Rivergate Marketing one of the few agencies dedicated exclusively to control system integrators and industrial automation companies—is expanding its consulting portfolio with a new two-day Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy Workshop, built to give technical organizations the clarity and strategic foundation they need before launching into execution.

The move comes as more engineering-driven firms realize that marketing tactics aren’t effective without a well-aligned strategy beneath them. Rivergate says demand is rising among system integrators and automation firms seeking a unified direction, consistent messaging, and focus areas that match real market opportunities.

Why This Matters: Automation Firms Want Strategy Before Tactics

Marketing within industrial automation is notoriously complex. Technical firms often juggle niche service offerings, long sales cycles, and specialized buyer personas that don’t respond to generic messaging. Rivergate’s team—after sixteen years of exclusive focus on this sector—has seen the same gap repeatedly: companies want growth, but lack clarity on how to position themselves or where to invest.

That demand helped shape the expanded offering. Rivergate points to a recent engagement with a major North American control system integrator where its team facilitated an on-site, two-day workshop to unify strategy, build a messaging foundation, and create a complete GTM plan within ten weeks. The success of that engagement helped formalize the framework now available to the broader market.

“Every company has its own strengths, challenges, and opportunities—and its own vision for growth,” said Georgia Whalen, President of Rivergate Marketing. “Our workshop is built around each client’s unique situation. It’s a highly collaborative process that brings clarity to leadership teams and sets the stage for confident execution.”

Inside the Two-Day GTM Strategy Workshop

Rivergate’s workshop is designed as a structured, fast-moving strategic process. Over 48 hours, the team leads leadership groups through exercises and analyses that translate technical capabilities into commercial strategy.

The workshop includes:

• Competitive landscape analysis

• Market and vertical prioritization

• Buyer persona development

• Value proposition creation

• Messaging and positioning frameworks

• Campaign roadmapping

• KPI and success metric definition

The result is a complete, customized go-to-market plan tailored to the company’s industry, capabilities, buyers, and competitive pressures—not a recycled template.

Christine McQuilkin, Vice President at Rivergate, says that specificity is exactly what technical organizations need: “This workshop distills everything we've learned from years of partnering with system integrators and industrial automation companies. What we deliver is not generic. It’s specific to the client’s offering, their team, and their market environment.”

A Strategy-First Approach for a Market in Transition

Industrial automation is experiencing rapid change—digital transformation, reshoring, workforce shortages, and the rise of smart manufacturing are all reshaping market dynamics. As integrators transition from project-driven operations to more scalable solutions or managed services models, marketing strategy becomes a differentiator instead of an afterthought.

That’s where Rivergate’s specialization stands out. Unlike broad B2B agencies, Rivergate speaks the language of integrators, understands the complexity of automation projects, and knows how technical buyers evaluate risk, reliability, and expertise.

With dozens of system integrator clients over more than a decade and a half, the firm has built a repeatable—but always tailored—framework designed to give industrial players something many have lacked: a clear, confident path to market.

The Bigger Picture

The expanded GTM consulting offering signals Rivergate’s intention to move deeper into strategic advisory. For technical organizations that rarely have internal marketing strategists—or who struggle to align leadership around a unified growth direction—this kind of structured, high-touch workshop may become more of a necessity as competition intensifies.

For an industry built on engineering precision, Rivergate is betting that equal precision on the marketing side will give automation firms a strategic edge.

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