6 "Evergreen" GTM Plays (and the tools to run them)
The Signal
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Hey y’all!
Just when you think AI can’t move any faster, in just the last week: Claude added real-time web research, x.ai acquired x.com (twitter), and OpenAI raised $40B (largest fundraise in history) at a $300B valuation - adding 1M users in one hour (h/t Studio Ghibli). Wild times continue to get even wilder. Lock in.
Speaking of AI, shout out to my friend Kevin for having me on their webinar last week to debate AI SDRs (my thoughts can be summed up in this simple 4x4 matrix).
I don’t think there’s an “easy button” with AI. But, I do think there are smart ways to deploy it, that give you incredible leverage (like the advent of electricity gave us). These can be AI workflows, AI agents, or even just AI used for one small task in a long string of tasks to accomplish a goal.
Alright, let’s dive into today’s post.
6 "Evergreen" GTM Plays You Should be Running (and the tools to run them)
Today, I’m sharing some basic examples of “evergreen” (aka always on) GTM Plays. And alongside each Play, a list of tools/companies to explore that will help you build+run each Play.
These are general recommendations.
The best Plays are thoughtful, creative, and specific to your business.
Hopefully, these examples spark ideas that you can inject into your go-to-market motion. Enjoy. ✨
1. Website visitors play
Don't be creepy with these de-anonymized website visitors. This won't work: "Saw you were on our technical documents page, want a demo?!" Sometimes, a signal should not be explicitly used in the message (just use it as intent of who to reach out to, and—more importantly—when).
→ Tools that can help with this play: Apollo (company-level only), Common Room, Instantly, Koala, Pocus, RB2B, Unify, Warmly, Zoominfo.
2. Champion tracking play
I suggest you track every user who is in your product, plus have an enrichment (eg: using Clay) to find all the execs/decision makers for your customers (who may not be a user in your product). That way, you can track when they leave and go to another company (that's in your ICP), and you can reach out to them.
→ Tools that can help with this play: Champify, Clay, Common Room, Koala, Pocus, Unify, UserGems, Zoominfo.
3. Key buyer persona hiring play
Have a list of the, say, 16 titles you care about. Then, a list of your, say, 5,000 Target Accounts. Any time one of those 5,000 companies is hiring for one of the 16 titles you care about - you'll be notified (or an email goes to them, from the account owner). You build it so that when one of those titles *starts* in the role.
→ Tools that can help with this play: Champify, Clay, Common Room, Koala, Pocus, Unify, UserGems, Zoominfo.
4. Tech stack play
Tools like Sumble use the job description (and past job descriptions) to pull out the tech stack of companies. You can get really creative with this data. Obviously, you can try to directly steal your competitor’s customers. But, you can also use it as a proxy for a good-fit account to prospect into.
→ Tools that can help with this play: Apollo, Builtwith, HG Insights, Sumble, Theirstack, Zoominfo.
5. Closed-lost/inbounds - resurrect play
Run a report for your Closed-lost deals in the last 18 months. And your inbound leads that never converted. Use the call recordings and email interactions to have an LLM pull out the reason why (we all know that "reason" picklist in your CRM is not the best). Then, go reach out with a 'hook' (first line of the email) being that line the LLM generated for each closed-lost deal or inbound that didn't convert.
→ Tools that can help with this play: Attention, Clay, Momentum.
6. Warm intros play
Build a list of Target Accounts and find the best path in to as many as possible. Use your investors, advisors, employees and even "friends." Warm intros are always the best path into a deal.
→ Tools that can help with this play: Cabal, Commsor, Connect the dots, Hifive, SmallWorld, The Swarm.
•••
Want to see other signals to operationalize into evergreen plays (or even one-time campaigns)? Check out my curated guide of signals (there are over 300 across these lists - so let your imagination go wild). Just remember: start small, don’t get analysis paralysis, and avoid gas (gear acquisition syndrome).
That’s it for today!
PS: Follow me on LinkedIn—the kookiest social media app in existence—to join the conversation.
Note to self (lesson of the week)
Collapse the time
from
thinking: ’I should do xyz task’
to
Starting xyz task.
As always, thank you for your attention. I do not take it for granted.
See you next time,
Brendan 🫡