I believe the top traits across demand generation candidates are as follows: * Sense of urgency * Attention to detail * Curiosity * Have a point of view but hold it lightly * Growth mindset, willingness to learn continuously * Solution-oriented thinking

I personally started my career as an entry level contractor at Salesforce, where I worked for 17 years and had 12 different roles. By the time I left, I was a Senior Vice President overseeing a large department that consisted of multiple functions and business units. My high level advice for anyone is to stay curious and slightly uncomfortable – because that will keep you learning and engaged. For recent graduates looking to start a career in Demand Generation, the key is to embrace continuous learning and adaptability. Demand Generation is a multifaceted field that touches many areas of marketing—paid media, content, email, field marketing, and analytics—offering exposure to a wide range of skills. This variety makes it an excellent starting point for those eager to develop a well-rounded marketing foundation. Early in your career, be open to taking on tasks beyond your immediate job description. In an entry-level role, saying yes to new challenges—whether it’s campaign execution, data analysis, or content development—can accelerate your growth. The more you immerse yourself in different aspects of Demand Generation, the more career pathways you create for the future. Since Demand Generation is both strategic and executional, building both soft and hard skills is crucial. Develop analytical skills to understand campaign performance, but also refine communication and collaboration skills to work cross-functionally. Being proactive, resourceful, and willing to experiment will set you apart. Finally, seek mentorship and stay curious. Follow industry trends, ask questions, and leverage every opportunity to learn from experienced marketers. Over time, this broad experience will help you identify your strengths and areas of interest, positioning you for long-term success in marketing. By staying open-minded, taking initiative, and continuously learning, you’ll set yourself up for a thriving career in Demand Generation and beyond.

There isn't a single, linear career path to landing a senior demand generation leadership role. The field of demand generation is multifaceted and draws on various disciplines within marketing and beyond (including pretty much any GTM role). That said, I think there are a couple of commonalities: Some folks start in an entry level Demand Generation role (coordinator), and move straight up the ladder (specialist, manager, director). Moving into these mid-career roles involves focusing specifically on strategies to generate and nurture leads, often in close partnership with the SDR or BDR team. This path offers so many learning opportunities: proficiency in building relationships with Sales, marketing automation tools (e.g., HubSpot, Marketo), Inbound strategy, Outbound strategy and ABM, email nurture programs, funnel conversion rate programs, as well as data/funnel analysis. Many folks get their start in digital: Many professionals begin their careers in roles such as paid media manager, digital marketing specialist, content marketer, or social media manager. You'll gain a ton of critical skills on this path: Understanding of SEO, PPC, email marketing, content strategy, and social media marketing. Other senior demand generation leaders come from generalist backgrounds, and there's nothing wrong with that. That might be product marketing, customer marketing, community, brand or field marketing. Fostering a broad understanding how different marketing functions interact can provide a holistic view of the marketing ecosystem, one that is absolutely critical when you are responsible for the whole enchilada. In this case, you might be leaning harder into broader marketing strategy, cross-functional collaboration, as well as capturing and leveraging customer insights. Those are some common paths and any one of them offers real paths to leadership. But if you are looking to improve your chance to land a Demand Generation leadership role, you can focus more on developing attributes. Those include: * Analytical Mindset: Ability to interpret data and make data-driven decisions. * Technological Proficiency: Familiarity with marketing technologies and platforms. * Creative Thinking: Innovative approaches to campaign development and problem-solving. * Leadership: Inspiring and managing a team effectively. * Communication: Clear communication with stakeholders at all levels. * Relationship building: Often forgotten and neglected, it's one of the very most important skills at the upper most levels of leadership. Final point: I could be wrong but my experience tells me that growth stage startup C level roles (the only space I know) come from one of two backgrounds: PMM or Demand Generation. They are going to hire to solve the problems they are facing. It's usually driving predictable demand first, with a measure of brand building second. Worth considering as you navigate your path towards an upper management role in Marketing

Start by establishing swimlanes with all key stakeholders and leaders, not just within Demand Gen. Map out the teams and define distinct areas of responsibility and roles within the wider organization to ensure that each team knows what they are accountable for. This involves creating boundaries around tasks, projects, and functions to minimize overlap and confusion. Document these roles and review them at least once a quarter, adjusting as needed. Additionally, don’t be afraid of conflict. By embracing disagreement and talking through it, you can build more trust with your internal partners and gain new perspectives that may lead to shifts in organizational planning or responsibilities, ultimately benefiting everyone.

I see Demand Gen as a system—an engine that requires multiple areas of expertise working together to drive awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention. Especially in B2B, where you’re dealing with longer sales cycles and multiple decision-makers, you need a team that can build full-funnel campaigns that nurture prospects from “never heard of us” to “customer for life.” So, who makes up this system? You’ve got performance marketers and paid media specialists making sure we’re reaching the right people at the right time. SEO experts and content strategists are constantly building our organic muscle and positioning us as a thought leader. Then you’ve got conversion rate optimization (CRO) folks ensuring that traffic isn’t just landing on our site—it’s turning into pipeline. The campaign managers/demand gen managers are the ones tying it all together. They develop campaign narratives and motions that move people through the entire buying journey. They need to know the customer inside and out—who we’re targeting, what their pain points are, and how our product solves them. And to get all of that messaging in front of the right audience, we rely on strong product marketers, copywriters and content creators who can engage prospects, whether through ads, blogs, email nurtures, or long-form thought leadership content that builds credibility in the market. On the backend, we need automation specialists and lifecycle marketers nurturing leads and driving expansion opportunities within our existing customer base. And none of this works without Marketing Ops—they’re the ones keeping the whole system running, tracking what’s working, and making sure we’re optimizing conversion rates and lead quality. Finally, we can’t forget Sales. They’re a huge part of the Demand Gen engine, whether they’re doing outbound, working inbound leads, or giving us direct feedback on what’s resonating with customers. Without a tight feedback loop with Sales (and CS, for that matter), we’re just throwing leads into the void and hoping for the best.

Although I’ll provide a framework here, you must consider your top non-negotiables when considering moving to a new company. Where you work, the culture, company size, and solutions likely differ from those around you. When I review a company, I look at the following areas and questions: 1. The Technology / Solution 1. In today’s volatile market, I look for a technology or solution that solves real-world customer problems and is future-proof against a market downturn (e.g., people will still buy this solution in a recession). 2. The company’s TAM today and future potential. Does this solution have the ability to grow, and at what rate does the market expect it to grow? 2. Leadership Team - What does their track record for success look like? For example, if they are pre-IPO, has this leadership team ever led a company to a successful IPO? Do they have a clear future vision for the company? 3. The Direct Team Culture: The direct team you work for can heavily impact your day-to-day. I am looking for a team that is: 1. Collaborative and inclusive, they enjoy working as a team. 2. Willingness to change and take on new ideas. 3. Strong leadership can help us prioritize where we focus our efforts. 4. The Opportunity: The value I believe I’ll get from taking on this role: 1. Will I learn more or something I’ve never done? 2. Is there room for me to make an impact? 3. Will the work be challenging and something different or the same every day?

Despite working at a Fortune 500 company, we're relatively simple. We use a good amount of our own technology (IE: Marketing Cloud for invites at large scale events, Salesforce CRM, Slack, Tableau). For event logistics and project management towards an event, we primarily use Google spreadsheets and Quip. We've also explored Asana to support this as well. We also have our go to agencies and vendors for event production and work with them via Slack. Given how big our event portfolio can be across the company, we have a Tableau dashboard that allows us to see which events are coming up. We also have a self-serve pre-event and post-event Tableau dashboards for our event leads to pull performance. 

The ideal OKRs for demand generation depend on your organization’s specific goals, but they should always align closely with tangible business outcomes, particularly financial targets 💰. Demand generation operates closer to revenue than many other marketing functions, so the focus should be on metrics that directly support the growth and financial health of the business 📈. For example, OKRs shouldn’t primarily center on surface-level metrics like content downloads 📄 or website clicks 🔗. While these are helpful indicators, they’re not the end goal. Instead, demand gen OKRs should emphasize: 1. Pipeline Generation 🚀: * How many Sales Qualified Opportunities (SQOs) are being created? * Are you generating enough pipeline to meet the company’s growth targets? 2. Channel Growth and Optimization 🌟: * Set measurable goals for expanding high-performing channels, e.g., "Increase pipeline from paid search by 10% quarter over quarter." 3. Cross-Functional Partnerships 🤝: * Demand generation often works across multiple business areas, so include OKRs that enhance collaboration. For example, "Improve alignment with sales to increase the conversion rate of SQOs by 5%." By focusing on these areas—pipeline generation 🚀, channel growth 🌟, and collaboration 🤝—you’ll ensure your OKRs are meaningful, impactful, and aligned with broader business objectives.

Congratulations on this exciting opportunity! What a wonderful opportunity and an exciting ride that you're about to embark upon. As someone who has been in a similar position, here’s some of my advice: 1. Don’t underestimate the work culture. Demand Generation is a structured discipline, often relying on data, metrics, and a systematic approach to driving leads and revenue. Your colleagues with creative or brand-focused marketing backgrounds might find this way of working unfamiliar. Take time to understand the existing culture and their style of work—how decisions are made, how success is celebrated, and how teams collaborate. 2. Know that you live in a bubble. As a Demand Generation expert, you bring specialized knowledge, but you may quickly realize others in the organization don’t fully grasp the terminology, concepts, or value of what you’re building. Before you launch your programs, invest time in educating stakeholders and peers. Provide presentations to explain what Demand Generation is, how it works, and how it aligns with the company’s goals. Show teams what success could look like with concrete examples from similar businesses or industry benchmarks. 3. Take everyone on a journey, but know that time is against you. It’s essential to bring colleagues along, especially other parts of the Marketing organization as well as cross-functional partners like Sales, Product, and Customer Success. Build rapport, seek input, and actively campaign for their buy-in. But don’t wait for perfect alignment before getting started—prioritize quick wins to build momentum. For example, launch a pilot campaign targeting a low-hanging fruit segment and share the results to demonstrate early success. 4. Communicate often and clearly. Your role and its impact may not be immediately apparent to everyone. Regular updates—whether through team meetings, email updates, or dashboards—are critical to keeping stakeholders and colleagues informed. Share not just your activities but also your progress against goals. 5. Emphasize the critical nature of your work. Demand Generation is the lifeblood of pipeline creation, and your programs will directly impact revenue. Frame your role as a key partnership with Sales to fuel business growth. Use data to illustrate this connection, such as projecting how your campaigns will contribute to pipeline targets or revenue growth. Position Demand Generation as one critical component to the company’s success—without it, scaling will be nearly impossible. 6. Set up strong foundations. Before diving into tactics, focus on laying the groundwork. Define clear goals and KPIs, establish alignment with Sales on lead definitions and qualification criteria, and ensure your tech stack (e.g., CRM, marketing automation) is ready to support scalable programs. 7. Celebrate small wins and learn from failures. Building something from scratch is a marathon, not a sprint. Celebrate milestones like your first campaign launch, the first MQL that converts to an opportunity, or the first deal influenced by marketing. These moments will help rally the broader team around your efforts. At the same time, learn to fail fast. Be prepared for setbacks and treat them as learning opportunities. Your success in your new role will set the tone for how the company views Demand Generation in the long run so stay curious, adaptable, and focused on driving impact.

Socializing KPIs before and after a campaign is important. It allows all stakeholders to align, prioritize work that impacts these KPIs, and understand performance, including the reasons behind the performance. Before creating KPIs, it's important to understand the following: * Know the campaign messaging and call to action you want users to take: What do we want people to ultimately gain from this campaign? Do you want to drive users to a specific page on your site? Increase free trial sign-ups? Increase demo requests? Is this a top-of-funnel play where you'd want to measure engagement like impressions? It could be a mix of these depending on the campaign, in which case you'd want to account for these various KPIs accordingly. * Have a strong understanding of the different channels promoting the campaign: For example, if email is a large part of the promotion strategy, you'll not only want to include email metrics as KPIs but also include the percentage of sourced traffic from email versus other channels. Aside from determining KPIs, it's also important to establish goals and benchmark comparisons. To do this, you can review performance from similar marketing initiatives or research industry benchmarks and set goals based on these insights. With many moving pieces, it's crucial to communicate your KPIs once you know which ones you want to track and measure. I recommend sharing your KPIs in an easy-to-read template well ahead of your campaign launch to provide time for stakeholders to review and provide feedback. Once a campaign is launched, you can provide an end-of-day KPI performance readout, an end-of-week readout, and an end-of-month readout. Depending on the campaign's longevity, you could also provide additional KPI readouts. For instance, if the campaign is seasonal and only running for a specific amount of time, you'll want to do a final KPI readout once the campaign has ended.