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đŻ Clayâs $1.3 billion repositioning masterclass
The community-led announcement playbook
Read time: 4 minutes 42 seconds

Weâre going through a dramatic change in b2b marketing.
A companyâs âorganic reachâ used to mean the segment of their own followers that would see a post.
Today, companies are going viral on demand by leveraging their audience and their audienceâs audience.
Users + communities + influencers + partners + employees + earned media + content experiments + memes + IRL activations + ⊠+ .. + .
With impeccable timing and coordination, the worldâs best in-house marketing teams have realised they can take over an entire industryâs internet feeds for 48 hours. Sometimes longer.
Hereâs the playbook from a company that did it just ~2 weeks ago.
I got behind-the-scenes access to learn not just how, but why they pulled it off.
Enjoy.
â Tom



Chess Move
The what: A TLDR explanation of the strategy
When most companies announce fundraising news, they follow a familiar playbook: press release, social posts, maybe a TechCrunch article if they're lucky.
The story usually boils down to "we raised $X at $Y valuation."
Clay took a different approach with their $40M Series B expansion. Rather than just broadcasting numbers, they used the moment of attention to completely reposition their company and product and reward their most loyal users by opening up a community equity offering.
Clay recognised their biggest growth lever wasn't capital (they hadn't touched their last round), but rather market perception.
Through careful orchestration of media, content, and community activation, they claimed ownership of an emerging category: GTM development environment

đĄ | Strategy Playbook: Orchestrate multi-channel narratives that use company milestones for strategic positioning. |


Breakdown
The how: The strategic playbook boiled down to 3x key takeaways
1. A repositioning masterclass
Clay's marketing team knew that their unicorn fundraising announcement would bring the most daily traffic of all time.

Previous fundraise = 2x spike in branded traffic. This fundraise = even bigger spike.
Source: Google Search Console.
This moment represented an opportunity: Leverage the traffic surge to reposition themselves in a way that unlocks Clayâs next phase of growth.
![]() Before - homepage focussed on âpersonalized outboundâ | ![]() After - shifted messaging towards âGo to market with unique dataâ |
Clay initially found product-market-fit as a next-gen âoutbound email personalisationâ tool.
They launched on Product Hunt in 2022, 10xâd revenue in both 2022 and 2023, and 6xâd revenue in 2024.
But their record-breaking growth created a positioning problem:
While the market viewed it as the tool it once was, Clay quickly outgrew its category, and was more commonly used as a unified environment for developing and continuously running the full spectrum of growth projects.

OpenAI used Clay's AI agent with GPT models to automate this workflow and summarise information from earnings reports, company websites, and other key sources for every relevant account.
Vanta used company signals â such as job postings, funding announcements, and website updates â to prioritise their massive pool of CRM contacts.
Just like developers have VSCode, and designers have Figma, the de facto home for high-performing GTM teams was Clay.

If you could dream up the perfect logo list, it would look a lot like this
To shift broader market sentiment in line with how next-gen companies were using the product, Clay decided to use the fundraise (i.e. a rare moment of widespread attention) to introduce (and own) a new category with an expanded Total Addressable Market (TAM):
â "GTM development environment"
The key to making the new messaging stick was 3rd-party validation.
Clay wasnât just explaining the repositioning from their own point of view. They released flagship case studies at the exact same time (e.g. OpenAI and Verkada) that unmistakably demonstrated the CRM enrichment and automated research (rather than just outbound email) use cases were driving results for top RevOps teams.
The play: if youâre going to double your traffic overnight, you may as well direct it towards your #1 growth vector. In this case - repositioning your product towards a fast-growing untapped market.
2. Orchestrate a multi-channel symphony

Clay created an intricate network of announcements and content to ensure their message was absorbed across different audiences:
Internal vision: Published a detailed post on their public blog; a ânucleusâ piece of content on an owned channel that others link back to.

Media strategy: Lined-up a string of high-profile articles to establish credibility, starting with a Forbes exclusive and First Round Review deep dive.
![]() | ![]() |
Social distribution: Viral launch posts on company and founder socials.
![]() Clayâs company LinkedIn page official announcement | ![]() Founder Varun Anandâs viral LinkedIn post |
Employee advocacy: Promotional content from Clayâs own employees.
![]() | ![]() |
Influencer amplification: Leveraged their network of creators and thought leaders to share custom branded assets, and even physical merch.
![]() Launching an cobranded influencer miniseries | ![]() Swag bundle with hand-written cards |
Content experiments: Architected an assortment of novel, viral, social posts.
![]() Dr Evil announcing heâs joining Clay as a Brand Ambassador | ![]() Satirical, and surprisingly well-crafted music video |
Community activations: Gifted unique experiences to community members.
![]() ![]() Clay-inspired tattoo | ![]() GoNimbly team (RevOps agency partner) experiencing a sound bath in a meditation studio |
Video content: YouTube interview with industry insider, Adam Robinson.

Customer stories: Released flagship case studies featuring high-profile companies like OpenAI and Vanta.
Each piece was carefully timed, cross-referenced, and consistently framed (aligned to repositioning) creating an omnipresent sense that something significant was changing in the GTM space.
3. Deepen investment in community
One of Clay's deepest defensive moats is it's own community. The passionate group of power-users, service providers, agencies, and partners that Clay go above and beyond to give back to.
![]() | ![]() |
Fully recognising that they wouldnât be where they are now without the powerful community flywheel theyâve cultivated, Clay conjured another trick up their sleeve.
A surprise announcement, 2 weeks later.
One that didnât just thank the community, but rewarded them.
Today, they just announced their community equity offering, giving their community an opportunity to invest at the same $1.25 billion valuation as other Series B expansion round investors like Sequoia and Meritech.

Clayâs long-term bet on the community was inviting the community make a long-term bet on Clay.
Normally you canât just invest in the worldâs fastest-growing companies â access is limited to exclusive networks of insiders.
Normally companies fundraise when they need the cash â Clay hadnât touched their last round.
The community round wasn't just a symbolic gesture. It cemented their belief that âthe people who helped build Clay should benefit from its futureâ.
Rather than keeping the fundraise news solely centred on Clay, they were able to position the moment as a milestone for the broader GTM community they'd fostered:
Highlighted the 90+ âClaygenciesâ building businesses on Clay
Spotlighted Clay specialists making $1M+/year
Announced 60+ meetup groups forming organically
Showcased the new career path of "GTM Engineering" they'd pioneered
Offered their most passionate users the chance to become shareholders
Ultimately, the community fundraise transformed the announcement from company news into a community celebration.
Thatâs all for todayâs breakdown - hope you enjoyed!
â Tom
P.S. Have you seen another example of novel marketing / launch strategies in the wild? Reply to this email and let me know!


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