Get answers from demand generation leaders
Carlos Mario Tobon Camacho
Eightfold Senior Director of Demand Generation • April 19
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.
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Kathy O'Donnell
Gong Senior Director, EMEA Marketing • December 21
1. Communication! Shared Slack channels, meet regularly and ask your sales team for input so they feel engaged and involved in decisions. Be transparent about how the marketing budget is spent and what is working and what isn't. 2. Shared KPIs. The biggest mistake is disconnected goals. Having a marketing goal of driving leads and a sales goal of driving revenue rarely works out, in my experience. At a minimum, Demand Gen/Marketing needs a sales-qualified pipeline target to fill the top of the funnel. At best, it's a shared revenue target. 3. Having marketing champions on the sales team can make a big difference. A sales leader who advocates for and voices their appreciation for marketing sets the tone for the rest of the sales organisation. Invest time in building those relationships. 4. Listen back to sales calls and hear the types of objections and discussions they are having. It can often give you ideas for new pieces of content that will resonate well and that your sales team will appreciate. 5. Avoid jumping in to fulfil every request of the sales teams. In all likelihood, you will become much more tactical than strategic and ultimately deprioritise things from your plan that may have had a greater impact. It's always better to provide a rational explanation as to why you believe their suggestion isn't the right thing to do. For example, with event suggestions, I usually find that the target ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) isn't quite right. 6. Have fun! Lunch chats, socialising together, connecting over the coffee machine, finding shared interests. All help build up a more personal relationship that ultimately builds a deeper connection and better working relationship.
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Dan Ahmadi
Branch VP Demand Generation and International Marketing | Formerly Outreach, MuleSoft • September 9
I'd recommending focusing a lot more on engagement and less on lead generation or MQLs. In general, you should know the people you want to engage in each account, and you'll have them already populated in your CRM. This completely eliminates the need for any "lead source" tracking to prove effectiveness. Additionally, you'll want your team to keep engaging the important few until they're ready to take the next step with your company, so measuring actual engagement with marketing materials/programs is key. Several tools out there help with this such as Demandbase and 6Sense, but it can also be homegrown if you have the appetite for it. If I were to oversimplify a lot, assign points based on activities, roll them up to the account level, ensure they decay over time, and then set thresholds based on what matters most for your business. Maybe you need a lot of engagement within a few key contacts, maybe you need the whole village to get activated! If you're not sure, start somewhere, backtest, measure, and iterate.Â
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Liz Bernardo
SquareWorks Consulting Head of Marketing • October 27
Personally, I don't think there is a one single path for Demand Generation. I came into the role by surprise. I was interviewing for a Marketing Manager role at a company, almost 10 years ago and during the interview we were whiteboarding out pipeline funnels. I was talking through waterfall metrics and which type of assets I would place at each stage in the funnel. Then we went on to discuss global digital strategies and then lastly, my favorite, events and the campaigns that surround them. I had lots of experience in SFDC reporting, Pardot and over all dashboarding and my soon to be manager said, "Liz, you're not a Marketing Manager, you're a Demand Generation Manager" (shout out to one of my mentors Allen Johnson) He taught me how to mold all the different parts of marketing I loved into the Demand Generation role. Being a Sales driven marketer, who knows their data, how campaigns work and the best way to create growth quick was the trick. So, my advice as to career path ... Become passionate about all aspects of marketing and sales. Learn the numbers, ask questions to those who are in the roles you strive for. Connect with me on Linkedin (I'm always an open book), research - you've got this.
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Adam Kaiser
6sense VP, Growth Marketing • August 11
To make sure strategies align, you have to ensure that sales and marketing are reading from the same sheet of music. When a marketing team is measured on leads, not opportunities (pipeline/revenue), marketers will determine what tactics produce the most leads and execute on those. Immediately, you have a misalignment of both objectives and tactics. To avoid all of this, measure sales and marketing on the same thing. With both teams looking at opportunities, the tactics to generate pipeline will be front and center.Â
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Nicolette Konkol
Morningstar Global Head of Demand Generation | Formerly Ariba, Taleo, Showpad • July 22
The MarTech stack is only as good as the strategy, people, and process it supports. Invest in the strategy, people, and process to set the foundation, and then select MarTech that will amplify and accelerate that. The MarTech stack at Morningstar includes 6sense, Asana, Bizible, Contentstack, Eloqua, SFDC, BrightTalk, ZoomInfo, and BigMarker
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Moon Kang 🚀
Showpad Director of Digital Marketing & ABM | Formerly a child • January 11
Demand gen is responsible for every stage of the funnel but accountable for stages where they have ~50%+ of the influence on that stage compared to sales. For example, Demand generation at the awareness stage is 100% responsible for delivering that message to the masses by driving the DG machine to those target accounts. Demand gen can support leads that come in by educating them through email and display even while sales reps work that lead. Demand gen also supports leads down to stage 2-3 SFDC by displaying social proof campaigns, and email campaigns about social proof, and even host events to invite prospects and clients to close big deals. Every stage after that is beyond demand gen in my opinion. There are ad hoc cases where custom landing pages, custom sales decks, and custom ROI packages are created and delivered but that's a tight partnership with sales so both marketing & sales are accountable for that.Â
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Sruthi Kumar
Notion Account-Based Marketing - Lead | Formerly Sendoso • August 10
I start making a list of what I want in my next role during my current role. I don't wait until anything is bad or tough, I just start compiling the list when inspiration hits me. (ex. Own a pipeline number, or report straight into the CMO). For the role itself I look for some of the items I write on my list, opportunity for career growth, and managers that I can learn from. In terms of the company itself I look for product-market fit, opportunity for company growth, understanding their sales stats, and a product that I feel excited about/passionate about. Most importantly I also look for a team that I like, because let's be real—we spend so much time with our coworkers, I need to like them!
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Jordan Hwang
OpenPhone VP of Marketing • April 21
I generally like to communicate through two types of vehicles: Weekly progress updates - this is meant to convey what's happening now * Performance metrics (absolute numbers, performance vs. goal, YoY %) * Drivers of above performance (i.e. what's causing it) * Adjustments that will be made given the drivers (i.e. what are we doing differently?) * Where we're stuck (i.e. how readers can assist) Monthly progress updates - this is meant to convey overall progress against a larger strategic plan * Performance (monthly to give context) * Initiatives that we committed to doing at the start of the plan (more context as to the what and the why) * Progress of those initiatives * Bottlenecks * Adjustments that we'll making based on what we learned (this reflects more against initiatives and where we're spending time)
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Abhishek GP
Freshworks Inbound Growth • July 29
I am fortunate to be a part of a journey where both the span and the scope of what a Demand generation team does have evolved over time. In my experience, the role of what a Demand gen team does will and should change as the organization matures. In the early days, in most orgs, Demand gen manages all things that touch a buyer - SEO, Website, Performance marketing, and Content marketing. As the org evolves, the role gets elevated in a few areas but leaner in others. For example, the concept of Integrated Campaigns/storytelling gets introduced, which becomes the primary driver of marketing-sourced revenue. At the same time, the organization hires experts to lead Website experience & strategy, and this role could move out and live under a separate team (product management or brand marketing). Two good ways to approach these decisions: 1. Be aware of your place under the sun: It is important to know where your organization is (what's working and not; how is marketing perceived internally; what should change) and map this intelligence to your current role and how it needs to evolve so you are able to add more value to the organization while still being in the same role 2. Do not negotiate on 'positions': The standard method of approaching these discussions is usually based on a 'position' that you and the other team choose to take. The more extreme these positions, the longer the time and effort it will take to discover whether an agreement is possible. It could also put your relationship in danger. What's worked for me in the past is to insist on a 'common criteria' that defines success for the business. Let's say you define the 'common criteria' as improving website conversion by X% and engagement by Y%. Which is a better team to own this initiative, and has the bandwidth, the better team structure, and capable and experienced resources?
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