Go-To-Market Isn't a Launch. Margie Agin Explains.

Margie Agin works at the intersection of marketing, sales, product, and customer success. Her whole job is getting those teams pointed in the same direction, and she has strong opinions about where video fits.

Key Takeaways

• Go-to-market is an ongoing operational system across teams, not a one-time product launch.
• Misaligned teams chasing different customers stall growth and drive up costs.
• You can't lock video to one team anymore. The DIY tools are everywhere.
• Give every team one core story to adapt, so nobody starts from a blank screen.
• Original data wins in AI search. As Margie puts it, "LLMs love original data."

What does go-to-market actually mean?

Go-to-market is an ongoing process, not a single event. Margie defines it as an operational system that pulls in sales, marketing, product, customer success, and even RevOps and finance.

That's the part most people miss. Some treat go-to-market as a product launch. Others treat it as just the sales team. Margie sees it as all of those groups working together over time.

"I think of it more, the best definition I could use, is that it is an ongoing process, not just a one-time project, but an ongoing kind of operational system." — Margie Agin

She came to this from product marketing, a role that always had its tentacles in many cross-functional jobs. Go-to-market, she says, is just a more official way of bringing those functions together so the whole company points the same way.

Why misaligned teams stall growth

When teams define their customer differently, growth slows and costs climb. Margie's go-to example is the ideal customer profile, or ICP.

Marketing often chases the people who are easiest to find. Sales chases the people who are easiest to reach. But the right customer is someone with a good margin who will get value from the product and renew.

"You shouldn't have marketing going after the people that are easiest to find, and salespeople [going after] the people that take your call." — Margie Agin

If every team has a different definition, growth stalls or costs go up. That's why Margie says alignment starts with a shared vocabulary. Get everyone using the same words for the same things before you do anything else.

How do you roll out video across a whole company?

Start by accepting that you can't control every video anymore. Margie's line for this: "the cat's out of the bag." Low-cost and free tools mean every team will make video their own way.

So instead of locking video to the brand team, give people guardrails. She compares it to a PowerPoint template: you hand teams the colors, the outline, and a few best practices, then let them fill the blank slide.

The real hurdle isn't the tools. It's the blank canvas. Staring at an empty video screen with nothing to say is much harder than learning the software. Margie's fix is to give every team a starting point:

• One core message and value proposition from marketing
• The story the company wants to tell, in plain language
• Brand guidance and examples of what good looks like
• Freedom for each team to adapt that story to its own audience

Her rule: nobody should ever start from a blank sheet of paper.

What makes video work across the buyer journey?

The best companies keep one coherent story across every video, no matter which team made it. A buyer might meet you through a sales rep's video, then the website overview, then a product demo, then a how-to after they buy.

"They all kind of are beating the same drum, so it feels like they're talking to one company." — Margie Agin

That consistency holds up regardless of the tool or the team doing the work. And it runs the whole way through. Margie is clear that video isn't just a top-of-funnel brand play. In a product world it lets buyers see what the product really does. In a services world it lets them meet the people they'll work with. After the sale, it helps customers feel comfortable using the product, renewing, and expanding.

Why thought leadership and original data win in AI search

A unique point of view floats to the top, especially now that so much content is repeating the same lines. Margie says true thought leadership brings a fresh or even controversial take, and that's what stands out in AEO and GEO, the new AI search surfaces.

Video makes that point of view more authentic. You show your face and prove you stand behind the idea, which makes it memorable and easy to consume.

She's putting this into practice with a client right now. They surveyed 100 people in a specific ICP and built a whole program around the findings:

• A gated research report PDF for the demand gen team
• A landing page packed with data, because "LLMs love original data"
• Short videos of analysts, customers, and internal experts reacting to what the data means

That one research project turns into dozens of assets at launch and is planned to last the whole second half of the year, with fresh cuts and even a debate about what the data means.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between go-to-market and marketing?

Marketing is one piece of go-to-market. Go-to-market is the larger system that aligns sales, marketing, product, customer success, RevOps, and finance around the same customer and the same story. Margie describes it as an ongoing operational process, not a one-time launch.

Why do go-to-market strategies fail?

They fail when teams aren't aligned. If marketing, sales, and product each define the ideal customer differently, growth stalls and costs rise. Margie says alignment starts with a shared vocabulary and a clear definition of terms.

How should a company use video across different teams?

Give every team one core story and brand guidance, then let them adapt it to their audience. Margie compares it to a PowerPoint template: provide the colors, outline, and best practices so nobody starts from a blank screen. Trying to lock all video to the brand team no longer works.

Does video only matter at the top of the funnel?

No. Margie says video plays a role across the entire buyer journey. It builds awareness at the top, shows the product or the team in the middle, and helps customers use, renew, and expand after the sale.

How does original research help with AI search visibility?

AI engines favor fresh, original data and unique points of view. Margie's team pairs a research report with a data-rich landing page that LLMs can scrape, plus short expert videos. That mix earns visibility in AEO and GEO while keeping the brand top of mind.

Full Interview Transcript

Dane: Hello everybody, my name is Dane Frederiksen, I am a B2B video expert and I'm on a mission to help B2B marketers do more with video to be visible, trusted, and build pipeline. And today I'm joined by Margie Agin, who is a marketer among other things. What do people need to know about what you're doing right now and what's top of mind for you?

Margie: Sure, I like the marketer among other things. I'm wondering what the other things are. Yeah, so I focus on go to market. So that does include marketing, but it also is kind of the intersection of multiple teams. Marketing, sales, customer success, the product team, leadership all have to come together to really form a go to market.

Dane: Yeah, well you're gonna tell us.

Margie: Cross-functional hub. And so that's my area of expertise. I come originally from product marketing, which was always a function that kind of had its tentacles in many different cross-functional responsibilities. And so go to market, I think, is sort of just an elevated way of looking at that, which more officially brings together those different functions so that everyone in the organization is aligned and pointed in the same direction.

Dane: Right. You know, it's funny, like, I feel a little embarrassed saying this, but I honestly don't know what go to market means as opposed to like marketing in general.

Margie: Yeah. Well you're not the only one. I think a lot of people use that term loosely and in different ways, which is actually part of what I'm focused on is alignment, which starts with definition of terms and a shared vocabulary. But some people think of go to market as just a product launch. It's a one time thing. Or they think of it just as sales, right? This is our go to market because these are the people that are in the field customer facing all the time. But I think of it more, the best definition I could use, is that it is an ongoing process, not just a one-time project, but an ongoing kind of operational system that involves all of those departments that I mentioned before: sales, marketing, product, customer success, even RevOps and finance. And it's those groups working together. They each have a different slice of the pie, but for them all to be thinking about things like who is my best fit customer? Who is my ICP? Everyone in that group should be on the same page about that. You shouldn't have marketing going after the people that are easiest to find, right? And salespeople to the people that are easiest to, that take your call. It has to be somebody that also has a good margin that's going to get value from your product, that's going to renew. So that's just one example where if every team has a different definition, then growth is gonna stall or costs are gonna sky ride.

Dane: Yeah. It sounds so horrible. I'm so glad that there's experts like you to figure this out.

Margie: It's how we live. Every organization, you know, like all happy marriages are the same, but all unhappy marriages are unhappy in their own way. Every organization has issues with misalignment in some form or fashion and silos. It's not limited to big companies or small companies. The effort is to just continually try to get people using the same language and working together and pointing in the same direction.

Dane: Okay, so this is a great entry into bringing me and my expertise into the intersection of your expertise here. I have been struggling so hard to figure out how to do what you're doing but for video in an organization. Because if you think about it, video is a tool that can be used in lots of different ways, just like text can be used in different ways, or electricity or the internet. So how do you get an organization to adopt video in a more cohesive, holistic way, in the same way that they use electricity, or the same way that an IT department now touches all the different departments? Video is not just something that happens in marketing. Video should be something that's also used for recruitment, which you could argue is also part of marketing. But anyway, what I'm really trying to get at is how do you take an organization and implement video holistically into it and get all those teams aligned like you're talking about, so it's not siloed that video marketing handles that? It's like, well what about sales, what about HR, what about the CEO, like video thought leadership for executives. This is not just one silo. How do you think this should go, what's the best way to get a company aligned and marching in the same direction with something like video?

Margie: So I think it's kind of akin in many ways to any kind of tool, anywhere from how are people putting together a PowerPoint presentation. You've given them a blank canvas, right? And you've told them, these are our colors and this is the outline of the slide. We have the tool.

Dane: Yeah, but is it five slides or is it five hundred?

Margie: But maybe you've even told them some best practices, that you should have three bullets on a slide. But ultimately the slide is blank. The slide is theirs to fill. So you've given them the tools, you've given them the PowerPoint, you've given them the AI tools perhaps, you've given them video tools. I think you have to accept the fact that there's so much ability now to DIY things that you can't really crack down and say only the marketing approved video created by our creative team should ever be used, right? The cat's out of the bag. There's a lot of tools that are either low cost or free. And multiple different teams are going to use them the way that they're going to use them. So I think a couple of things. Just as you would with that PowerPoint example, you're going to want to give some examples of what good looks like, some guidance, some training on these are the best types of tools to accomplish your goal, this is the best type of storytelling format to accomplish your goal, these are our brand guidelines, et cetera. But I think you have to sort of take a breath and accept the fact that different departments can and should be adopting tools. The bigger question is, in that blank canvas, what are they going to say? To have somebody stare at a blank page or stare at a blank video screen and have to come up with something all on their own, that I think is a much bigger hurdle for people than actually adopting and using the tools.

Margie: So the more guidance, that I do think comes from marketing as a driver and alignment again between marketing and all of those other departments, that this is our core message, this is our core value proposition, this is the story that we want to put out into the world, this is the language that we use or the problems that we're trying to solve. And socializing that and making sure that everybody is comfortable with that story. And then for each different department that has a video channel that they want to use, they can adapt that story and customize it to their audience, but they shouldn't have to ever start from a blank sheet of paper.

Dane: Right. So as we're talking about this, I'm getting curious about if there's a company that you can think of doing a go to market strategy that is using video like the right way. Is there someone that you would point to, and don't say Apple?

Margie: I'm in a B2B world, so all my examples are like super niche.

Dane: Yeah. Is there anyone that comes to mind that you've seen out there that's like, yeah, they're using video really well to do go to market? And if you can't think of anyone, it's okay.

Margie: I'll think of a really specific example if I can. I mean again, video is such a broad term. So I've seen many companies where the marketing or brand team is gonna put out one, in the same way that they are responsible for the homepage of the website, right? They may put out one sort of showcase video that is their corporate overview or their big kind of brand story. And then there might be multiple slices of that for different audiences or different use cases. And typically that kind of comes from a central hub. But I also see lots of product teams just doing scrappy sort of demo videos or Loom videos or Camtasia, any kind of an interactive demo type of environment where somebody can visually show how easy it is to use the product. That's something a product team might use. Salespeople might be using videos as part of their outreach, right? Instead of sending a million DMs and LinkedIn messages and emails, maybe it's more effective to actually incorporate a little video of themselves, humanizing themselves as part of their outreach. And social media, right? So there's lots of little videos going on on social media that shouldn't have to go through and be approved by the central brand team. They've got to be kind of quick and scrappy. So that's where it gets customized at the team level. But what I think is more, your question about have I seen companies using video, I think the best companies have a coherent, consistent narrative that goes across all of those different types of assets, so that if a customer is touching this video through a salesperson, then they go to the website and they see the corporate video, they go to the product page, they see the product video, and then ultimately they become onboarded and they see another video that's a how-to video. They all kind of are beating the same drum about the benefits, about the reason why they're here, the look and feeling, the emotion that they get. It feels like they're talking to one company. And that happens regardless of tool or regardless of what team is actually doing the execution.

Dane: Yeah, that makes sense. So I'm getting curious about the idea of thought leadership, like video thought leadership. How does that fit into the go to market picture? Is that part of that, or should it be? What are you seeing there?

Margie: Yeah, so thought leadership, having a really unique point of view, something a new take, a fresh take, maybe something that's a little controversial, something that you're adding to the conversation, is more important than ever, especially as everyone is reiterating AI slop or essentially repeating the same language that all their competitors are saying. So true thought leadership, where you actually are bringing something new, a new perspective or new data to the table, is going to float to the top. It's going to float to the top in terms of AEO, GEO. It's also going to keep you top of mind with your customers. So if you can add on top of that that you are communicating your unique point of view via video, then to me it's just another way to make that point of view more authentic, because you're showing your face, you're showing that you really do stand behind that, and memorable and easy for people to understand and consume. So I try lots of different types of formats with thought leadership content. Some people want to read, some people want a webinar so they can ask a lot of questions, some people want a video or a video snippet that's like a little teaser of it, and other people want a graphic because it makes that concept easier. Again, it's about easier to consume for different types of communicators and different types of learners. So if you have, let's say, one topic, for example, I'm working right now with a client on some original research. We surveyed 100 people that are a certain type of ICP in their market that use a certain type of software. We wanted to really understand how they think, how they're using it, what's next for them, what's holding them back from being successful. We came out with a ton of really interesting data, and we have a perspective on what that means, right? Why is this important and what should the reader do about it? So as we are rolling out this original research, we're building a video component into our promotional plan. There's the core research report, PDF, gated, old school, because the demand gen team's like, I want, they still want forms. Okay. But we're also building a landing page with lots of data that LLMs can scrape, because LLMs love original data, right? So we're building that as well. And then we're also building little videos of analysts, customers, internal subject matter experts with their take on what the data means. So in that way, instead of just one piece of content that comes out of this thought leadership report, we're going to have dozens even at launch. And ultimately the plan is that this is going to last for the whole second half of the year. And there's going to be fresh takes and fresh cuts and different perspectives and maybe even get a debate going about what the data means. And I think that's where you really can use video, because again, it's authentic, it's personal, and it can be long or short. And then if somebody wants to read the whole report for more information, that's available to them.

Dane: Right. So what I'm hearing is that for a go to market strategy, thought leadership can be like an accelerant component. And a video thought leadership plan on top of that adds even more value. Is that what you would say?

Margie: I think video needs to be integrated into all the different things that you're doing, right? If it's thought leadership content and you're talking top of funnel, awareness building, brand, video clearly has a role to play there, because it's valued very highly by the systems that decide what to serve up at the top of the list. And then even as you go through the buyer's journey and you get to more complex decisions, especially in a product world, you're integrating video so that you can actually see what the product really looks like. And in a services world that you actually get to meet the people that you're gonna be working with. So I don't think it's just the top of funnel brand awareness building where we think about video. Video plays a role all throughout the entire buyer's journey, and even after they become a customer so that they feel more comfortable using the product and renewing and expanding.

Dane: So as we wrap up here, I'm curious if you could kind of condense one piece of advice, one takeaway here for go to market people. If you're working on a go to market and you're thinking about using video, what would you say would be your takeaway advice about what they should do?

Margie: First step is get your story straight. If your goal is to communicate what is different about you, why buyers need to buy, create some urgency, before you even think about the different channels or formats, get the story solid. And then as you're thinking about channels and formats, get people comfortable with using video, because it's one of the, if not the best way to really make a direct connection with your audience.

Dane: Okay, that's great insight and speaking my language. Well this has been a great conversation. Thanks again for sharing your insights, and I'll see you online.

Margie: Yeah, thanks.

Dane: All right, we are wrapped.