As a DG leader, you play a critical role in supporting Sales by driving the acquisition and conversion of prospects into leads and converting them into customers. Here are some hard and nice-to-have skills (the list isn't extensive) Hard skills: Vision and experience building a multi-channel demand gen strategy - Having a good understanding of the levers that are available to you is necessary to build out your plan. This includes understanding your target persona so you can address their pain points, behaviors, and the channels they like to consume content. Data driven decision-making - This skill has become very important as finance and executives are interested in ROI and the results of your programs, so being comfortable around metrics/numbers and the ability to have deep inspection of funnel conversions will help you diagnosis and evolve your strategies. Strong cross functional collaboration - In this role, you are often the go between with Sales, Product Marketing, and Content teams. Strong communicator - Getting buy-in and alignment are important, so if you are able to provide the strategy, successes, and challenges to executives, they will more likely support your requests for resources. Nice-to-haves: Deep technical proficiency with marketing tools - basic knowledge is adequate Advanced graphic design skills In-depth product knowledge Sales-specific skills as you won't be negotiating or closing deals.

Don't believe the "experts". NO ONE knows the answer to this question with confidence). All that said, here are my hot takes: AI will have an impact on your career as a Demand Generation professional in the medium term. How? -Automation of your routine tasks: AMEN. This is a great thing and will allow us all to spend more time focused on more interesting creative and strategic problem solving. -Enhanced Data Analysis: Again, this is rad. Imagine you have your own, personal data scientist to help you parse the reams of data we collect as marketers, and develop real and impactful business insights. -Personalization at Scale: More great news here. AI will help us personalize sales and marketing interactions beyond the hard limits of 1:1 "account based marketing". That means more net new leads, more qualified leads, more opportunities, higher average deal sizes, more closed won and happier customers. -Improved Lead Generation and Nurturing" See above for personalization; it will have a meaningful impact on our ability to ship the right ad to the right prospect at the right time. It will help us customize our nurture streams and produce the right content. This is great news for all of us. -Content Creation and Optimization: This is probably where you can see the biggest impact RIGHT NOW. If you are not using free, off the shelf tools for content ideation, outline creation, narrative flow, H1 & H2 creation and editing for readability....you are missing out. Will this replace the Content Marketing Manager or Copyeditor role anytime soon? I don't think so. It's just going to make them more productive. -Real-time Customer Insights: I don't think we're here yet, but I think it's coming and it's a GREAT THING. In near-future states, AI will provide real-time insights into customer behavior and engagement, allowing for more us to be responsive and pivot quickly to marketing strategies. The big question for us human working professionals is, "can we increase our agility and be prepared to quickly adjust campaigns based on these insights?" -Skillset Evolution: Ok so this one is INTERESTING. You want to take a risk and get ahead of building an inevitably hot, in demand skill? Invest in your query development skills (I recently heard of a startup shutting down for a month to train their entire staff on this). Get proficient in using AI tools and platforms, understanding AI-driven analytics, and how businesses can integrate AI into your overall strategy. All that said, I don't think AI will replace your role in the next 5-10 years, provided you embrace and leverage the tools that are rapidly becoming made available to you. In the long term - ten plus years - AI will almost certainly transform the the role. Maybe even eliminate it as it stands today. But there's no need to panic. It may be hard to remember, but there were no "Demand Generation Managers" 20 years ago. And Marketers like you and me still have jobs.

Soft skills are more critical when joining a new team, especially in Demand Generation, where collaboration is key. This role requires working cross-functionally with product marketing, creative teams, operations, sales, and paid media, making the ability to lead through influence essential. Strong candidates can build alignment, negotiate effectively, and rally teams behind a shared vision. Emotional intelligence plays a major role in success. Reading the room, understanding team dynamics, and adapting communication styles help drive initiatives forward. Executive presence is equally important—engaging confidently with marketing leaders and sales stakeholders fosters credibility and ensures buy-in on strategic initiatives. While technical skills are valuable, they can be taught. Core Demand Generation competencies, such as campaign execution, analytics, and optimization, can be learned over time. However, soft skills like leadership, collaboration, and adaptability take longer to develop. A candidate with strong interpersonal skills can quickly gain the necessary technical expertise, but even the most technically skilled professional may struggle without the ability to navigate team dynamics and stakeholder relationships.

Start with understanding what the business cares about most. All Demand Gen teams are expected to help drive pipeline and bookings, but you should try to get as much context on both as possible. For example, is the business trying to move upmarket? If so, over what timeline? To what extent do your current-state investments support that objective? Are you hiring new reps? If so, in what segments/markets? The closer you can align your Demand Generation strategy to business objectives, the easier it will be to establish appropriate metrics for the team. For example, in the hypothetical above (i.e., business moving upmarket over X quarters), you will need to establish goals tied to growth within the Enterprise or Mid-Market segments instead of setting holistic lead, pipeline, and marketing-originating bookings goals.

It's not too different from your traditional demand funnel/waterfall and KPIs, but instead of leads > MQLs > SQLs > Opportunities > $ pipeline, your funnel should start with web traffic, both from an aggregate perspective, as well as the core pages you want to drive users to sign-up for your self-service offering. Quality web visitors are essentially your "leads," and from there you measure conversions to your sign-up pages, web trial downloads and starts, paid users, and eventually upgrades, expansion, etc. Then depending on your martech sophistication you can get extremely granular with your UTM parameters to measure where traffic is coming from, whether by channel (i.e. organic search, SEM, paid media, organic social, etc.), tactic, campaigns, etc. and continually optimize based on where you're seeing the greatest conversion throughout the self-serve funnel.

* Align With Sales First: Meet with sales to understand their goals, the ICP, and what constitutes a qualified lead. Build trust early. * Audit the Funnel: Assess what’s working in current lead gen efforts. Are there quick wins (e.g., better nurture paths, small targeting adjustments)? * Start Simple: Focus on a few key campaigns and prove value before expanding. * Build Infrastructure: Invest in tools that provide visibility and scalability (e.g., marketing automation, lead scoring). * Show ROI Early: Prioritize campaigns that can deliver measurable pipeline impact within your first 90 days.

Enterprise demand gen is complex. Buying committees are large, and the buying cycle is long. According to a Google/Bain study, B2B buying committees have an average of 17 stakeholders, and on average, it takes 40 touchpoints for each of these buyers to influence the B2B buying decision. Below are four steps to help you get started. * Step 1: Start with creating the content by persona mapped to the buyer's journey. Create content for primary and secondary persona. According to Gartner, B2B buyers have six jobs to be done to make a purchase 1. Problem identification 2. Solution exploration 3. Requirements building 4. Vendor selection 5. Validation 6. Consensus creation Use this as a framework to create content. This will serve as the foundation for your campaigns. Also, in the age of AI overviews and search GPT, consider structuring your website to follow the above framework. * Step 2: Invest in integrated, multi-channel digital campaigns to drive awareness and engagement with an ABM mindset * 1:1 ABM campaigns targeted at 10-50 strategic accounts * 1:few ABM campaigns targeting up to 300 accounts grouped by vertical/industry * 1:many ABM campaigns targeting up to 5000 accounts based on ideal company profile (ICP) criteria * Step 3: Build a webinar program * Top-of-funnel thought leadership webinars * Middle-of-funnel How-to webinars * Bottom-of-funnel Demo webinars * Step 4: Plan offline tactics such as highly targeted executive roundtable events and direct mail campaigns to accelerate the pipeline and drive closed won deals

Navigating the pivot from collaboration and ideation to execution and accountability requires structure, project planning, swimlanes and clear communication. Simple frameworks will be your lifeline in this process. Here are some things to take into account and the seven checkboxes I have on my desk when beginning a new project: 1. Establish Clear Frameworks: Implement a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) or DACI (Driver, Approver, Contributor, Informed) model to define roles and responsibilities. This clarity helps everyone understand their specific duties and the expectations placed on them as the project moves towards execution. Don’t move forward with a project without one. Full stop. 2. Create and Share a Project Plan: Develop a detailed project plan outlining tasks, deadlines, and responsible parties. Regularly update and share this plan with all team members (via email and Slack, some people love one while others not so much) to ensure everyone is aligned and aware of their responsibilities and timelines. 3. Don’t run a meeting with an agenda: For each meeting, prepare and distribute a clear agenda in advance. Include a pre-read when possible to ensure everyone is informed and ready to contribute. This helps keep meetings focused and productive, especially as you transition to the execution phase. If you are the driver, DRIVE these and be the voice commanding the room. 4. Maintain Engagement: During meetings, keep the room engaged and on point. Stick to the agenda and avoid deviations to ensure that discussions remain relevant and time is used efficiently. Encourage active participation and address any concerns promptly to maintain momentum. 5. Shift Focus to Execution: As deadlines approach, explicitly communicate the shift from brainstorming to execution. Up the communication cadence. Reinforce the importance of meeting deadlines and the need for accountability. Emphasize the specific tasks and milestones that need to be achieved and the impact of timely execution on the overall project success. 6. Monitor Progress and Accountability: Regularly review progress against the project plan. Hold team members accountable for their deliverables through check-ins and status updates. Use the RACI or DACI framework to ensure everyone understands their role in meeting deadlines. 7. Adapt and Stay Flexible: Trains can derail. Be prepared to adapt the plan as necessary while keeping the team focused on the end goals. Address any roadblocks or issues promptly and reassign tasks if needed to keep the project on track. By following these strategies, you can smoothly transition from brainstorming together to getting things done efficiently. This way, your team stays focused, responsible, and productive as deadlines get closer.

For each cross-functional project, I build a clear RACI with one ultimate decision-maker for each milestone. This defines who has the power to green-light the project, and it is shared during the introduction phase of the project. It’s important to make clear who has decision-making power vs. consultative power early on in the project and get buy-in from leadership. Likewise, it’s important to provide a strong workback schedule with go-no-go dates that have to be met and be clear on when deadlines will push and which teams will be impacted. If needed, this work can be up-leveled to managers if too many projects are impacting downstream teams.

Smaller companies have less budget, and therefore marketers must be scrappier. They need to find ways to build awareness for the company overall, in parallel with supporting short-term revenue targets. Larger companies have more budget, and marketers can focus more on channel optimization to drive leads in support of short-term revenue targets. The larger reach of campaigns, thanks to their budget, helps to keep an awareness drumbeat in the market.