AMA: Demandbase Head of Digital Marketing, Matt Hummel on Establishing a Demand Generation Function

I'll provide a high-level framework I've used at a few companies, which is not totally unique to me, but has proven very helpful: First 30 Days: LEARN!!! Products (sit on demos, sales calls, web training), people (primarily your team/relevant stakeholders), process (helpful to know how to get stuff done, plus there are likely areas you'll want to improve at some point BUT don't do that immediately - be patient!), culture, and systems.  Next 30 Days: start to formulate your initial learnings into ...Read More

In my experience there are 3 keys to both developing and retaining top talent: Prioritize and maintain alignment with sales: nobody wants to be doing work that isn't appreciated or that isn't aligned with the organizational priorities and objectives. Create a framework but keep it flexible: it's so important in any DG function to create scale, but it's also important to not stifle individual thought processes or creativity. Lead/guide, but don't force down a certain path Prioritize, prioritize, ...Read More

Build a demand playbook. This forces you to get under the hood on how demand is created at your organization. Map out the entire process from awareness to advocacy, and everything in between. This will help you understand if there are any gaps in the process - for example, is demand gen (or even the organization) only focused on new customer acquisition but doesn't have a process for expanding or retaining?  Compare that with the data - digging into conversion rates throughout each stage. I call ...Read More

I've been in both situations, and you really do need the same talent to be successful, it's just how you prioritize and ultimately staff that can be different.  For example, you'll often see at small companies a sole digital marketer driving demand which unfortunately is mostly through top-of-funnel lead gen activities. Of course you can do more full-funnel with digital, but you're missing so much opportunity if that's your only skill set.  In a small company, if you have someone who knows tech ...Read More