AMA: Calendly Head of Demand Generation, Mindy Servello on Demand Generation Strategy

Test, test, test. Have those fundamental channels built out so that you feel confident you can hit your ARR/pipeline goals with them alone and always save a bucket or time/money to experiment. That is the only way you'll learn what work for your business, stay relevant and push the business forward. when something shows to be promising, pour gasoline on it. When it doesn't, kill it fast. This testing to prove out what does/doesn't work also requires you to understand the data of your organizatio ...Read More

When creating a GTM strategy for a SLG company, demand generation should be pulling in sales, marketing leadership, solution marketing, content marketing and potentially others depending on the business structure. Once there is an STP crafted (see other question on strategy) between demand generation and solution marketing, it's time to run it by sales. Getting their feedback is vital because they are the feet on the ground and have qualitative insights you cannot pull from a data warehouse. Thi ...Read More

When creating a go-to-market strategy, first follow the data to nail down the bread-and-butter channels that produce the results needed. From there, back out of your goals (ex: ARR through leads) to understand how much investment (whether time or money) you need to make in order to hit your goals with those alone. The second bucket is experimentation! While knowing your mature channels that have been optimized to generate ARR is important - diversification is just as vital. You never know when a ...Read More

Before getting to results, there should be an expectation set with the demand generation team that everything must have a hypothesis crafted before going to market. Then you report on that. I have found many marketers do not do this foundational step which can result in just doing work for works sake, not really knowing if something really performed to expectation and data dumps are the norm rather than clearly articulated expectations vs. results. Having a hypothesis crafted allows this tactic ...Read More

Before going to market, I believe any strong demand generation practitioner or leader needs the segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) crafted. An STP is a three-part formula to help marketers segment their audience, target the right buyers and/or influencers and position their solutions in a way to make the biggest impact. An STP will allow demand generation to understand who (company and person) they are targeting and what they are saying to them. Not only that, but it drives alignment ...Read More

This truly depends on business goals. I typically have seen business goals broken out by both net new business and expansion. I consider weight of the ARR/pipeline goals per motion when planning out my team's time, strategy and budget, but it isn't the only factor to consider. There are so many areas outside of demand generation and marketing that can drive expansion - customer success, sales, etc. - so it can be more organic. That said, if expansion is a huge business priority, I have also had ...Read More

When it comes down to it, revenue goals are what demand generation targets should be based off. When it comes to sales quotas, it's important to keep tabs on them because it signals the health of the sales organization which demand generation should always have a pulse on. When there is a territory or AE that is struggling to hit quota, demand generation can use this to start a conversation and see where they need support. Depending on how the team is structured, you'll often find trends. For ex ...Read More

Trust is just as vital in B2B as it is in B2C. I think trust is built with many factors and having a great corporate marketing function greatly helps, but one main driver that demand generation can focus on is validity. Specific third-parties and customers are great for showcasing your organizations validity, competence and capability. For third-parties - analysts quickly show the validity of your company and product which increases trust. Prospects/customers already have trust built with certai ...Read More