GTM Glossary
Every go-to-market term you actually need — defined in plain English, grounded in real plays, and honest about when it's a bad idea.
A
Account-based marketing
Account-based marketing is a B2B strategy that treats a defined list of high-value companies as individual markets, building outreach around the specific people inside them instead of chasing individual leads.
Allbound
Allbound is running inbound and outbound as one coordinated motion rather than separate teams, using demand created by marketing to inform and warm the accounts sales reaches out to.
B
C
Content marketing
Content marketing is creating and publishing material people choose to consume, rather than buying their attention, in order to build an audience that trusts you before it needs you.
Corporate gifting
Corporate gifting is sending a physical object to a prospect, customer, or influential person to open or advance a relationship, usually aimed at a named account rather than a broad list.
D
Dark funnel
The dark funnel is the buying activity you cannot see or attribute, including private group chats, podcasts, word of mouth, and communities where most B2B research now happens before anyone visits your site.
Demand generation
Demand generation is the marketing discipline of creating awareness and interest in a category across an entire market, then capturing that interest when buyers are ready to act.
Dimensional mail
Dimensional mail is direct mail with physical depth, sent as a box or object rather than a flat envelope, used in B2B because a package creates a question a letter does not.
Direct mail
Direct mail is marketing sent through the postal system to a physical address, used in B2B to reach named accounts with something a buyer has to hold, open, and decide what to do with.
E
Earned media
Earned media is coverage and sharing you did not pay for and do not own, including press articles, organic social posts, forum threads, and word of mouth generated by something you did.
Experiential marketing
Experiential marketing builds something a person participates in rather than watches, using a live experience to create a memory and a story the participant tells afterward.
F
Field marketing
Field marketing is marketing that happens in person in a specific place, covering events, conferences, local activations, and hand-delivered campaigns aimed at a defined set of accounts or a defined region.
Founder-led sales
Founder-led sales is the stage where a founder personally runs the sales motion, taking the calls and closing the deals, before any repeatable process or sales hire exists.
G
Go-to-market strategy
A go-to-market strategy is the plan for how a company reaches and sells to a specific set of buyers, covering who you target, how you position and price the product, and which motion you sell through.
GTM engineer
A GTM engineer is a technical go-to-market operator who builds automated systems for finding, enriching, and reaching buyers, sitting between marketing, sales, and engineering.
Guerrilla marketing
Guerrilla marketing is any unconventional, low-cost tactic that earns attention in public space or online instead of buying it, relying on surprise and word of mouth to carry the message.
I
Ideal customer profile
An ideal customer profile is a description of the company types that get the most value from your product and are the cheapest for you to win, keep, and grow.
Intent data
Intent data is behavioral signal indicating that a company or person is actively researching a product category, used to prioritize which accounts to contact and when.
O
Out-of-home advertising (OOH)
Out-of-home advertising is paid media placed in physical public space, including billboards, transit, airports, and elevator screens, that reaches people while they are away from home.
Outbound prospecting
Outbound prospecting is initiating contact with buyers who have not raised their hand, using email, calls, social, or physical touches to start a conversation the buyer did not ask for.