My recommendation is to apply and not be discouraged. Learn as much as you can on the subject. If you are able to have a good understanding conceptually, you will stand out among the other candidates that may not gone the extra mile. Be open to any entry level role in Marketing that even remotely works closely with the demand gen team. Sometimes these roles won't have a demand generation title. Marketing analyst, sales development rep, digital marketing specialist, or marketing coordinator are all paths that lead into Demand Generation. When there is an opportunity to work on a cross functional project that interfaces with the DG team - jump on it and show them how helpful you are.

You're right this is hard to do, and I'm sure you'd get different answers from different Demand Gen leaders. When you lack historical data for a given region to inform goal setting, the two most useful inputs are a) business objectives and b) comps from other regions where you are marketing to similar buyers. Business objectives should inform your investment level, mix, and funnel metrics. For example, if you need to generate $1M in incremental bookings from the region by the end of your first year in that market and your typical sales cycle is 90-180 days, you know that you need to set MQL and pipeline targets in the first two quarters that provide sufficient coverage. Comps from other regions can also be useful in forecasting CPL and setting appropriate goals by channel. For example, if you are running SEM campaigns in North America, you likely already have a sense of the average cost per acquisition from paid search. You can then use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, etc. to determine which of your campaigns will translate to the new markets you are entering based on search volume, estimated CPC, etc.

Misalignment at the top. When marketing and sales leaders are not aligned, it will trickle down to confusion, frustration and a lack of efficiency for the business. While you cannot control who is in each seat and their opinions/relationships, you can do your best to vert it out during interviewing for new opportunities.

Always approach the discussion with an open mind to understand the “why” behind the ask. When people come to you asking about ownership it may be to create clarity, remove duplicative work, or something else. Once you understand the “why” you can start to dive into the specifics of the project workflows and areas of ownership to have a discussion on the “how” to solve it. This then becomes a discussion on the process, pieces of the project, and potentially re-reviewing a RACI built previously. If this impacts headcount or resources leadership may need to weigh in. By coming in with a curious mindset, I’ve found people are excited to be heard, and you learn how to work better together and build a try compromise where needed. 

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.

* Start With Company Goals: Align OKRs with overarching business objectives (e.g., pipeline targets, new market penetration). * Set Cascading OKRs: Break down the company’s goals into actionable demand gen objectives. For instance: * Objective: Generate $2M in pipeline this quarter. * Key Results: Launch 3 campaigns, achieve $500k pipeline per campaign, drive 100 SQLs. * Project Mapping: Each OKR ties to specific initiatives. For example, a webinar might target pipeline generation for a specific segment.

Effective OKRs for demand gen are measurable objectives that drive impact or growth in key areas such as acquisition, pipeline, awareness, and engagement. Before creating OKRs, it's crucial to have a firm grasp of not only your team's specific goals but also the broader company objectives. This ensures that your marketing efforts and the OKRs you develop will ladder up to these higher-level objectives. This approach elevates your OKRs from good to great and enables you to tailor them more effectively, making them more specific and relevant. For instance, if launching a new product is a top company-wide priority, then your OKRs should be refined accordingly. Here are a couple of examples: * Decent OKR: Source X% of site traffic * Better OKR: Source X% of traffic to the new product site page * Decent OKR: Source $X in sourced opportunities * Better OKR: Source $X in sourced opportunities, with Y% being new product opportunities

Let me unpack this question. #1 Team structure and size There’s no one-size-fits-all approach here. How you structure a demand gen team depends on a few key factors: * Business maturity and goals: Are you in startup mode or scaling a mature operation? * Company growth rate: YoY growth and pace shape resource needs. * Current team and marketing org: What’s the skill set, experience level, and output of your existing team? How do they fit into the broader marketing structure? The key is to align the team with the business strategy. Start by assessing the current state: What’s the growth trajectory? What’s the demand gen team delivering now, and where’s the gap for the next 1-2 years? From there, consider: * Cross-functional partners: Demand gen doesn’t work in a vacuum. Sales and product teams are your starting point - map out who else you need to collaborate with. * External support: Do you need agencies to fill gaps or scale efforts? Two common setups I’ve seen work well: * Channel-focused: Each person owns a channel (eg. paid media, email, events). This suits mid-sized businesses with clear lanes. * Campaign/demand gen orchestration: In larger companies, demand gen acts as a hub, coordinating with stakeholders to build and execute integrated demand gen plans. #2 Measuring success Keep it simple with a streamlined OKR framework. Every individual should know exactly how their work ties back to the team’s objectives and which metric they’re driving or influencing. As you set OKRs, define roles clearly: * Drivers: Who owns the metric and pushes it forward? * Supporters: Who contributes to the effort? Map this out so everyone sees their piece of the puzzle. Clarity here is everything - success metrics only work if they’re specific, measurable, and tied to the bigger picture.

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.

I love this question, though it’s a challenging one because there are plenty of KPIs that can be misleading or even counterproductive to commit to. Generally, I believe it's best to avoid KPIs that seem too easy, too vague, or overly flattering. The reason is simple: there are countless ways to tweak metrics to make them appear more favorable than they actually are. Common Quantitative Pitfalls (often volume-based without a quality component): -Leads collected during an event: For instance, it’s easy to boost lead numbers by simply scanning badges at the keynote entrance without real interaction. Many tradeshows now have strict guidelines on when, where, and how to scan leads to avoid these issues (I sense some crazy stories behind these rules). You may need 10 conversations at an event to get great results. -Email open rates: These can be inflated by factors like bots opening emails or people who want to unsubscribe... -Cost per lead (CPL): This one is particularly tricky. CPL can often be optimized in ways that look impressive on paper but don’t translate to real value. High CPL might yield more leads quickly, but without quality, it can flood SDRs with poor leads, erode trust in Demand Gen, and disrupt sales-marketing alignment. In my experience, CPL is one of the riskiest KPIs to commit to without a focus on quality. Qualitative Pitfall: Committing to Company Names and Job Titles (Another Favorite Example) This may sound counterintuitive, but committing to only high-quality leads based on company names, job titles, and professional email addresses can have unexpected drawbacks. In one case, we prioritized leads with ideal company names, professional emails, and fitting job titles, yet conversion rates declined over time. The reason? Cold channels like content syndication and LinkedIn Lead Gen were generating these ‘ideal’ leads, and more qualified leads without specific companies or emails (e.g., trial or demo requests) were deprioritized, which slowed down the sales pipeline on the long term. Ultimately, the best KPIs balance quality with impact across the full funnel.