market Manager oversees the entire GTM strategy, ensuring alignment across departments for a cohesive product launch.
Responsibilities:
The product marketing manager focuses on positioning and promoting the product to the target audience, bridging the gap between product development and market needs.
Responsibilities:
The product manager is responsible for the product's development lifecycle, ensuring it meets market demands and aligns with business objectives.
Responsibilities:
The sales enablement manager in a GTM team equips the sales team with the necessary tools, resources, and information to effectively sell the product.
Responsibilities:
A GTM customer success manager ensures customers achieve their desired outcomes with the product, fostering satisfaction and loyalty.
Responsibilities:
How do all these roles work together to drive success?
That brings us to the next section:
Let's break down ten in-house tips that will help you build a truly unstoppable GTM team:
A strong go-to-market team needs clear, measurable goals.
As Peter Drucker famously once said:
“You can't manage what you can't measure.”
Decide what success looks like – whether it's more revenue, a lower customer acquisition cost, or better conversion rates.
For example, if you want to shorten the sales cycle by 20%, track how quickly deals close and how many prospects convert.
Each team should have its own targets: marketing can measure website traffic and lead quality, sales can look at win rates and deal sizes, and customer success can keep an eye on churn and upsell revenue.
Insider tip: Don’t just set KPIs—tie them to specific actions. If a metric isn’t driving a change in behavior or strategy, it’s just a vanity number.
Start by identifying the key roles – marketing, sales, product, and customer support – tied to your GTM plan.
Write clear job descriptions that list the tasks, skills, and reporting lines for each role. And make sure their contracts are clear, too.
This way, everyone knows exactly what they need to do, whether it’s finding new leads, closing sales, improving the product, or keeping customers happy.
Insider tip: Host cross-team workshops to find any role overlaps or gaps. Then update job descriptions so every position fits our evolving business goals and promotes smooth teamwork.
Before hiring externally, check if your team can handle it.
Training employees to fill skill gaps keeps them engaged and boosts retention.
It also works – 91% of companies and 81% of employees say upskilling improves productivity.
Plus, it keeps knowledge in-house and builds a culture of growth.
Insider tip: Identify high-potential employees and rotate them through GTM functions to expand their expertise. This hands-on experience builds adaptability and creates a talent pipeline for future leadership roles.
To foster cross-department collaboration, schedule regular inter-team meetings among marketing, sales, and product departments to align messaging and share feedback.
Implement collaborative tools like Slack for real-time communication, Asana for project management, and Google Drive for document sharing.
These practices break down silos, enhance communication, and lead to more innovative solutions.
Insider tip: Encourage team leads to shadow other departments for a deeper understanding of shared objectives and pain points. This first-hand exposure strengthens alignment and streamlines decision-making across GTM functions.
Give your GTM team powerful tech tools to work smarter.
For example, integrated CRM systems can lift sales productivity by 34%, while AI tools can boost efficiency by 30%.
Marketing automation can raise sales productivity by 14.5% and cut marketing costs by 12.2%.
These tools simplify tasks, improve teamwork, and provide solid data so your team can focus on key strategies and drive growth.
Insider tip: Make sure the new tech works with your existing workflows. Test it in small pilots with clear metrics to see if it actually improves data and teamwork before committing.
Craft comprehensive onboarding plans detailing your GTM strategy, customer personas, and role expectations.
An effective onboarding approach can boost new hire retention by 82% and productivity by 70%.
Facilitate continuous learning through workshops and certifications to ensure your team remains adept and engaged.
Structured onboarding not only enhances performance but also fosters long-term commitment.
Insider tip: Get feedback from new hires regularly to improve onboarding. Update training based on real challenges and industry certifications to keep your team sharp.
Use agile methods like Scrum or Kanban to keep refining your go-to-market strategy. And no, these methodologies aren’t just about software development – you can apply the basic principles in your own team.
For example, you can split work in smaller batches and bring teams together for quick testing and adjustments.
McKinsey found that agile companies make decisions and act five to ten times faster.
Let your teams experiment, learn, and improve quickly.
This approach boosts responsiveness, keeps you on a path of continuous improvement, and gives you an edge over the competition.
Insider tip: Build innovation sprints into your workflow so your team can test new ideas without worrying about immediate ROI. Run quick feedback sessions to see what works, then adjust and scale the best ideas.
Make communication predictable. Set up a central source of truth—whether it’s a project management tool, an internal wiki, or a shared dashboard.
Every update, decision, and status report goes there. This removes ambiguity, reduces redundant questions, and keeps your team aligned.
Without it, information silos form, and execution slows. Standardize how and when updates are shared to maintain clarity.
Insider tip: Assign ownership for updates to prevent stale or conflicting information. For example, if you use ClickUp, each team member must update task statuses promptly to ensure everyone relies on the same data.
Also, make sure these statuses closely reflect the stage of work you’re in. Here’s an example we use in our influencer management process:
Identify where in-house expertise drives the most value and where external partners can fill gaps.
Keep core strategy and decision-making internal, but leverage agencies, consultants, or contractors for execution-heavy tasks like paid media or data analysis.
This approach optimizes efficiency without overloading your team.
Set clear ownership boundaries to prevent redundancy and ensure external partners complement—not compete with—your internal efforts.
Insider tip: Treat external partners as an extension of your team by integrating them into key workflows. For example, if you outsource SEO, give your agency direct access to your content calendar so they align with in-house priorities without constant back-and-forth.
Research shows that real-time data can boost sales efficiency by up to 25%. So, keep an eye on key metrics like customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, and sales momentum.
Set clear goals and check your data every week. Use tools like HubSpot or Salesforce to see how well your conversions, deal cycles, and pipeline are doing.
If something's off, tweak your sales pitch, update your ideal customer profile, or shift resources from areas that aren’t working.
Also, automate your reports to catch issues early and hold monthly reviews to try new strategies.
Insider tip: Use win-loss analysis to uncover patterns in deal outcomes – why you win is just as important as why you lose. For example, if closed-lost deals frequently cite “pricing concerns,” test tiered pricing models or value-based messaging to improve conversions.
What obstacles can slow down your GTM team's success?
Let's look at the common challenges and how to overcome them:
When funds are limited, every hire and tool must help drive revenue. Focus on hiring people who can boost income immediately, like those in sales or marketing.
Use automation to cut down on repetitive tasks. Instead of hiring full-time for every need, consider part-time help or consultants for specialized work.
Pick tools that work well with your existing systems to keep costs in check.
Teams working in isolation can hurt efficiency. Set common goals for marketing, sales, and customer support so everyone is on the same page.
Have regular meetings to share updates, review data, and tackle any issues together. Use a single CRM and project management tool to keep everyone informed.
If problems come up, adjust incentives to promote teamwork rather than competition.
A fixed team structure can slow growth. Build a flexible team that can adjust to changes in demand. Hire people who can easily switch roles when needed.
Create clear, simple processes so new members can join quickly. Choose tech tools that can grow with you without needing a complete change.
Regularly review your team structure to ensure it’s ready for expansion.
These examples show different GTM team setups – you can draw a lot of inspiration from them:
In March 2025, Google Cloud restructured its sales strategy and operations to respond more efficiently to market demands.
The reorganization consolidated core Business Services into a single team led by Managing Director Abhi Sharma, aiming to enhance sales productivity.
Additionally, a new central "Deal Management" team was established under COO Francis deSouza.
This strategic shift reflects Google's effort to streamline its GTM approach and compete more effectively in the AI market.
While Google didn’t specifically create a department named “GTM” team, this new structure removed internal silos, sped up decision-making, and aligned sales operations around high-impact deals.
Lesson learned: You can apply the same principles to your own GTM team to create tighter coordination between deal teams and executive leadership. That way, you can respond more aggressively to enterprise needs and shorten the sales cycle in a fast-moving, high-stakes market.
In November 2024, Accenture Song Media's leadership, comprising Melissa Fein, Sam Geer, and Chris Colter, set out to revolutionize the media industry by integrating advanced technology into their GTM strategy.
They aimed to automate 80% of media planning processes, allowing the remaining 20% to focus on innovative strategic planning and execution.
This approach sought to enhance transparency and efficiency, addressing legacy issues in traditional media holding companies.
Lesson learned: Accenture Song Media's example shows how a GTM team can drive transformation by embedding technology at the core of its structure. By automating repetitive workflows, they freed up their GTM team to focus on high-impact strategy—proving that smart tech integration isn’t just operational; it can reshape how teams deliver value and scale execution.
GoDaddy employs a "customer-backed" organizational model, structuring business units around specific customer segments.
Each unit integrates product development, marketing, and sales functions to serve its target audience effectively.
This alignment ensures that all efforts are directly focused on meeting customer needs, enhancing the efficiency of their GTM strategies.
Lesson learned: By embedding product, marketing, and sales into a single unit focused on a specific audience, your GTM execution becomes faster, more relevant, and better aligned with real customer needs.
A strong GTM team isn’t just about hiring the right people. It’s about structuring roles, setting clear KPIs, and aligning marketing, sales, and product efforts. Without this foundation, your product launch risks failure before it even starts.
You’ve seen how defining objectives, mapping roles, and investing in the right tools drive efficiency. You’ve learned that structured onboarding, cross-team collaboration, and agility keep your GTM strategy sharp. And you understand that balancing in-house expertise with external partnerships lets you scale without overloading your team.
Now it’s time to execute. Focus on continuous optimization. Track performance. Fix inefficiencies fast. Your GTM team isn’t a one-time setup – it’s a system that evolves.
P.S: If you want expert support in demand generation, inbound strategies, or content marketing, inBeat can help. Let’s talk.
What is the GTM department?
The GTM department is an internal unit that drives a product to market. It brings together sales teams, marketing teams, and product experts under one market plan. The unit manages a self-service sales model and outbound approach while monitoring customer acquisition cost. It works on refining target customer profiles and optimizing the sales funnel. The department leverages field sales models and tests pricing strategy to convert potential customers.
What is the meaning of GTM?
GTM stands for Go-To-Market. It defines a market strategy that aligns marketing channels with sales efforts. It outlines how to launch a product, achieve product-market fit, and improve demand generation. In other words, it guides how to reach the target audience with a focused approach. That way, you can reduce customer acquisition cost while boosting conversion rate optimization.
What does a GTM head do?
A GTM head directs the team and shapes the overall market plan. They set a field sales model and manage sales efforts with clarity. They refine the Ideal Customer Profile and coordinate with business unit heads. They work on pricing strategy, monitor pipeline conversion rates, and resolve buyer persona challenges. They ensure marketing campaigns sync with the outbound approach.
What is the role of a GTM specialist?
A GTM specialist connects the product to the market by aligning messaging, positioning, and execution across teams. They support marketing efforts by helping shape campaigns that speak to the target audience, often collaborating with content and social teams rather than creating assets themselves. They analyze customer insights, contribute to refining pricing or acquisition models like freemium offerings, and work closely with product and growth teams during testing. They also help review the sales cycle and improve repeatable processes that lead to lower customer acquisition costs and a smoother customer journey.
What are GTM role examples?
GTM roles include a Product Marketing Manager, who refines product-market fit and drives demand generation. A Sales Enablement Manager supports the sales funnel by providing teams with training, content, and tools—helping reinforce, but not set, sales strategy. A Customer Success Manager ensures smooth onboarding, engagement, and retention to drive loyalty. Other roles in GTM teams can include specialists in competitive analysis, outbound marketing, and enterprise deal support, depending on company size and structure.