GTM 96: The Three Pillars of a Modern Go-To-Market Strategy Every Revenue Leader Should Know with Kelly Hopping

The GTM Podcast

Kelly Hopping is currently the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for Demandbase where
she is responsible for differentiating the go to market platform, increasing brand
presence, and accelerating acquisition and conversion of potential customers.
Prior to joining Demandbase, Kelly honed her start-up skills as the first CMO at
HYCU, a series B, venture capital-backed data protection SaaS company. She now
continues at HYCU as an Advisor. Before HYCU, Kelly served as the Chief Marketing
Officer for the Digital Markets division of Gartner where she managed a portfolio of
brands - Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice - to grow awareness and demand in
the market. In this role, Kelly and her marketing team drove 100% of the revenue
acquisition for the $300M+ organization. Prior to Gartner, Kelly led at Rackspace and AMD.
She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science in
Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University. Kelly serves on the board of
Empowering Women as Leaders Austin, and she has spoken at various leadership
conferences. She is the author of the book Rising: How to Thrive as a
Corporate Executive while Staying True to Yourself, which launched in 2023. Kelly resides in Austin, Texas, with her husband and three children.
Discussed in this Episode:

• The three pillars of a modern go-to-market strategy that every revenue leader should know.
• How to create alignment and shared metrics between sales and marketing teams.
• Establishing a cohesive customer journey from initial interest to closed-won and beyond.
• Lessons learned from driving 100% of revenue acquisition at a $300M Gartner division.
• Insights on brand building, customer-centric marketing, and the power of organic search.

Highlights:
03:50 - How Kelly's marketing team drove 100% of revenue at a $300M Gartner division.
13:20 - The three pillars of a modern go-to-market strategy.
18:41 - Pillar 1: How to make sales love you as a marketer.
30:15 - Pillar 2: Creating shared metrics for sales and marketing alignment.
40:30 - Pillar 3: Establishing one cohesive customer journey.
45:13 - Differences and similarities between B2C and B2B marketing.
50:46 - One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Kelly thinks is bull$***.
54:32 - One thing that is working for Kelly in go-to-market right now.
Guest Speaker Links (Kelly Hopping):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyhopping/
Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

The GTM Podcast
Features conversations with the top 1% of tech executives, VCs, and founders - the experts who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories - revealing what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.
This podcast is produced by GTMnow, the media brand of VC firm GTMfund.
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