A 3-Month Marketing Plan to Validate Your GTM Strategy

Your GTM Strategy is a Hypothesis. Let's Test It.

Alright, founder. You’ve built the product. You’ve probably spent months, maybe years, deep in the code, architecting something you know can solve a real problem. Now you have a Go-To-Market strategy sitting in a Google Doc. It looks smart. It’s full of acronyms like TAM, SAM, and ICP.

Here’s the truth: right now, that document is just a set of well-researched guesses. It’s a hypothesis. And like any good engineer, you know what you do with a hypothesis—you test it. You run experiments, gather data, and iterate.

Most technical founders I talk to either over-engineer their marketing (trying to build a perfect, fully-automated machine from day one) or they ignore it completely, hoping the product is so good it will sell itself. Both are paths to failure.

The goal for the next 90 days isn't to build a massive marketing department. It's to run a lean, focused sprint to validate your core GTM assumptions. Are you targeting the right people? Is your message resonating? Will anyone actually pay for this?

This 3-month plan is your roadmap. It’s designed to get you from zero to a validated, repeatable motion. No fluff, just action.

The Pre-Work: Setting the Foundation

Before the 90-day clock starts, you need a solid foundation. Don’t skip this. Spending a week here will save you three months of wasted effort chasing the wrong leads with the wrong message. Think of this as setting up your dev environment before you start coding.

Nail Your ICP (and Niche Down Again)

I know your GTM doc has an Ideal Customer Profile. I also know it’s probably too broad. “Mid-market tech companies in North America” is not an ICP; it’s a census category. You need to get painfully specific.

Who feels the pain you solve most acutely? Not who could use your product, but who loses sleep over the problem.

Industry: Be specific. Not “manufacturing,” but “aerospace parts manufacturers with CNC machines.”
Company Size: Use employee count or revenue. “50-200 employees” is better than “SMB.”
Job Title: Who is the economic buyer? Who is the champion? Who is the end-user? For a dev tool, you might sell to a VP of Engineering, but your champion is a Senior DevOps Engineer.
Tech Stack: What other software do they use? This can be a powerful targeting filter (e.g., companies using Segment and Snowflake).

Your first ICP is a v1. The goal is to be specific enough that you can find these people on LinkedIn and know, with 80% confidence, that they are a potential fit.

Sharpen Your One-Liner

Your messaging is your primary tool. You need to be able to explain what you do in a single, compelling sentence. Technical founders often lead with features. Stop. Lead with the outcome.

Use this simple formula: We help [Your ICP] achieve [Specific Outcome] by [High-Level Product Category/Action], without [Common Pain Point].

Bad: “We are an AI-powered data ingestion and transformation platform with real-time analytics.”

Good: “We help B2B SaaS companies slash their data onboarding time from weeks to minutes by automating customer data mapping, without writing a single line of custom code.”

Test this one-liner on anyone who will listen. Does their face light up with recognition, or do their eyes glaze over? That’s your first signal.

Define Your Validation Metrics

You can't validate a hypothesis without knowing what success looks like. Forget about vanity metrics like website traffic or Twitter followers for now. Focus on metrics that signal real market intent.

Choose 2-3 primary metrics for the next 90 days. Good examples include:

Number of Qualified Demos Booked: The gold standard for most B2B SaaS.
Positive Reply Rate on Outreach: Are people even interested in talking?
Sign-ups for a Free Trial/Beta: If you have a PLG motion.
Pipeline Generated: The total value of deals that have moved past an initial discovery call.

Set realistic goals. Your goal isn’t 100 demos in Month 1. It might be just 10. But they must be 10 demos with your exact ICP.

Month 1: Activation and Early Signals

Goal: Generate your first 10-20 qualified conversations to get raw, unfiltered feedback.

Month 1 is all about brute force and direct contact. It’s not scalable, and that’s the point. You’re the chief salesperson and marketer. You need to feel the market’s response firsthand.

H3: Founder-Led Outreach: Your Top Priority

This is non-negotiable. You, the founder, need to be doing the outreach. No one else has your passion or deep product knowledge. Your goal isn't to close deals; it's to open conversations and learn.

Build a List: Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to build a list of 100-200 people who fit your hyper-specific ICP. Use tools like Apollo.io or Hunter.io to find their email addresses.
Write a Simple, Direct Email: Don't use fancy templates. Keep it short, personal, and focused on them.
Subject: Quick question about [Their Company Name]
Hi [First Name],
Saw on your LinkedIn profile that you lead the [Their Team] at [Their Company]. My co-founder and I are building a tool to help [ICP Title] like you solve [Specific Pain Point].
It’s designed to [Key Outcome], without the usual hassle of [Common Obstacle].
We're looking for feedback from experts like you. Would you be open to a 20-minute call next week to see what we're building and tell us if we're on the right track?
Best,
[Your Name]
Execute: Send 20-30 of these per day. Track everything in a spreadsheet. Who opened? Who replied? What did they say? Every reply—even a “no”—is data.

H3: Use Content as a Spear, Not a Net

Don't start a blog. Don't worry about a content calendar. Instead, write one high-value, problem-oriented article. The title should be something your ICP would literally type into Google. For example, “A Step-by-Step Guide to Reducing flaky tests in a Cypress.io E2E Suite.”

This article isn't for SEO (yet). It’s a tool for you. Share it when you do outreach. Post it in niche Slack communities, on Reddit, or in LinkedIn groups where your ICP hangs out. Don't just drop the link; provide context and start a discussion. The goal is to establish credibility and see if the problem you're writing about resonates.

H3: Month 1 Review: What Did You Learn?

At the end of the month, review your metrics. Did you get your 10 demos? What was the positive reply rate? More importantly, what did you learn in those conversations?

ICP Validation: Were the people you talked to actually the right ones? Did they confirm the pain?
Messaging Validation: Did your one-liner land? What words did they use to describe their problem? Steal their language and update your messaging.
Objections: What were the common reasons they weren't interested? Too expensive? Wrong timing? Already have a solution? This is pure gold.

Based on this data, update your ICP and messaging documents. You just completed your first iteration loop.

Month 2: Build Repeatable Channels

Goal: Turn the successful experiments from Month 1 into a system.

Now that you have early signals that you're on the right track, it’s time to build a small, repeatable engine. You're moving from ad-hoc actions to a V1 process.

H3: Systematize Your Outreach

That simple email you sent in Month 1 is now your starting point. It’s time to build a proper sequence. Use a tool like Lemlist, Reply.io, or Mixmax to create a 3-4 step sequence that combines emails and LinkedIn connection requests.

Step 1: The initial email from Month 1.
Step 2 (3 days later): A short follow-up bumping the first email. “Just wanted to make sure this didn’t get buried.”
Step 3 (5 days later): A LinkedIn connection request. No message, just the request.
Step 4 (7 days later): A final email providing value. Link to that spear-fishing article you wrote or a short case study. “Thought you might find this useful…”

This system allows you to contact more people with less manual effort, freeing you up to focus on the conversations it generates.

H3: Double Down on Your Content Cluster

That one article you wrote worked? Great. Now build a “content cluster” around it. Write 3-4 more articles that are tightly related to that core problem. If your first article was about reducing flaky Cypress tests, your next articles could be:

“Top 5 Root Causes of Flaky Tests in CI/CD”
“How [Your Customer] Cut Flaky Tests by 80%”
“Cypress vs. Playwright for E2E Reliability”

This does two things: it positions you as a genuine expert on a specific topic, and it starts building the topical authority that Google loves for long-term SEO. You’re laying the groundwork for a real content engine.

H3: Run a Low-Cost Paid Experiment

It's time to pour a little gasoline on the fire. Allocate a small, fixed budget—say, $500 to $1,000 for the month—to one paid channel. For most B2B SaaS, this should be LinkedIn Ads.

Create a simple campaign targeting the exact ICP you validated in Month 1. Use your updated messaging in the ad copy. Send the traffic to a dedicated landing page that has a clear call-to-action: “Book a Demo.”

The goal isn't to get a thousand leads. The goal is to get data. What's your Cost Per Click (CPC)? What's your Cost Per Lead (CPL)? How does the quality of these leads compare to your outbound leads? This gives you a benchmark for what it costs to “buy” a lead versus “earning” one through outreach and content.

H3: Month 2 Review: Is It Repeatable?

Look at your data. Do you have a machine, however small, that you can put inputs into (contacts, ad spend) and get predictable outputs (demos, pipeline)?

How many demos did your outreach sequence generate? What's the conversion rate?
How many leads did your paid ads generate? What was the CPL and cost per demo?
Are people finding your content? Are they referencing it on calls?

You should now have a clearer picture of your initial customer acquisition cost (CAC). This is critical.

Month 3: Optimize and Plan to Scale

Goal: Prove the GTM is viable and create a data-backed plan for the next six months.

This is where you graduate from validation to strategy. You have a working engine. Now you need to tune it and figure out how to give it more fuel.

H3: Refine Your Funnel

Look beyond just lead generation. Map out your entire funnel from first touch to closed deal. Where are the leaks?

Lead to Demo Rate: Are people booking a demo but not showing up? Improve your reminder emails.
Demo to Trial/Proposal Rate: Are you losing them after the demo? Your demo might be too feature-focused, or you might be talking to the wrong person. Refine your demo script.
Trial to Paid Conversion Rate: If you have a PLG motion, where do users get stuck in the product? This is crucial feedback for your product roadmap.

Small improvements at each stage of the funnel have a massive compounding effect on your growth.

H3: Build Your Case for Investment

Whether you're reporting to a board or deciding how to allocate your own runway, you now have the data to make intelligent decisions. You can move from “I think we should do marketing” to “I know we should invest in marketing.”

Your summary should sound like this:

“Over the past 90 days, we validated that our ICP is [Specific ICP]. Our outreach channel generates demos at a cost of ~$75 per demo. Our LinkedIn ad channel generates demos at ~$250 per demo. We have generated $50k in qualified pipeline. To hit our next milestone of $X ARR, we need to generate Y demos per month. Based on our data, we recommend investing $Z/month, split between scaling our outreach team and increasing our LinkedIn ad spend.”

This data-driven approach is how you secure budget and build confidence. And when you think about that budget, you can find transparent examples of what different levels of investment get you by looking at agency or platform pricing to benchmark your own spend.

H3: To Build or To Delegate?

At this point, you've proven the model works. You've also likely become the bottleneck. You’re spending half your day managing marketing experiments instead of talking to customers and building the product.

You have two paths. You can continue to build this capability in-house, which means hiring your first marketer and investing in more tools. For founders who are hands-on and want to maintain full control over the process, a self-service marketing platform can provide the structure to build and scale your operations efficiently. You can see how this works by exploring a tool to build your own marketing workflows.

But for most early-stage founders, your time is the most valuable asset. Spending it on setting up email sequences and managing ad campaigns is a low-leverage activity. This is the inflection point where a 'done-for-you' service becomes a founder's secret weapon. Finding a partner that acts as your outsourced marketing engine frees you up to focus on product, vision, and closing the deals that your marketing generates. The right service doesn't just execute tasks; it brings a strategic framework that accelerates your path to a scalable GTM, which is the core value we provide at AgentWeb.

H3: Month 3 Review and The Path Forward

Congratulations. You survived the 90-day sprint. You either have a validated GTM strategy with early traction and a clear plan to scale, or you have definitive proof that your initial assumptions were wrong and the data to pivot intelligently. Both are huge wins.

You’ve replaced guesswork with data. You’ve replaced hope with a process. You’re no longer just a product company; you’re a business with a budding go-to-market engine. Now, the real work of scaling begins.

Ready to put your marketing on autopilot? Book a call with Harsha to walk through your current marketing workflow and see how AgentWeb can help you scale.