If you’re in charge of go-to-market (GTM) strategy for a B2B company, chances are your inbox is flooded with pitches for “game-changing” tools. Most are smoke and mirrors, or just Excel in a trench coat. So, when I got asked to review Tome, I didn’t exactly clear my calendar. But I gave it a proper spin—no vendor demos, just hands-on time. This guide breaks down exactly what Tome can (and can’t) do for your GTM workflow in 2024. If you’re tired of bloated platforms and just want something that actually helps your sales, marketing, and product teams get on the same page, read on.
Who Should (and Shouldn’t) Care About Tome?
Let’s get real: Tome is built for fast-moving B2B teams that need to pull together GTM plans, messaging, and assets—without getting lost in a sea of Google Docs and endless Slack threads. If you’re:
- Running product launches or new segment rollouts,
- Managing a remote or hybrid GTM team,
- Or just tired of stitching together Notion, PowerPoint, and Airtable…
Tome is aiming squarely at you.
But if you just need basic project plans, or your GTM motion is “send out a couple emails and hope,” this is overkill. Tome’s value is in wrangling complexity, not in replacing a to-do list.
What Is Tome, Really?
Ignore the AI buzzwords and the “storytelling for the enterprise” branding. Under the hood, Tome is a collaborative workspace for building, organizing, and sharing all the pieces of your GTM strategy:
- Visual, slide-like docs (think Google Slides, but way less clunky)
- Built-in templates for messaging, personas, launch briefs, battlecards, etc.
- Real-time collaboration—everyone edits in the same doc, like Google Docs
- Embeds for charts, product screenshots, videos, and even Figma files
- AI features that promise to “generate” content (with mixed results, more on that later)
You could call it a “deck builder,” but that undersells what it can do for actual GTM alignment. It’s not a CRM or a project manager—it’s the connective tissue between marketing, product, and sales.
Setting Up Tome: The Good, The Meh, The Gotchas
The Good
- Quick onboarding: Sign-up takes a minute, and you can import existing decks or start from their templates right away.
- Clean interface: No endless menus or mystery settings. Adding text, visuals, and embeds is simple. You won’t need a manual.
- Templates that don’t suck: The pre-built GTM templates are genuinely useful. You get frameworks for ICPs, value props, competitive analysis, and more—no weird lorem ipsum placeholders.
The Meh
- AI features are hit or miss: Tome brags about AI-powered content generation and slide building. In practice, it’s like having a slightly overeager intern: decent at outlines, but the details need heavy editing. Don’t expect magic.
- Limited integrations: You can embed from Figma, YouTube, and a few others, but you can’t, say, sync live CRM data or marketing analytics yet. If you live in Salesforce, prepare for some copy-pasting.
The Gotchas
- Export options are basic: You can share a public link or export to PDF, but there’s no PowerPoint export (as of early 2024). So, old-school execs who want PPTX files? Out of luck.
- Collaboration is real-time only: If your team is in multiple time zones, version control can get messy. There’s no “track changes” or commenting system as robust as Google Docs.
How to Actually Use Tome for GTM (Without Losing Your Mind)
Here’s how I’d recommend rolling Tome out, based on real-world testing—not the happy path from the sales demo.
1. Pick a Real GTM Project
Don’t try to move your whole playbook into Tome on day one. Start with a concrete launch, campaign, or account plan. For example: “Q3 launch of our new integration for mid-market SaaS.”
2. Set Up Your Core Workspace
- Create a new Tome “deck” for the project.
- Use the built-in templates for:
- Messaging frameworks
- Persona breakdowns
- Launch checklists
- Sales enablement one-pagers
- Invite just your core team at first (marketing, product, and sales lead). Don’t bring in the whole company—keep it focused.
Pro Tip: Lock down editing permissions so you don’t end up with 16 versions of the same slide. Tome’s permission controls are basic, but they’re there—use them.
3. Build Out the Plan Visually
Tome is strongest when you actually use its visual features:
- Drag in Figma mockups, product screenshots, and demo videos.
- Use the “blocks” for quick charts or competitive matrices.
- Keep text concise. Tome decks aren’t Word docs—if you’re writing essays, you’re doing it wrong.
4. Use AI to Save Time (But Don’t Trust It Blindly)
- Try the AI-generated outline for your plan—it’s a time saver.
- But: always review and rewrite. The AI can spit out generic fluff (“Our customers are at the heart of our strategy…”). Skip or edit that.
- For messaging frameworks, use AI as a “starter,” not a final draft.
5. Share, Get Feedback, Iterate
- Share the live Tome link with stakeholders. You can set permissions to “view only” to avoid unwanted edits.
- Collect feedback in a single comment thread or via email—Tome’s commenting is still basic.
- Update the deck as you go; don’t treat it as a one-and-done PowerPoint.
6. Archive and Reuse
After launch, clone the deck for use as a template on your next project. The real value is in building a repeatable GTM playbook that doesn’t live in someone’s dusty desktop folder.
What Tome Gets Right
- Speed to launch: You can get a professional, visually-clear GTM plan in front of your team fast. No more chasing down the “final” doc in a maze of attachments.
- Alignment: When everyone is looking at the same up-to-date deck, you cut down on cross-team confusion.
- Templates: These actually save time, especially for new hires or folks who hate blank-page syndrome.
Where Tome Falls Short
- AI is not a silver bullet: Don’t buy the hype. Treat it as a helper, not a replacement for actual GTM thinking.
- Integrations are shallow: If your workflow depends on deep connections to Salesforce, HubSpot, Asana, etc., Tome won’t stitch it all together (yet).
- Export limitations: If your leadership expects a .pptx every week, you’ll be frustrated.
What to Ignore
- “Storytelling” buzzwords: Yes, you can make pretty decks. But Tome won’t give you a compelling narrative out of thin air. That’s still on you.
- AI-generated market research: Don’t trust the AI to generate competitive analysis or ICPs. Use real data, then use Tome to present it well.
Pricing: Worth It?
Tome is cheaper than a full-blown project management suite, but pricier than vanilla docs. If your team’s GTM process is a mess and you value time over dollars, it’s a fair trade. If you’re bootstrapped or running simple launches, you can live without it.
The Bottom Line
If you want to actually streamline your B2B GTM process—fewer meetings, less doc-chasing, more clarity—Tome is worth a look. Just skip the hype, use the templates, and don’t expect AI to do your job. Start small, keep it simple, and iterate as you go. Most “transformation” fails because people try to change everything at once. Use Tome to get your team on the same page, then build from there.