The way that Customer Marketing teams and functions should be staffed and organized will vary greatly from company to company, especially when looking at more traditional B2B or sales-led organizations vs Product-led organizations. In my experience, though, the best way to orient the team is around three core responsibilities: * Activation & Engagement: Measurement of activation metrics and time to activation, often in the form of lifecycle marketing. Driving customer education and programmatic communication that support enterprise onboarding, end-user training materials, and aircover to gain as much traction within paying accounts as possible. * Upsells & Expansion: Driven through targeted programs that aim to increase revenue from existing enterprise accounts through targeting new teams, referrals, and surfacing new MQLs to account managers. Can be done through Customer Advisory Boards, 1:1 Account Events, Customer Webinars, and account-based acquisition campaigns. * Advocacy: Measurement of output-based programs that develop champions and put your customers on a stage like case studies, referencable logos, and customer stories across channels (webinars, events, content). When first starting out or when you have a lean team, I've found starting with an account-based customer marketing approach is the best way to drive meaningful impact and quick wins for your CSMs and on your company's bottom-line. Identify the top renewals or any accounts at risk of churning and create targeted account plans to save and expand each. This will provide the frameworks and structures to scale as the team grows.

Here are some examples of good OKRs for a Demand Generation team: 1. Objective: Increase qualified leads by X% Key Results: * Increase website traffic by Y% * Increase conversion rates on landing pages by Z% * Increase the number of demo requests by Y% * Implement a new lead scoring model to prioritize leads for sales team follow-up 2. Objective: Improve marketing funnel efficiency Key Results: * Reduce customer acquisition cost by X% * Increase conversion rates at each stage of the funnel by Y% * Implement new email nurturing campaigns to engage leads who are not yet ready to purchase 3. Objective: Expand market reach Key Results: * Increase website traffic from target industries by X% * Develop a content marketing plan to target new buyer personas * Expand social media presence to increase brand awareness in new markets * Add to your database a number of new contacts/account from a new audience 4. Objective: Drive revenue growth through demand generation Key Results: * Increase marketing-sourced revenue by X% * Implement new ABM (Account-Based Marketing) campaigns to target high-value accounts * Optimize the sales funnel to reduce sales cycle time and increase deal velocity OKRs should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). By setting goals that are aligned with the company's overall objectives, the Demand Generation team can help drive growth and success for the business.

Below is how I would define the demand gen strategy, create content and plan campaign tactics aligned to the 5 stages of awareness UNAWARE: Demand gen strategy: Build awareness Content strategy: create blogs, media articles, podcasts to drive awareness Campaign tactics: Promote via organic social, YouTube, Spotify/Apple podcast PROBLEM AWARE: Demand gen strategy: Drive top-of-funnel demand Content strategy: Help them solve the problem with How to guides, best practice playbooks, cheat sheets, maturity assessment (online tool) Campaign tactics: Paid social, paid search, thought leadership webinars, content syndication, industry webinars/events SOLUTION AWARE Demand gen strategy: Drive engagement Content Strategy: Help them understand how your product can help solve their problem with product tours, video demos, checklists, tips and tricks, Campaign tactics:: Paid social, paid search, demo webinars, email marketing PRODUCT AWARE Demand gen strategy: Drive demos, free trials, bottom-funnel demand Content strategy: Help them understand how your product is uniquely qualified to solve their problem with an ROI Calculator, Success stories, Gartner MQ, Forrester Wave, Forrester TEI Campaign tactics: Events, executive roundtables, paid search MOST AWARE Demand gen strategy: Give them incentives to buy

Strategies usually get defined bi-annually or annually and most of us don't have complete influence and control on what gets defined. So allow me to stray a bit and take this opportunity to share some 'tactics' that have worked for me. 1. Do you use common vocabulary? You will be surprised how many salespeople in your organization don't understand the difference between an 'acquired contact' and a 'marketing qualified lead'. Many times, this could be attributed to a combination of a lack of commonly agreed definition and lazy communication from Demand gen 2. Are you measuring the same thing? Acknowledge that solving their problem is your problem. Your success and reputation depend on whether your programs are planned to help them achieve their goals. In the PLG world, it could be a commonly agreed definition of what is a PQL. In the ABM world, it could be the definition of 'Engaged accounts'. 3. You know their 'stated position' but do you have a pulse on their 'interest'? A stated position from sales is usually concrete and explicit. For example, it could be 'I want more leads'. But look for the underlying interests, which are usually unexpressed. For example, it could be 'I need better quality leads - leads that display engagement on the website or inside the product or both'. When you appeal to the 'real interests' of your sales teams and succeed at meeting them, you will build trust and emerge as stronger partners. 4. You need to be okay with not being able to resolve 'all' issues. There will always be a few 'open' questions and opinions about the other team that might never get resolved. For example, as a Demand gen marketer, you'd want a multi-touch attribution model to be instituted but sales might never refer to it. In fact, they could vouch for the clarity provided by a last or a first-touch attribution model. Another one - Sales might have feedback on why marketing needs to do more of a certain kind of content (because the competition does) and deep down, you know that it is a nice-to-have, not a must-have. 6. Divide and conquer. collaborate with your counterpart in Product marketing who can help ease off the pressure on you by helping sales win and keeping up the momentum. They make sure Sales are engaged and are enabled with a winning message, collaterals, and direction. 7. Cultivate a champion in the sales team. Do you have someone from Sales who helps validate your Campaign theme and messaging, and vet prospect emails so they don't read marketing(y)? This is the person who will stand up and speak on your behalf when things get tough for you (which they do occasionally). 8. Identify opportunities to build alignment. Invite champions from your sales team to build the buyer journey and the persona map along with you. Collaborate with them when you conceptualize the PQL logic for your PLG motion or define the segmentation strategy for your next campaign. 8. Build an Always-on feedback loop - given the nature of the roles, it is possible that the Sales-Demand generation relationship could get transactional very fast. Avoid this at any cost. As Demand gen marketers, the onus is on us to elevate the discussion (and our relationship) and ask higher-order questions from a place of curiosity (I know this is super difficult and I'm also learning). One way to do this is to find the right opportunity to pose strategic questions such as 'what is good for the business' and 'do we need to revisit our Ideal Customer Profile' as against 'You are not touching these leads fast enough'. Strive, as much as possible, to attain the right balance in every conversation.

Across every role in growth there's one common trait I try to ensure. The ability to look at seemingly disparate data, make sense of it, create hypotheses, and prove or disprove them. Lots of people will answer yes to this if asked as a yes/no question, but the ones that truly get it can articulate examples. These are the folks that take data and turn it into action. I have often seen people be really good at collecting and presenting data, but not be as good at the "so what" part of it.

This is a great question! I can't tell you the number of times I've created content because someone in the C-suite thought it would be a good idea, or because a sales reply simply couldn't close a deal with a highly customized 1-pager. The truth is - content should be created with a purpose. Here are the questions I like to ask when conducting a content audit: * Does this content answer questions our customers are asking? Does it help our customers & prospects accomplish their goals? * How does the reader feel after consuming this piece of content? Does that feeling align with what our goal was when we created the piece? * What is the purpose of this piece of content? Is it still serving that purpose? * How often is this piece of content used, by who, and in what capacity? * When was the last time this content was refreshed? Is this something we want to be a staple in our library? * In what other forms does this content exist (blog, podcast, short video, webinar, etc)? If the answer is none, should it be created in smaller, more digestible snippets? 

In the Demand Generation world, KPI's are ever-evolving but one always remains consistent - "to drive marketing pipeline for the business." When starting out your career in DG, KPI's will be decided by your MLT team and assigned dependent on the annual, bi-annual or quarterly goals. Some of the most common may be dependent on: - a low performing product line needing a boost - a regional team needing pipeline assistance - or a channel needing support As you grow into DG leadership, additional KPI's come into play around driving better ROIs on campaigns, driving down business costs, while delivering additional pipeline, as well as employee development for your team.

1. Cost per $1 of pipeline I see a lot of teams simply focus on cost per lead, then cost per opp, then cost per closed won -- but when you look at cost per $1 of pipeline, or even better, cost per $1 of annual recurring revenue, you will start to understand how efficient your demand gen machine is and where you need to turn the dials for maximum efficiency. ie. targeting more up market to pay a higher cost per lead, and higher cost per opp, but a lower cost per $1 of pipeline because the deal is larger. 2. Customer lifetime value It's important for businesses to understand and track CLV so you know how to allocate resources and optimize their efforts to maximize the return of a customer. If it costs you $500 to acquire a customer that pays $250/yr but you know they churn within the first year, you are actually in the negative. Way more than just the dollar amounts listed above -- there's overhead that doesn't always get calculated -- the cost per rep managing the account, the hourly costs of reps trying to work the deals etc. It's important for teams to not focus on short-term goals but think longer term about the growth and trajectory of the customer for the true overall health and success of the business.

The most effective way to scale a demand generation team after hire #1#1 is by partnering with freelancers and/or agencies. When you first join a company, understand its best and worst-performing channels. Then, compare that performance to your competitors. If your competitors are all benefiting from channels you are underperforming in, those are the areas to experiment in. First, I will run a pilot test in each one of those channels myself. Then, whichever channels show promise, I will look for external support to help scale them further. For example, if I am experimenting with paid search, I will create the first branded and non-branded campaigns just to see if there's any ROI. If the answer is yes, I will then transition into a strategic role and find an agency to help with the execution of it.

Demand Gen is such a fun role (I know, I'm biased) because of the split because art and science. DG provides a unique opportunity to get creative and strategic in crafting new campaigns and programs, while also definitively measuring impact and analyzing results. As such, some of the best Demand Gen marketers I've hired and worked with contain a true passion for that combination, and with that, a deep sense of accountability and ownership over the success of those programs.