AMA: Databricks Senior Group Manager, Demand Generation, Kayla Rockwell on Scaling a Demand Generation Team

The best candidates have a ruthless attention to detail, this is by far the most important trait in my view. Without it planning, managing, executing, and scaling campaigns becomes nearly impossible. Additionally stellar demand gen team members understand the importance of building true cross-functional relationships. I encourage new members to take the first half of all regularly scheduled 1 on1s to chat about non-work related things, and really get to know your PMM, MOPS, web, paid counterparts. As campaign managers we rely on other teams to get work dones and sometimes on short notice, strong relationships will help you deliver.

Communication to the broader department or company (depending on size) is key. I often find long emails or slack chats with updates get lost in the shuffle. Holding a standing meeting may be a better route. Find a cadence that works (weekly, monthly, or quarterly), create a consistent agenda so folks know what to expect, and make it fun. We award a 'beast mode' at the end of each meeting to a cross functional team member who has gone above and beyond. This helps to drive attendance folks want to see who wins beast mode. Make sure you're adding value to attendees or they'll stop showing up. Structuring the call with metrics (actual to target) along with program highlights is a good start. Did you just run a webinar? How did it do? What promo plan did you execute? Many cross functional teams find immense value in this, everyone from creative (seeing what graphics did or didn't work in driving response) to PMM, MOPs, and more. If you have other teams like field marketing, local geos (APAC, EMEA, etc) make sure to include them so they can showcase programs and share learnings.

There will likely be a crossover in a few KPIs between DG and PMM. This however is not a bad thing, it ensures your PMM counterparts are invested in making sure GTM activities are successful. For example both groups might take an opportunity target. For DG this is our bread butter. For PMM it helps drive behavior around not just putting assets and programs into market but marking sure they are helping to drive quality leads all the way through the funnel. PMM will likely focus on, to name a few: * Delivering customer references and case studies * driving product adoption and enablement * site visitors or web traffic to specific pages or within a target audience * execute product launches * various thought leadership items like favorable AR endorsements DG will likely focus on: * Funnel performance * Responses/form fills * MQLs (quality/quantity) * Opportunities (count/ $ value) * Upsell/cross sell

A team of one has the opportunity to lay the foundation for a solid demand generation function. That being said, it's important to ensure a thoughtful and scalable approach. You'll need to choose 1 or 2 main KPIs to impact, you should work with sales and PMM to form a point of view. You might choose traffic and form fills to start depending on the maturity of your business. Or you might choose MQLs and Opportunities. Once you have your KPIs identified you can begin crafting the right mix of programs to achieve your targets. Generally speaking I recommend an 80/20 split, 80% always on programs, think trial, ebooks, on demand webinars, AR, etc and 20% point in time (PIT) live webinars, training, hands on etc. Especially for a team of one you need to prioritize programs that will help you get the most out of your efforts. You’ll never be able to run enough webinars to keep up with growing targets, so it's important to build a solid always on engine and supplement with PIT. 

A team of one has the opportunity to lay the foundation for a solid demand generation function. That being said, it's important to ensure a thoughtful and scalable approach. You'll need to choose 1 or 2 main KPIs to impact, you should work with sales and PMM to form a point of view. You might choose traffic and form fills to start depending on the maturity of your business. Or you might choose MQLs and Opportunities. Once you have your KPIs chosen you can begin crafting the right mix of programs to achieve your targets. Generally speaking I recommend an 80/20 split, 80% always on programs, think trial, ebooks, on demand webinars, AR, etc and 20% point in time (PIT) webinars, training, hands on etc. Especially for a team of one you need to prioritize programs that will help you get the most out of your efforts. You’ll never be able to run enough webinars to keep up with growing targets, so it's important to build a solid always on engine.

This is a tricky one as the business can often communicate all of these features and products are equally important. In reality it often creates too many messages for your audience if you try to go after them all at the same time, not to mention it will quickly burn one to two people out! Consider spending time with product marketing to map out a focus over the next quarter or two. Really force the conversation around prioritization. Pick a product or two or combo of features and ladder them up to a theme or concept. Figure out the story you want to tell and execute on that whether that be through ebooks, whitepapers, webinars, etc. Then repeat for the next quarter. Your prospects and customers will benefit from a focused and directed journey. Ideally the product or feature you focus on in one quarter should lead to the focus for the next quarter so it feels cohesive. Last thing to note, creating an effective an efficient always on engine will significantly ease this burden. I recommend an 80/20 split. 80% of your efforts should be focused on driving always on (trial, ebooks, whitepapers, web, etc) and 20% should be focused on Point in Time (PIT) (webinars, trainings, hands on). As your portfolio of always on assets grows it will naturally cover more products.

Use Data. Data is often the best way to help show people a new path forward. I like to say data democratizes the decision making process. It helps ensure everyone has a seat at the table, not just the loudest or most senior voice in the room. Data alone is not enough. You’ll need to ensure you have carefully planned out the story you want to tell. A succinct well done strategy will have a clear ‘so what’ and will use data to back up the points, culminating in a singular recommendation. You have to bring people along when there is a legacy mindset present, help them see why this new way is better. If you don’t have access to a plethora of data, pull in industry stats and best practices, this can also help when an organization’s data and tracking isn’t exactly where it needs to be.