10 GTM Campaign Plays Startups Are Using to Build Pipeline in 2025
Building pipeline is one of the toughest challenges for early-stage startups. What works for one company rarely works the same for another. Yet across dozens of Seed to Series A teams, we’ve noticed a handful of repeatable campaign plays that consistently generate conversations and conversions.
Here are 10 of the campaign strategies that are proving most effective in 2025:
1. **Launch a Technical Advisory Board (TAB)**: Startups win when they lead with value. Inviting 10–20 industry experts to form a “brain trust” can generate 20–40 early conversations in just a couple of months. Those interactions not only help refine your product, but often convert into paying champions.
2. **Rethink Event Strategy — Skip the Booth**: Instead of dropping $20K+ on a booth, the best ROI comes from coffee meetups, dinners, and micro-gatherings around the event. The conversations you have off the expo floor are the ones that actually turn into pipeline.
3. **Use Your Backyard Advantage**: Map where your team lives and lean into those geographies. A casual, “Hey, I’m in your area next week – want to grab coffee?” message feels disarming and often sparks sales conversations.
4. **Follow the Social Signals**: Your buyers are already out there liking, commenting, and engaging with content in your space. Use tools to track engagement, filter for your ICP, and reach out with context: “Saw you engaging on X, curious how you’re thinking about Y?”
5. **Lead With Education: Webinars & Newsletters**: Don’t pitch. Teach. Host a short webinar, launch a monthly newsletter, and focus on solving pain points. Consistency earns trust, and eventually inbound leads.
6. **Put the Founder Out Front**: Founder-led content works. When founders share authentic insights and show up consistently, they become the go-to person buyers think of when facing a problem.
7. **Turn Usage Data Into Sales Triggers**: Your users are telling you what they need with their clicks and activity. Watch where they get stuck, when usage spikes, or when new features get traction, then time your outreach around those signals.
8. **Double Down on Website Visitors & Lookalikes**: If someone visits your site, they’re shopping. Reach out with context tied to the pages they viewed. And if a customer like Capital One solved a pain point with you, run lookalike campaigns to reach others facing the same challenges.
9. **Ride the New Hire Wave**: When leaders step into new roles, they have budget, authority, and urgency. Track job changes, congratulate them, and position your product as the quick win they need in their first 100 days.
10. **Build With Community in Mind**: Communities (from Slack groups to LinkedIn circles) are where trust scales. Show up authentically, share value, and your pipeline will grow faster than any cold outbound sequence.
There’s no single GTM playbook that works for every company. But these 10 plays have surfaced again and again as practical ways for early-stage teams to generate pipeline and convert customers. By learning from patterns like these, you can give your company a serious head start in building a strong pipeline.