This is a great question! Demand generation marketing and content marketing should work hand-in-hand to achieve broader marketing objectives. When identifying KPIs and metrics to measure demand generation and content marketing together, you should consider the type of content being distributed and the channels through which it's being distributed. This will help determine your KPIs. For example, a blog post may not have the same KPIs as a gated piece of content or a video. The channel mix of promotions will also factor into KPIs. Is this a larger integrated marketing campaign that will require a more extensive mix of promotions and budget? Or is this a smaller campaign, perhaps targeted at a specific/smaller audience, that won't require as much external distribution and promotion? Once you understand these components, you can determine your KPIs. Here are some general KPIs to consider: * Number of site sessions to a blog post * For gated content: Conversion rates, form fills * Number of video views * MQLs, SQLS, sourced opps and/or influenced opps from the content being promoted (how many deals/opps were generated or influenced by this content) * Impressions * Share of voice * SEO metrics - keyword rankings, organic search traffic to the content

When I think about measurement gone wrong, my first question is typically about the marketer, not the KPI. All KPIs can be useful, assuming your measurement is scalable (i.e., it doesn’t take a week to do the analysis) and you are using them appropriately (i.e., context is everything). That said, here are some metrics that I generally find less material to understanding the health of the business: 1. Impressions/Followers/Engagement: In a world overrun by bots, ad impressions, social media followers, and engagement metrics have become less relevant. You’d be surprised how many companies with massive social media followings built their audiences by purchasing cheap likes from engagement farms. 2. Frontend Email Metrics: Between email preview panes skewing results and well-documented issues stemming from privacy updates introduced in iOS 15, open rates have become far less relevant in recent years and are no longer sufficient to understand if your message is resonating. 3. CPL & Raw Lead Metrics Without Context: Lots of marketers fall into the trap of driving down CPL at the expense of lead quality. There's no faster way to lose the trust of your sales colleagues than flooding them with low-quality leads & expecting them to convert.

Having transferrable skills and being able to show examples that tie into the specific job requirements will help convince the hiring manager that you are the right candidate. If you have an extensive marketing background, you already have a leg up on your fellow peers. Demand generation encompasses a lot of different skills (analytics, project management, communication, understanding of marketing principles and channels, etc). If you look back on your experience, I'm certain that you can find some connections.

AI will complement Demand Generation. AI is only as bright as you train it to be, so smart marketers need to choose the right dimensions and factors for AI to leverage. Tools will only get you so far, but ultimately, without humans to spot-check efforts, you will see AI learn and optimize for the wrong things and then provide a poor customer experience. I’m excited about AI’s future in Demand Generation. I believe that if you create strong foundational elements like taxonomy, reporting infrastructure, CDPs, content management systems etc., and then you feed all your data into a single place, you can use AI models to serve the right offer to the right person in the right place across their buyer’s journey. But you must have the right people with the technology prowess and the creativity to alter offers to improve your results and truly create an omnichannel journey.

Depending on your business model and offering, I recommend first and foremost partnering with your cross-functional stakeholders and building trust. For example, in a traditional B2B sales led go-to-market motion, you should make it a point to become best friends with your sales leadership team and understanding what is most important to them. If you're not aligned with what is important to sales, it'll be very difficult to see success. If you're part of a self-service SaaS go-to-market motion, partnering with Product leadership will be critical so you can work together to understand product dependencies that lead to successful customer acquisition while decreasing product barriers for customers.

* Own: * Lead volume and quality (MQLs, SQLs). * Campaign performance (CTR, conversion rates). * Pipeline contribution and ROI of demand gen efforts. * Don’t Own: * Pure revenue metrics (owned by sales). * Customer retention and expansion (owned by customer success). Focus on the metrics you directly influence and partner closely with sales to ensure alignment.

It’s crucial for Demand Generation professionals to see how their contributions align with larger company goals and strategy. This fosters a sense of purpose and keeps them invested in the organization’s success. Given the cross-functional nature of the role, offer senior team members the opportunity to lead strategic workstreams rather than being limited to tactical execution. This not only increases their impact but also enhances their leadership skills and long-term career prospects. To retain top Demand Generation talent, provide a clear career path with opportunities for growth. Ensure they are continuously challenged with stretch projects that expand their skill set and keep them engaged. While empowerment is key, leadership must also offer necessary support and “air cover” to help them navigate obstacles effectively. By fostering growth, empowerment, and strategic involvement, you create an environment where top talent feels valued and motivated to stay.

Demand generation often serves as a bridge between sales and product, but the way I collaborate with each team can vary significantly. Here’s my high-level approach: * Understand business goals and metrics: Focus on understanding the goals and metrics each team owns. Sales typically tracks revenue-related KPIs like pipeline and bookings, while the product team focuses on adoption metrics - such as activation and retention - and usage, including breadth and depth. In self-serve model, product might also prioritize the growth of paying customers and self-serve revenue. To align demand generation efforts, work to establish shared goals or, at minimum, clarify how marketing supports these objectives. * Use BI reporting for alignment: I eliminate silos with joint dashboards built in Tableau and Looker, tailored to each team’s needs - real-time pipeline for sales, usage trends for product. Understanding how data is captured ensures reporting aligns with their priorities, keeping everyone on the same page. * Create consistent rituals: We review these dashboards in weekly or bi-weekly cadence with respective teams, spotting business trends and adjusting demand gen/ sales/ product strategies. Note: You can also create separate reporting for operational purposes, tailored for the marketing team to use alongside joint dashboards Example of marketing/ sales alignment: * Marketing contributes % into the overall pipeline. * Marketing/ sales meet weekly using Tableau, pulling data from Salesforce and other sources and analyze top-funnel (eg. leads, MQLs, SQLs) and down-funnel metrics (eg. meetings, Stage 1 opps), tracking conversion rates between stages. This reveals issues - like slow MQL-to-SQL progression - prompting discussions and joint solutions. Example of marketing and product alignment: * Marketing plays a crucial role in driving customer acquisition and activation. * Collaborate with the product team to use Tableau or another tool to track and visualize performance metrics end-to-end, from acquisition through to retention and paid conversion.

This is another one where the answer shifts dramatically based on the company, the team, the market their in, etc. Maturity of the org. If an org is young and in those early growth stages with limited brand recognition, I might recommend some default rule of thumb like an 80/20 outbound-to-inbound split at first. Then gradually shifting toward 50/50 as inbound marketing gets better, channels mature, etc. A more mature company with established inbound demand might only need 30% outbound to supplement inbound leads. Though lots of very mature orgs are still at around 50/50. What kind of data you have. If you know enough about the companies ARR goals vs historical conversion rates and can reliably (very important word) reverse engineer the funnel then you can back into the right balance. If inbound lead velocity is strong but can’t scale fast enough, I’ll recommend a heavier outbound mix. If inbound is highly efficient but underutilized, we optimize that first before leaning into outbound as a volume play. What your target audience actually prefers, what behaviors. For a dev centric SaaS company, I’d lean on an inbound-heavy strategy since the audience prefers self-research and trials. In contrast, for a high-ACV enterprise SaaS offering, outbound will need to do more heavy lifting early in the funnel, supported by ABX-style inbound plays. Internal makeup of your company. If the company has a lean marketing team but a strong sales team, then start by maxing out what you can get from them and goal marketing on making up the delta, shifting more toward inbound over time, with the goal of surpassing outbound eventually. If the company is investing heavily in brand and content, a more even mix can drive efficiency over time.

By it's very nature, a Product-Led approach usually focuses on offering a free trial of a product that is relatively inexpensive. It focuses on volume and digital interactions - and marketing should be sourcing the majority of revenue for the company. This means higher marketing budgets, more marketing staff, and a lower number of sales reps. The term "Product-Led" is really a misnomer, because marketing is a key piece of the equation to drive folks in. The free trial itself needs to offer an excellent experience - but marketing also needs to be engaging with prospects every single step of the way before, during, and after their trial. This likely includes channels such as advertising, content, email, and utilizing in-app tutorials and banners. Alternatively, a sales-led company likely requires strong relationship building with buyers, and has a longer sales cycle and a higher selling price. However, don't let the terms "sales-led" fool you - marketing needs to be there working hand-in-hand with sales to drive maximum outcomes. This usually just means marketing is sourcing less of the revenue directly (say, 40% instead of 80%) and there are less marketing heads per new business dollar brought in. Marketing channels used should be more highly targeted, and should incorporate more high-touch programs in collaboration with sales reps. ABM approaches are better fits for this environment.