AMA: Stack Overflow Vice President, Demand Generation, Eric Martin on Demand Generation Career Path

I wish I had a rosier outlook, but I think demand gen is actually going to get gradually more challenging as time goes on. I think that the profession itself is going to need to move away from things like PII exchange through gated forms, and focus more on value delivery to the viewer/reader/consumer. Global digital privacy regulation is more likely to expand than contract at this point. I think the way companies measure demand generation is going to need to evolve as well - with broader full-fu ...Read More

In order to become a demand gen leader, you need to understand how to empower your team to execute to the best of their ability, and also forge a professional development path for every team member. Sure, there are skills like effective budgeting, managing cost efficiencies of channels, and typical manager-level skills such as performance management and coaching. But ultimately, a demand gen leader has many similarities to a CMO: the people that are on a demand gen team have many disparate disci ...Read More

There is definitely not a single career path for demand gen. Everyone must carve their own path based on the existing skills they have today, and being honest about what they really want to do in the future. I began my career with a heavy focus on developing my skills with marketing tech and operations, and invested heavily in enterprise marketing skills - such as developing a total addressable market and go-to-market strategy, account-based marketing and paid media management. A good overall ba ...Read More

Absolutely! I think every CMO has their core strength, and usually builds their team around the expertise they need to get the job done. I've worked with brand-focused CMOs, demand-focused CMOs and product-focused CMOs. Each brings unique leadership ability to the table, and their strengths are usually intentionally sought out by the executive teams that bring them on. A larger company might not need growth as much, and might need a strong PR strategy - they might seek out a brand CMO. Series A ...Read More

The leap from manager-level to director-level demand gen leadership might be one of the biggest lifts in career development. Being a manager, coaching, and making sure your team is performing well and achieving goals are manager-level skills. Being able to develop a vision, strategy and creating a plan to executing on it is director-level.  Directors are often given more substantial resources and budgets, and therefore held accountable at a higher level much more often. I think one of the most o ...Read More

This could be an extremely long answer, but I'll condense it to having the ability to manage large cross-functional projects and finding a mentor (or two) to help guide you along your path. Managing cross-functional projects may seem like a boring answer, but it's absolutely critical to get things done in a revenue organization. Modern revenue teams in SaaS, for example, have many functions: Sales, marketing, customer success, revenue operations, and enablement are some of the key areas. In the ...Read More