AMA: Calendly Head of Demand Generation, Mindy Servello on Demand Generation Career Path

There are many must-have hard skills for those growing within their demand generation career. 1. Data Analysis: Demand Generation relies heavily on data-driven decision-making. You should be proficient in analyzing marketing data like conversion rates, channel-specific north stars and more in order to identify trends, patterns, and opportunities for optimization. 2. Digital Marketing: A strong understanding of various digital marketing channels and programs within them is essential. This includes knowledge of paid social, display, paid video, paid search and more. Understand what the business impact is for each ex: don't set expectations that paid video will be revenue generating and make sure you understand/communicate the value and impact that a key awareness channel like this drives. 3. TechStack: Familiarity with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems such as Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics is important for tracking customer interactions, managing customer data, and aligning marketing and sales efforts. An understanding of marketing automation platforms like HubSpot, Marketo, or Pardot is crucial for automating repetitive tasks, managing leads effectively, and nurturing prospects through the sales funnel. It's also vital for understanding your lead scoring, routing etc. I think this is the area that sets demand generation mangers that grow in Corporate America apart from those that don't. 4. Content Marketing: Content plays a significant role in Demand Generation. You should have skills in content creation, distribution, and promotion, as well as an understanding of content strategy and how it fits into the overall demand generation framework. 5. A/B Testing and Experimentation: Being able to design and execute A/B tests and other experiments to optimize marketing campaigns and conversion funnels is crucial for continuous improvement and maximizing ROI. 6. Budget Management: As a leader, you'll be responsible for managing marketing budgets and it will continue to grow as you do in your career. Strong financial acumen, being able to justify every dollar allocated and tell the business impact it will make is vital.

A typical career path for a Demand Generation manager that I have seen involves starting within marketing operations or digital marketing. This is not all-inclusive, but I feel is common. Having a background in marketing operations makes for a strong demand generation marketer due to understanding how the business all connects between departments, between the tech stack and important processes like lead scoring, lead routing and more. Digital marketing is also a natural path because these individuals own channels that feed into the demand generation world and drive awareness or revenue for the business. Ultimately though, demand generation requires a person who is hungry, numbers driven and can problem solve quickly. So no matter your current focus, try to learn from the demand gen team at your org and find a community of likeminded marketer - like exitfive! When it comes to moving forward after you have built a solid career within demand generation, natural moves are to continue in this path which could also be named Growth Marketing, Revenue Marketing or Integrated Marketing. From my experience it's just so important to understand that our job is to drive revenue for the business.

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.

CMOs come up from two paths typically - Demand Gen and Product Marketing. Demand Generation is ultimately about driving revenue growth for the organization. Having experience in collaborating with sales, nurturing prospects, triaging conversion issues and expanding within current logos etc. demonstrates your ability to contribute directly to the company's bottom line, a key responsibility of a CMO.