Ari Echt — Positioning, Sales & GTM Strategy

Line drawing of an electric guitar ARI ECHT · ABM, POSITIONING, GTM STRATEGY

Santa Barbara, CA 93103 | 805-680-2773 | ari.echt@gmail.com

Summary

I bring a copywriter’s craft and a GTM operator’s experience to B2B technology companies with complex products. I help them find their story and put it to work across marketing and sales, using AI to sharpen thinking and accelerate execution.

I’ve spent the last 15 years in B2B go-to-market, building ABM functions from the ground up, developing positioning and strategic sales narratives, and creating campaigns and experiences that help companies win and grow enterprise accounts.

Selected Work

A few examples of how I’ve applied strategy, positioning, creative thinking, and execution to different GTM challenges.

Building an ABM Engine From Scratch

Challenge

At Invoca, the company was trying to move into larger enterprise deals. But our go-to-market motion was still largely built around inbound demand, which meant reps were often spending time with whoever raised their hand rather than the accounts we most needed to win.

What I did

I built Invoca’s ABM function from the ground up, securing executive buy-in, defining our ideal customer profile, developing account scoring models, building the ABM tech stack, aligning Sales and SDRs around target accounts, and developing and executing campaigns.

Result

Average deal size across all sales segments increased more than 4×

0×2×4×6×

1.0×

1.9×

4.0×

4.4×

2016

2017

2018

2019

Turning Churn Risk Into Expansion With AI

Challenge

A leading cybersecurity customer was at risk of churning. They had HG’s data, but they were struggling to put it to work, so they weren’t seeing its value.

What I did

Rather than explain our new agent capabilities, I showed them. I wrote the prompts and skill that turned HG’s data into a strategic account brief, identifying competitive displacement opportunities, buying signals, and key decision-makers. Then I designed and built the experience from scratch in Lovable.

Next, I made it repeatable. Any HG prospect or customer can now get the same thing, from raw data to a fully built, custom experience, in about 12 minutes.

Using Interactive Product Demos to Drive Expansion

Challenge

A major cloud data platform company was licensing only a small slice of HG’s data. That limited the size of the relationship and the room to expand.

What I did

Instead of pitching more data, I showed the company what it would do for their pipeline. I built three interactive product demos, each one mapped to a play tied to the company’s business goals: displacing competitors, expanding inside large global organizations, and winning multi-cloud accounts. Each demo walked through HG’s platform the way one of the company’s sellers would actually use it.

Reframing the Build vs. Buy Decision

Challenge

A leading hyperscaler’s executive leadership team did not believe they needed HG’s data. They thought they could solve the problem internally.

What I did

Built a 1:1 strategic microsite for the buying committee that reframed the problem, showed where a do-it-yourself approach could fall short, and gave our internal champions a clearer story and supporting evidence to circulate internally.

Helping Customers Unlock the Value of Complex Data

Challenge

HG wanted to improve customer expansion, but marketing didn’t have a clear picture of what was getting in the way.

What I did

I ran eight interviews across our Customer Success team to find the root cause. The people implementing HG data usually weren’t the people who bought it. They didn’t understand what the data was, how to interpret it, or how to use it.

So I built a visual guide to all 12 HG data sets: what each one is, what it can do, what it looks like, how to interpret it, real-world use cases, and business impact. I wrote all the content, designed it from scratch to match HG’s new brand, and built the site myself in Lovable, in about a day and a half.

Legacy-Platform Migration Experience

Challenge

HG had launched a new Contextual Intelligence Platform, but migrating was a big ask. Customers were busy, and they worried that everything they’d built on the legacy platform would be left behind.

What I did

I built a migration microsite that dealt with the fear first, showing customers that everything they’d built would come with them. Then side-by-side comparisons of the legacy and new platforms made the upgrade an easy decision.

I activated it across three channels: targeted email, in-app messaging that reached legacy users while they were in the platform, and enablement so Customer Success could use it directly in customer conversations.

POSITIONING & STRATEGY

Sales narrative · HG Insights

The “We Already Have Technographics” Problem

Prospects kept telling our sellers they were already covered. I rebuilt the first-call narrative around precision, so reps could reframe the conversation instead of getting pulled into feature comparisons.

Click to view the full story

Strategic Analysis & Competitive Positioning

Some of my most consequential work has involved challenging assumptions about a company’s competitive position, identifying changes in buyer behavior, and uncovering strategic problems that better messaging alone couldn’t solve.

For example, pinpointing a fundamental obstacle to growth years before leadership recognized it.

I’m happy to discuss how I approach these challenges in a conversation.

CAMPAIGN CREATIVE

CAMPAIGN CREATIVE / INVOCA

A Direct-Mail Idea That Made an Invisible Problem Tangible

Challenge

Invoca needed a way to make the cost of missing inbound-call attribution feel immediate and relevant to marketers who were difficult to reach through traditional digital outreach.

What I did

I built an integrated direct-mail campaign around a giant cookie with 25% missing, using the physical metaphor to make an invisible revenue problem tangible.

The campaign extended across channels: the package included a short educational leave-behind, drove recipients to a companion microsite with additional content and a meeting CTA, and gave SDRs a memorable reason to follow up.

I developed the concept, wrote the copy, and built the supporting microsite experience.

01 / 08
A package built to get attention
The package used a personalized label addressed to a specific prospect and their digital marketing team, setting context and creating curiosity before they even opened the box.

Results

The campaign influenced nearly $1 million in revenue on approximately $40K in campaign investment.

It also generated strong human response: recipients shared the package internally, praised the creative, and in at least one case, the campaign directly led to a meeting.

“I rarely respond to these kinds of promotions, but your creative approach was just too good not to call out. I actually shared it with some coworkers.”
Prospect reaction
“He loved our direct mail piece and thought it was brilliant.”
Sales feedback
“Got the cookie. Team enjoyed it. Clever campaign and well executed.”
Prospect reaction
“The meeting I just set is a direct result of the cookie campaign. She said she loved it and showed all of her colleagues.”
Sales feedback

EARLIER CREATIVE WORK

Before moving into B2B SaaS, I trained as a copywriter at VCU Brandcenter, one of the country’s leading graduate programs for advertising, where I was named Copywriter of the Year in my class. I went on to work at agencies including BBDO, Young & Rubicam, and Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

That experience still shapes how I work today: finding the core idea, simplifying complex problems, and turning strategy into something people will actually notice, understand, and remember.

Chrysler Crossfire Times Square corner billboard — 01 / 03 · CHRYSLER CROSSFIRE · OUTDOOR / LAUNCH
Chrysler Crossfire Launch
A Times Square billboard wrapped around a corner used the placement itself to tout the Crossfire’s sports-car handling: “A corner. What better place to introduce it.”

Line drawing of Texas blues guitarist in motion

Reference

My Working Library

I keep studying the disciplines behind how enterprise technology gets positioned, understood, bought, and sold.

01 / 22

Hover or tap a book for its full title and author.

Contact

If any of this resonates, say hello.

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Hey Ari, we like your thinking and would love to have a quick chat...

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ari.echt@gmail.com 805-680-2773Santa Barbara, Californialinkedin.com/in/ariecht