Fundraising GTM Best Practices | A Peek Inside the Benchmark Guide

Introduction

HubSpot for Startups and LinkedIn Marketing for Startups are dedicated to democratizing startup resources. To that end, we joined forces to survey sales and marketing professionals from Seed to Series C-funded startups. We’ve gathered this data highlighting business performance metrics that startups can leverage to achieve sustained growth and efficiency.

A Peek Inside the Insights

Below is an excerpt from the report highlighting three of the five key GTM best practices gleaned from the survey of 250 sales and marketing professionals in North America. To see the full metrics analysis, as well as all the additional data and insights, sign up for the free report.

GTM Best Practices

Strong sales and marketing performance can be thwarted by the reality of B2B buying cycles that are longer and harder than ever. According to Vendr’s Q2 2024 SaaS Trends Report, buying cycles for net new purchases increased 50% year over year from 32 to 48 days. A result of buyers negotiating more aggressively and proceeding into deals with caution. 

Marketers know it is also more challenging than ever to get on a B2B buyer’s evaluation shortlist. According to LinkedIn’s 2024 SaaS Buyer Survey, now only 3 vendors make it onto a B2B buyers’ shortlist for evaluation, down from 6 providers 3 years ago. 

We’ve highlighted how the most successful startups – those with the highest year-over-year growth, conversion rates, and funnel efficiencies— have elevated their go-to-market execution to overcome challenges and thrive in today’s tough buying environment. Their 5 best practices include:

ICP Diversification

Startups across all stages use LinkedIn to target prospects across SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise segments, typically engaging at least two segments to boost pipeline coverage and predictability, and allocating almost half of their impression share to companies with 1,000+ employees to target deals with higher annual contract values.

Targeted Audience by Company Size

Full Funnel Messaging

Startup marketers are often battling limited brand awareness and indecisive buyers. Buyers report an increased fear of messing up, which is now the #1 driver of customer indecision, affecting 40-60% of all sales deals, according to the Jolt Effect. We also know that only 5% of buyers are in-market at any given time—and even fewer during an economic downturn.

So, how can startup marketers think about building a pipeline and winning increasingly competitive deals?

Looking at trends in startups’ investment allocation across LinkedIn campaign objectives, the answer is clear: A healthy balance between upper-funnel brand awareness and lower-funnel demand capture. LinkedIn's data reveals that earlier-stage startups prioritize upper-funnel brand awareness tactics, like sharing ungated content to educate B2B buyers and fuel retargeting audiences. Then, as they mature in stage, later-stage companies prioritize larger allocations towards lower-funnel strategies, like lead generation with high-value gated content and request demo/talk to sales messaging.

Startups should run always-on full-funnel strategies, to create and capture demand. According to LinkedIn's benchmark data, startups active with full-funnel strategies achieve 6x higher conversion rates and convert leads to sales meetings 2x faster, reducing from 46 days to 25 days from initial ad impression, compared to startups relying solely on bottom-funnel tactics.

Startups Active With Full Funnel Strategies on LinkedIn Achieve

Thought Leadership

LinkedIn & Edelman’s 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report highlights how communicating through a trusted and credible voice is key, especially during economic downturn. 90% of B2B buyers say referrals from people they respect are most effective in earning their attention and purchase consideration, and they’re more receptive to sales and marketing outreach from a company that consistently produces high-quality thought leadership.

Our survey data validates this: 75% of startups surveyed with the highest lead-to-sales-meeting conversion rates and the highest YoY revenue growth rates cite content featuring execs and industry thought leaders as their most impactful to accelerate prospects through the buyer’s journey. The second most impactful content type is third-party reports and recognition.

Most Impactful Buyer’s Journey Acceleration Content Types

But wait, there's more!

To read the other two key GTM best practices, as well as all the other data and insights, click below to learn more and get the report.