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16 May

ZoomInfo Just Changed Its Ticker to $GTM – Here’s Why That Matters

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Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.

ZoomInfo just made a bold move: they changed their Nasdaq ticker from $ZI to $GTM.

From our lens, this is a brilliant move and signals something far bigger than a rebrand.

The market also took notice. ZoomInfo shares jumped 7.4% to $10.04 on the day of the announcement!

It’s a bet and a signal that go-to-market isn’t just a function, it’s the system every company needs to win.

GTM is having its moment (and it’s just getting started)

To really understand what’s happening, let’s zoom out.

Shipping product is easier than ever. AI has eaten chunks of the stack. Cursor, Poolside, Create, GitHub Copilot – tools like these are turning weeks of engineering work into prompts.

Even Sam Altman said Cursor might be the most exciting app-layer product he’s seen because it can basically write code for you.

What that means for founders is simple: the technical moat is shrinking.

So if the playing field is leveling on the build side, what’s left? Distribution.

Go-to-market becomes your edge.

This is the wave ZoomInfo is riding. And it’s the same one we’ve been building around at GTMfund for years.

What ZoomInfo is really saying with $GTM

For years, ZoomInfo was known as the best B2B data company in the world. “Data” was their identity. But they’ve transformed from just B2B data to a broader scope, a full platform for go-to-market operators. CEO Henry Shuck shares a quick video on this here.

ZoomInfo is betting its public identity on a new idea: that companies no longer win just by having the best product – they win by going to market better and faster than anyone else. The team proudly shared thoughts on this moment, like the COO here.

Their updated platform reflects that:

  • GTM Studio: Design, enrich, and launch GTM plays without needing help from BI.
  • ZoomInfo Copilot: An AI assistant that guides reps with next-best actions and real-time intel.
  • ZoomInfo Marketing: Orchestrate and measure full-funnel campaigns tied directly to buyer intent.

Their thesis: Sales, marketing, and RevOps shouldn’t run in silos. They should operate as one integrated revenue engine – aligned by shared data and driven by the same signals.

This shift mirrors what we see every day with early-stage teams. You’re not struggling because your product isn’t good – you’re struggling because your GTM systems are duct-taped together. Misaligned messaging, broken handoffs, CRM chaos, a lack of clarity on what’s working.

ZoomInfo is saying: what if all of that was one system?

Why it matters for founders and GTM operators

Here’s what this all boils down to:

You don’t need another dashboard. You need clarity.
You don’t need more tools. You need GTM alignment.
You don’t need fluff. You need results.

And you need it early. Because the winners in SaaS today don’t just ship, they execute.

We have been hearing this in GTMfund founder meetings for years. When we ask what their biggest priorities are when building the cap table, we almost always hear “funds that support distribution” as number 1.

Even the data shows that go-to-market execution is what keeps founders up at night.

GTM is the differentiator

Changing a Nasdaq symbol isn’t a light lift. It takes months of planning, legal, investor comms, and a hard internal reset. You don’t do it unless you’re fully committing to a new identity.

ZoomInfo just did that. And in doing so, they validated something early-stage founders already know deep down:

Product is becoming table stakes. GTM is the differentiator.

ZoomInfo isn’t just making a branding move. They’re putting their flag in the ground.

GTM is the differentiator.

We’ve been saying it for years. ZoomInfo just made it official.

GTM 2025 roadshow

If you want a front-row seat to what the future of GTM looks like, ZoomInfo is hitting the road. The GTM 2025 Roadshow is taking place right now, you can sign up here:

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✅ Recommendations

Watch the AI SDR Summit (it’s on-demand and free!)

Stream Qualified’s first annual AI SDR Summit on-demand and hear how leaders from companies like G2, 6sense, Salesforce, and so many more are leveraging the power of AI SDR agents to scale their inbound and outbound pipe gen motions.

Check out candid conversations about the state of the AI SDR agent landscape, inbound and outbound playbooks, and real results from marketers at the forefront of the agentic marketing era.

👂 More for your eardrums

GTM 146: The Future of Search, AI, and Digital Presence with Mike Walrath, CEO of Yext

Mike Walrath is the CEO of Yext and a longtime builder in the digital media and advertising space. From founding Right Media (acquired by Yahoo!) to co-founding Moat (acquired by Oracle), Mike’s spent the last two decades shaping how the internet works behind the scenes.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts by searching “The GTM Podcast.”

🚀 Startup to watch

Owner – closed a $120M Series C and now sits at a $1B valuation. An inside look to their latest funding co-led by Alex Kurland of Meritech and Shalini Rao of Headline.

Stotles – launched a major revamp of their platform to help grow public sector business. It has one tool where teams can create strategy, build pipeline, track tenders and win bids.

👀 More for your eyeballs

Alexa Grabell went from hacking together sales tools to building Pocus—a platform trusted by Asana and Canva. Her secret is 350+ customer interviews, a community-first mindset, and the kind of grit every GTM leader needs.

🔥 Hottest GTM jobs of the week

  1. Account Executive at Noibu (Hybrid – Ottawa, ON)
  2. Manager, Business Development Representative at Owner (Toronto, ON)
  3. Sales Development Representative at TrustLayer (Remote – US)
  4. Account Manager, Startups – APAC at Vanta (Hybrid – Sydney, Australia)
  5. Head of Partner Programs & Strategy at Writer (Hybrid)
    1. New York City
    2. San Franciso
    3. Chicago
    4. Austin

See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.

If you’re looking to scale your sales and marketing teams with top talent, we couldn’t recommend our partner Pursuit more. We work closely together to be able to provide the top go-to-market talent for companies on a non-retainer basis.

🗓 GTM industry events

Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:

Subscribe now

This newsletter was written and edited by Sophie Buonassisi, Max Altschuler, Paul Irving and the GTMnow team (not AI!).

The post ZoomInfo Just Changed Its Ticker to $GTM – Here’s Why That Matters appeared first on GTMnow.

9 May

The AI messaging pivot happening across SaaS

By . Blog No Comments

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.

In 2023, we saw a surge of SaaS brands adding anything “AI-powered” or “AI-driven” into their website headlines. A quick use of Wayback Machine for the top 100 SaaS brands will show you just how pervasive it was.

The optics were that if AI wasn’t integral to your roadmap and marketing, you were losing relevance.

Many venture capital firms shifted their investments almost entirely into AI startups.

As this flood of AI messaging hit, a lot of people quickly became numb to it.

Now in 2025, AI promises have simply become baseline expectations. Describing your product as “AI-powered” is like saying it’s internet-connected in 2005. It’s expected, not a value add.

With this expectation, we’re now seeing companies ditching AI messaging in their website headers.

Companies are testing, and the results are showing. We see brands, such as Notion, testing the impact of:

  1. AI in the hero headline
  2. AI in the hero headline and hero sub-header
  3. AI just in the hero sub-header

In the test example below, AI messaging in the sub-header won out over having it in the header.

They kept the focus on the core value proposition of helping teams write, plan and collaborate to create better workspaces, while still having the AI inclusion.

This trend of AI reinforcing and amplifying the core UVP (unique value proposition) is gaining momentum.

We see this shift towards having no AI in the hero header (but including it in the sub-header) across dozens of top SaaS brands: Klaviyo, Monday, Freshworks, MongoDB, Snowflake, Braze, Cloudflare, GitLab, ActiveCampaign and countless others.

For example, here is how Freshworks positions it:

3-step AI messaging differentiation framework

In a market where almost every product claims to have AI, differentiation can’t come from the tech itself. It has to come from the outcome, the problem you solve, and the clarity of your message.

If you’re building or marketing an AI product, use this simple 3-step framework to test and refine your positioning:

1. Start with the pain (what’s broken?)
Don’t lead with tech. Lead with the real problem your buyer is facing. Make it visceral, specific, and urgent.

For example: “Sellers spend 40% of their time manually triaging email.”

2. Move to the outcome (what improves?)
Next, show what your product actually helps people achieve.

For example: “Our users reclaim 4+ hours per week and use it to close deals.”

3. Then show how AI enables the outcome
Now that the user cares, you can explain how AI helps make that happen. But avoid buzzwords, make it visual and concrete.

Bad: “We use AI to streamline sales workflows.”

Better: “Our AI automatically categorizes, prioritizes, and drafts replies – so reps can focus on revenue.”

A quick cheatsheet for better AI messaging:

  1. Replace “AI-powered” with outcomes – what does it enable?
  2. Use your customer’s language – not your internal jargon.
  3. Get specific – “launch campaigns 2x faster” beats “transform workflows.”
  4. Anchor with proof – even directional data builds credibility.
  5. Show, don’t tell – demos and workflows > buzzwords.

Leading with “AI-powered” used to signal innovation. Now, it risks blending you into the noise. Companies are putting product value back at the center and letting AI show up only when it adds clarity to that story.

Share

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✅ Recommendations

Watch the AI SDR Summit (it’s on-demand and free!)

Stream Qualified’s first annual AI SDR Summit on-demand and hear how leaders from companies like G2, 6sense, Salesforce, and so many more are leveraging the power of AI SDR agents to scale their inbound and outbound pipe gen motions.

Check out candid conversations about the state of the AI SDR agent landscape, inbound and outbound playbooks, and real results from marketers at the forefront of the agentic marketing era.

👂 More for your eardrums

GTM 145: What Happens When a CRO Owns the Entire Customer Journey, How to Build a Unified GTM Engine | Marcy Campbell

Episode guest Marcy Campbell is the CRO at AppFolio, where she leads sales and client services with a focus on delivering unified, end-to-end customer experiences. With 30+ years of experience scaling revenue teams across FinTech, SaaS, cloud computing, and communications, Marcy has held executive roles at Boomi and PayPal—where she led an 800+ person global team. Her deep expertise in aligning sales, customer success, and operations makes her a standout leader in the GTM space.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts by searching “The GTM Podcast.”

🚀 Startup to watch

Jeeva – just launched: your superhuman AI agent for top of funnel. It finds leads, writes outreach, and proves ROI so your reps can focus on closing.

Coffee – the AI-first CRM for SMBs, just launched ICP Builder—a free tool that lets you describe your ideal customer in plain English and instantly see matching companies.

Stotles – launched a major revamp to their single platform to growth public sector business. One tool where teams can: create strategy, build pipeline, track tenders and win bids. They help public sector teams move from disconnected workflows, mountains of data, unqualified opportunities and painful collaboration to a single, end-to-end process.

👀 More for your eyeballs

Sendoso has acquired Postal, uniting the two top players in the global gifting and direct mail world. Corporate gifting has exploded into a $260 billion space. Sendoso and Postal have powered 15 million+ sends and hybrid experiences for leading companies to date, and this acquisition strengthens Sendoso’s position in the space.

The former CPO of iconic companies Typeform and Calendly speaks to how AI is rewriting product and GTM playbooks. AI is transforming the process of building products.

🔥 Hottest GTM jobs of the week

  1. Founding Growth Marketer at Create (San Francisco)
  2. Sales Development Representative at Cube (Hybrid – New York City)
  3. Growth Manager at Seso (Remote – US)
  4. Content Strategist at Owner.com (Hybrid – San Francisco)
  5. Director, Marketing Operations at Vanta (Remote – US)
  6. Business Development Representative at Tavus (Hybrid – San Francisco / New York City)

See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.

If you’re looking to scale your sales and marketing teams with top talent, we couldn’t recommend our partner Pursuit more. We work closely together to be able to provide the top go-to-market talent for companies on a non-retainer basis.

🗓 GTM industry events

Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:

Subscribe now

This newsletter was written and edited by Sophie Buonassisi, Max Altschuler, Paul Irving and the GTMnow team (not AI!).

The post The AI messaging pivot happening across SaaS appeared first on GTMnow.

2 May

How to turn beta users into a launch marketing engine

By . Blog No Comments

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.

Often we think about a press release piece first when we think “launch.”

While this is often true, it’s one part of the wave that is created around a launch.

One part of that is creating a hype train — a coordinated effort to turn your earliest users into your loudest champions.

In one of the company Superhuman’s most successful campaigns to date, the team turned beta testers into a distributed marketing engine that amplified their messaging, created social proof, and drove a 60% increase in new seats. This was all done before any major paid push.

Why beta users are a hidden growth channel

Beta users are incredible feedback loops. Beyond the product build feedback loop, they can also be go-to-market accelerators.

Here’s why they’re so valuable:

  • They understand your product deeply.
  • They’re naturally inclined to share tools they love.
  • They’ve opted in to be early, and often want to be part of the story.

The trick is to make it easy (and exciting) for them to do so.

The hype train framework: 5 steps

Step 1: Curate your beta list like a GTM asset

Start by segmenting your most aligned and influential users.

Prioritize:

  • Power users based on usage data
  • Ideal customer profile (ICP) matches
  • Active social users (LinkedIn, Twitter, Slack communities)

If you’re short on data, send a short survey:

“Would you be open to sharing feedback or posting about the product?”

Step 2: Make the beta experience feel exclusive

This isn’t just early access, it’s a backstage pass.

Things you can include:

  • A welcome note from the founder or an exec
  • A clear list of what to try
    Access to a private Slack or user group
  • Light gamification (unlockables, invites, perks)

Make it feel like a community.

Step 3: Launch the hype (with nudges, not nagging)

Carta’s move into fund administration and private equity made technical expertise non-negotiable. Standing up a strong solutions engineering function became critical to navigating larger, more complex deals.

Scaling without technical depth leads to slow deals and lost trust.

Once beta users are active, it’s time to encourage sharing. The ideal timing is 3–7 days after consistent product use.

Channels you can use:

  • Personal emails
  • In-product prompts
  • Social messages from execs or marketing team

Example message:

“Hey [Name], you’ve been one of our most active early users — we’d love if you shared your experience so far. Your voice helps others discover us. Bonus: we’re giving away swag to our top sharers this week.”

Superhuman ran a campaign using similar outreach and it worked extremely well. Their marketing leader breaks this down below.

Case Study: Superhuman’s “New Year, New Inbox” campaign

In January, Harmony Anderson, marketing leader at Superhuman, launched a full-funnel campaign centered around a timely and relatable theme: “New Year, New Inbox.” The campaign aligned with the fresh-start mindset that often comes with the new year.

The team leaned heavily into user-generated content. Existing customers, many of whom were already sharing their experiences organically, were encouraged to post on social. Harmony’s team reached out directly to engaged beta users, providing them with suggested copy and creative assets to make it easy to spread the word.

To build additional momentum, Superhuman hosted a virtual event tailored to both customers and prospects. They also ran coordinated paid and organic campaigns across multiple channels, all tied together by clear, outcome-focused messaging, like “save 4 hours per week with Superhuman.”

The results were impressive: a 60% increase in new seats month-over-month, a significant uplift in social shares (without needing to ask in many cases), and a clean transition into evergreen messaging once the seasonal hook had run its course.

Step 4: Make sharing effortless

To get more people talking, lower the barrier to entry.

You could provide:

  • Copy-paste tweet and post templates
  • Beautiful images or GIFs they can use
  • A simple referral link (optional)
  • A lightweight “campaign-in-a-box” with everything included

The easier you make it to participate, the more likely your users will contribute.

Step 5: Reward and recognize champions

This is where flywheels are born.

Ways to show love:

  • Feature their posts in your company channels
  • Send a personal thank-you or DM
  • Offer exclusive swag, early access, or shout-outs
  • Invite them into future beta programs

People support what they help build. Make them feel like insiders, not just users.

—

You don’t need a massive ad budget to launch big.

You just need 100 engaged users, a few good prompts, and a clear invitation to help. Let your biggest believers do the talking and your launch will go a lot further.

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✅ Recommendations

👂 More for your eardrums

Oji Udezue is the former CPO of both Typeform and Calendly. He’s a veteran product executive who has led product strategy at some of tech’s most iconic companies, including Twitter, Atlassian, and Microsoft.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts by searching “The GTM Podcast.”

GTM 144: How AI is Rewriting Product and GTM Playbooks | with Oji Udezue (CPO – Typeform, Calendly)

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts by searching “The GTM Podcast.”

🚀 Startup to watch

Keyplay – introduced Keyplay AI agents to help companies leverage AI for ICP targeting. The result is 20-30% less wasted non-ICP spend, higher conversion, and a competitive advantage with unique targeting. The video linked provides a great visual example.

👀 More for your eyeballs

Fivetran to acquire Census, creating the first end-to-end data movement platform for the AI era. The deal positions Fivetran as the only fully managed solution for bi-directional, governed data movement – powering real-time, AI-driven insights across warehouses and business apps.

Your sales playbooks need to adapt or die. It’s not that playbooks don’t matter, it’s that you have to build a new one everywhere you go. You just can’t bring that same playbook with you.

🔥 Hottest GTM jobs of the week

  1. Marketing & Events Associate at GTMfund (Vancouver, CAN) – come join the team behind this newsletter!
  2. Customer Success Manager – Enterprise at Capchase (Hybrid – San Francisco / New York City)
  3. Director of Marketing at Amper (Hybrid – Chicago)
  4. Sales Development Representative (SDR I) at UserEvidence (Hybrid – Jackson Hole / Denver preferred; Open to Remote)
  5. Director of Revenue Operations at Gorgias (Hybrid)
    1. New York City
    2. San Francisco
    3. Toronto
  6. Mid-Market Account Executive at Noibu (Ottawa,ON)

See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.

If you’re looking to scale your sales and marketing teams with top talent, we couldn’t recommend our partner Pursuit more. We work closely together to be able to provide the top go-to-market talent for companies on a non-retainer basis.

🗓 GTM industry events

Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:

Subscribe now

This newsletter was written and edited by Sophie Buonassisi, Max Altschuler, Paul Irving and the GTMnow team (not AI!).

The post How to turn beta users into a launch marketing engine appeared first on GTMnow.

26 Apr

Timeless growth principles that scaled $20M to $450M

By . Blog No Comments

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.

Some growth lessons expire. Others stand the test of time.

Jeff Perry, Chief Revenue Officer at Carta for more than six years, proves it. After helping Oracle absorb Sun Microsystems in a $7.4B acquisition and later scaling Carta’s revenue from $20M to $450M, Jeff has seen every kind of market cycle, product pivot, and team evolution.

From that, he’s learned that the best growth strategies aren’t new. They’re timeless.

This edition breaks down 8 timeless principles every founder, CRO, and sales leader can use to build durable growth.

✅ Recommendations

ZoomInfo’s GTM25 virtual conference on May 7th.

The future of GTM is AI-powered. Join us and thousands of revenue leaders at ZoomInfo’s GTM25 virtual conference on May 7th to explore how high-performing teams are leveraging Go-to-Market Intelligence and AI to fuel their GTM strategies that help top teams crush their revenue goals. You’ll hear from industry experts, connect with peers, and learn about the latest AI advancements. Beyond insights, you’ll walk away with proven AI tactics that you can directly implement for your GTM team.

Save Your Spot – see you (virtually) there!

1. Don’t be the hero, be the quarterback

“You don’t have to be the hero. Be the quarterback of the deal.”

Top sellers (and CROs) aren’t trying to win alone. They orchestrate deals, bringing in execs, solution engineers, and cross-functional allies.

Quarterbacking isn’t optional if you want scalable, repeatable revenue. Great reps know when to lead, and when to pass.

2. Diagnose before you design

“Great CROs don’t bring playbooks. They build them.”

Jeff didn’t try to copy Oracle or DocuSign playbooks at Carta. He studied what Carta specifically needed – fixing broken lead routing, segmenting sellers by skill, and rethinking post-sale experience.

Diagnose, then design the solution.

3. Treat performance management as a growth muscle

“Not every PIP is an ending. Sometimes it’s the start of a breakout.”

Two of Carta’s top performers today were nearly let go early in their careers. Instead of ejecting them, leadership focused on diagnosing system problems (like poor lead routing) and doubling down on coaching.

Performance management isn’t about fear, it’s about unlocking potential.

4. Relationships > Automation (now more than ever)

“Pick up the phone. Be human. It’s still the ultimate differentiator.”

In a world obsessed with AI automation, nothing replaces real relationships.

Every customer interaction is a chance to build trust, deliver value, and create loyalty that no automation can replicate.

5. Invest in technical excellence early

“Solutions engineers are your secret weapon as complexity grows.”

Carta’s move into fund administration and private equity made technical expertise non-negotiable. Standing up a strong solutions engineering function became critical to navigating larger, more complex deals.

Scaling without technical depth leads to slow deals and lost trust.

6. Make onboarding a growth weapon

“Your GTM is only as good as your post-sale experience.”

Carta’s customer onboarding didn’t just reduce churn, it became a flywheel for expansion, referrals, and upsell across PE and VC networks. Flawless implementations earned trust (and more logos).

Think of onboarding as revenue activation.

7. Fix systems before you blame people

“Infra problems often look like people problems.”

Early on, broken lead routing made it seem like top reps were underperforming. It wasn’t a talent issue, it was a structural one. Fixing the system unlocked immediate lift.

Before you replace people, replace bad systems.

8. Design around how customers want to buy, not how you want to sell

“Internal convenience should never beat customer experience.”

At Carta, Jeff’s teams weren’t organized by internal ops logic. They were designed around natural customer buying journeys: corporations, fund admin clients, private equity firms. Sales, marketing, and CS aligned to serve them, not just quota math.

Growth gets easier when your org chart mirrors your customers’ paths.

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👂 More for your eardrums

Harmony Anderson is an entrepreneurial marketing leader with deep expertise in building global GTM strategies at growth startups. She is currently the VP of Growth and Marketing at Superhuman, the most productive email app ever made for teams. She has also led high-performing teams at Armada, Engine, Outreach, and ThousandEyes.

GTM 143: Why Most AI Messaging Fails and How to Actually Stand Out in a Crowded Market | Harmony Anderson

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts by searching “The GTM Podcast.”

🚀 Startup to watch

Writer – CEO May Habib is making bold moves, recently featured on the cover of Forbes for helping companies save millions in labor costs with AI. The company has opened four new offices and plans to grow the team to 600. Investors call her “the time traveler” and it’s easy to see why.

👀 More for your eyeballs

How AI is rewriting the sales leader playbook. In this inaugural podcast episode, sales leader KD breaks down the impact AI is having on frontline sales management.

Punch above your weight with organic content. Not just self-produced content, we’re seeing more and more companies leaning into influencer and ecosystem strategies for organic reach. Here you have the potential to compete with bigger companies, without the big dollars.

🔥 Hottest GTM jobs of the week

  1. Marketing & Events Associate at GTMfund (Vancouver, CAN) – come join the team behind this newsletter!
  2. Product Marketing Manager at Northbeam (Remote – US)
  3. Growth Marketing Lead at Mutiny (New York)
  4. Senior Director, Acquisition Marketing at Writer (Hybrid)
    1. San Francisco
    2. New York
  5. Strategic Venture Capital Partnerships Manager at Vanta (San Francisco – Hybrid)
  6. Customer Success Manager at Closinglock (Austin)

See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.

If you’re looking to scale your sales and marketing teams with top talent, we couldn’t recommend our partner Pursuit more. We work closely together to be able to provide the top go-to-market talent for companies on a non-retainer basis.

🗓 GTM industry events

Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:

Subscribe now

This newsletter was written and edited by Sophie Buonassisi, Max Altschuler, Paul Irving and the GTMnow team (not AI!).

The post Timeless growth principles that scaled $20M to $450M appeared first on GTMnow.

18 Apr

The New Rules of Brand Awareness in the AI Era

By . Blog No Comments

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.

In 2024, Sydney Sloan (CMO of G2, former CMO at Salesloft and Drata) noticed something strange. Traffic from search was down 10%. Then 20%. Then 25%.

At first, it looked like a blip. But then came the shift:
LLMs like Gemini started answering questions before users even clicked.

For a company like G2 that is built on ranking in search and capturing intent, this was an existential shift. Since then, it has also become one for most companies and is a common challenge we see.

Go-to-market teams need to rewrite the brand awareness playbook for a world where content marketing, SEO, and PPC all look very different. Here is Sydney’s framework for what no longer works and what to do instead.

✅ Recommendations

ZoomInfo’s GTM25 virtual conference on May 7th.

The future of GTM is AI-powered. Join us and thousands of revenue leaders at ZoomInfo’s GTM25 virtual conference on May 7th to explore how high-performing teams are leveraging Go-to-Market Intelligence and AI to fuel their GTM strategies that help top teams crush their revenue goals. You’ll hear from industry experts, connect with peers, and learn about the latest AI advancements. Beyond insights, you’ll walk away with proven AI tactics that you can directly implement for your GTM team.

Save Your Spot – see you (virtually) there!

1. SEO and PPC are breaking (and most teams are still operating like it’s 2019)

“Content for the sake of content is dead. The rise of AI has changed the game – and not in the way most marketers hoped.”

Sydney saw it firsthand at G2 and Drata. Gemini answers started showing up at the top of search results. Click-through rates dropped by 25%. Even well-optimized SEO programs (like HubSpot’s) saw traffic fall by as much as 70%.

Why? Google’s UI has changed. Sponsored results are pushed below the fold. Organic results are buried. The “answer box” is the only thing that matters.

Writing content just to rank doesn’t work like it used to. Instead, start writing to serve personas and jobs to be done.

2. Enter AIO: AI Optimization > Search Optimization

“We used to write for keywords. Now we write for what the persona is trying to solve and how LLMs summarize it.”

Teams are now strategically feeding LLMs content that gets cited in answer boxes.

These are two tactics that are working:

  • Expert-driven listicles: Content written by or attributed to real operators is ranking more often in AI responses.
  • Jobs-to-be-done format: Structure content to match what the user is trying to solve, not what you’re trying to sell.

Tool recommendations to help with this from Sydney’s CMO AI Circle:

  • GrowthX.ai: LLM-aware content writing, focused on jobs-to-be-done.
  • Profound: Tracks brand visibility across LLMs and conversational AI.

3. Don’t sleep on PR. It’s back (and stronger than ever in LLMs)

“$1,400 for a Forbes contributor article might sound cringe, but it’s getting indexed and showing up in LLM answers.”

AI tools are biased toward high-authority domains. Fast Company, Forbes, and Reddit are showing up more in answer summaries (because OpenAI and Google inked content deals with those publishers).

Paid PR is no longer just for logos on your homepage. It’s how you show up in AI-powered search.

4. The rise of B2B influencers — and why you need one (or more) in your corner

Clay is a great example. They paid 50+ influencers to amplify their launch and backed it up with product. Influencers weren’t just pushing ads; they were part of the narrative.

Find creators who already have your buyer’s trust. Then partner with them before your launch.

5. Founder-led distribution still wins, but only if you commit

“Your brand is the company’s brand. People trust you more than they trust the logo.”

LinkedIn’s algorithm is noisier than ever. Sydney’s tactical tips for founder-led GTM:

  • Post 2x/week: Anything less and the algorithm ghosts you.
  • Comment within 15 minutes: Signals engagement and boosts reach.
  • Batch posts: Block 30 min and write 5–10 at once.
  • Schedule ahead: Use LinkedIn’s native scheduling tool.
  • Test long-form: LinkedIn still boosts posts on its own blogging platform.

6. YouTube and Reddit are the new GTM edge

“YouTube has more indexed content than the rest of the internet. And Reddit is eating Google’s lunch.”

With Google indexing YouTube videos for AI responses and Reddit signing licensing deals with Google, both platforms are becoming essential brand surfaces.

  • YouTube: Expect a resurgence as brands prioritize LLM visibility.
  • Reddit: Highly relevant, cost-effective retargeting. If you serve a technical audience, it’s a no-brainer.

These aren’t fringe channels anymore. They’re part of the new organic stack.

7. Personalization isn’t just segmentation, it’s showing up

“Be a secret shopper. Try to buy from your prospect. Then send a 1-minute Loom on what sucked.”

Sydney’s favorite outreach trick is old-school: try the product, find what’s broken, and send helpful feedback. It works because it’s real and builds trust.

Combine this with referral programs (e.g., $1,000 for a meeting or opp) and you unlock distribution that paid ads can’t match.

TL;DR – The New Brand Awareness Playbook

  • AIO is the new SEO. Clicks are down 25%+ due to LLMs. Write for jobs, not keywords.
  • PR is back. Forbes, Fast Company, and Reddit are now signal boosters for AI.
  • Invest in B2B influencers. Be intentional and engage early.
  • Founders need to get on LinkedIn. Or, whichever platform the audience lives on. Post twice a week, comment early, batch-create.
  • YouTube + Reddit are GTM gold. They’re being indexed and converting.
  • Hyper-personal outreach still wins. Act like a customer. Record what’s broken. That gets attention.

Questions to ask yourself / your team

Ask these questions:

  • Are we writing for search engines or problems our buyer actually has?
  • Do we know where our content ranks in Gemini or ChatGPT responses?
  • What’s one piece of founder content we can publish this week that adds value?
  • Could we redirect $5K of PPC spend into creator partnerships or strategic PR?
  • Are we tracking brand mentions across Reddit, YouTube, and LLMs?

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This newsletter was written and edited by Sophie Buonassisi, Max Altschuler, Paul Irving and the GTMnow team (not AI!).

The post The New Rules of Brand Awareness in the AI Era appeared first on GTMnow.

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