AMA: Apollo.io Director of Social, Community & Customer Marketing , Katie Jane Parkes on Demand Generation Career Path

I think the "typical" career path for a demand gen manager is becoming less and less typical and I think that's a good thing. The traditional trajectory looks something like this: marketing coordinator or specialist to demand gen manager to senior manager to director to VP of demand gen or VP of marketing. And that path is still very real and very valid. But what I'm seeing more and more is that the best demand gen leaders aren't coming up through one straight line. They're coming from content, ...Read More

My favorite interview question is deceptively simple: tell me about a piece of work you're proud of and why it was successful. That's it. But the answers tell me almost everything I need to know. First, it tells me whether someone has genuine pride and joy in their work. You can feel it immediately when it's there... there's an energy in how they talk about it, a specificity, a lightness. And you can feel just as quickly when it isn't. In creative work especially, that joy is non-negotiable for ...Read More

I've basically been answering this question all AMA long, so I'll try not to repeat myself too much. But if I had to distill it down to two things: The first is to build a point of view that is distinctly and unapologetically yours. Not a borrowed framework or the playbook everyone else is running. Yours. That means investing in yourself outside of work: your taste, your creative experiences, your curiosity about the world. The marketers who stand out right now aren't the ones who read all the s ...Read More

I actually answered a version of this earlier in the AMA so go find it! But the one thing I'd add specifically for entry-level roles is this: don't wait for the title to start doing the work. Write publicly about what you're learning, run a small experiments, volunteer to support a demand gen team even informally, or join a demand gen community. In a world where everyone is trying to break in, a portfolio of real thinking and real attempts will always beat a resume that just says "I'm interested ...Read More

This is such an important question and honestly one I feel strongly about because the answer isn't just about metrics, it's about the impact story you tell with them. At most companies, a raise or promotion isn't just about hitting your numbers, it's about demonstrating that you're operating above the level you're currently being paid for. That means showing impact, not just activity. There's a big difference between "I ran 12 campaigns this quarter" and "the campaigns I ran influenced $2M in pi ...Read More

I have so many feelings about this. The biggest one is the brand ROI debate and honestly I'm exhausted by it. Brand is the new demand (I genuinely believe that) but try telling that to a room full of people who only trust last-click attribution. The frustrating reality is that some of the most important work we do is the hardest to put a number on. The video that went viral in a customer's Slack channel. The community post that made someone feel so seen they signed up that day. The influencer's ...Read More

I think you know this, but just to be crystal clear... I didn't come from sales, so I'm going to answer this from a slightly different angle than you might expect. I came from film sets and nonprofit arts organizations. Before I ever wrote a creative brief for a tech company, I was assistant directing a feature film in Scotland and volunteering at independent film festivals. My path into demand gen was anything but linear, and honestly, I think that's exactly why I feel so strongly that the "unc ...Read More

The onus is on you. I know that's not the answer people want to hear, but it's the most important thing I can tell you about getting promoted at any company, at any level. There are two things you need to own completely. The first is knowing where you want to go and actually telling people. Your manager should be there to support you in figuring that out, but they can't read your mind. Tell them. Then tell other key leaders and mentors in the organization too. That's how you build champions—the ...Read More

The thing about demand gen that most people don't realize is that it's not actually about generating demand for a product. You're generating demand for an idea. And when you think about it that way, every single function in a company is doing demand gen whether they know it or not. Product needs buy-in for a roadmap decision. Sales needs to earn someone's attention in a crowded inbox. Customer success needs to drive adoption of a feature nobody asked for. Engineering needs resources for a projec ...Read More

Pure growth marketing isn't my lane. If you're looking for someone to break down attribution modeling or paid acquisition playbooks, there are other people much better suited to answer that. But here's what I can tell you, because there's a version of growth marketing I live every single day: influencer marketing, community-led growth, and customer advocacy are all growth disciplines and the qualities that make someone exceptional at those things are probably not what you'd expect. In my opinion ...Read More

I never chose demand gen over sales, demand gen kind of chose me. I didn't come from sales. I came from film sets and nonprofit arts organizations and a deep obsession with storytelling that I had absolutely no idea how to turn into a career in tech. What I eventually figured out is that demand gen and brand marketing was the place where my creative brain and my analytical brain could finally exist in the same room without fighting each other. I think the more interesting question is why someone ...Read More

I think it's having a moment and maybe not for the reasons you'd expect.Out of home used to feel like a brand awareness play for companies with massive budgets and nothing better to do with them. Billboards. Bus shelters. The kind of thing you'd greenlight when you'd already done everything else and had money left over.But something has shifted. We're living in this weird dual reality right now... on one side, there's this massive push toward AI tooling, automation, tightening up internal infras ...Read More

People are going to get so sick of hearing this, but the most important AI skill isn't technical at all, it's taste. As AI makes content creation faster and cheaper for everyone, the thing that will separate great demand leaders from average ones is the ability to look at what AI produces and know whether it's actually good. Know when it sounds hollow. Know when the story is missing. Know when to push further and when to ship it. The second skill I'd put at the top of the list is prompt engineer ...Read More