From your perspective, who is the most critical piece on a demand-gen team?
A program manager is my number 1 hire on a Demand Generation team. This person:
Monitors the funnel, leads coming in, and their conversion to pipeline
Project manages all aspects of a campaign
Launches the campaign messaging on the necessary channels
Monitors success and reports back on progress
Without a program manager, there is a strategy gap on your campaigns. You might be launching ads, but what is the bigger picture they tie to? Or you might be sending emails, but how do those emails tie to goals?
It depends on the stage of growth, but if I had to pick one, I’d say Marketing Operations & Analytics. You can have the best creative, a well-funded ad budget, and an airtight product positioning, but if you can’t measure what’s working, optimize campaigns, or prove impact, then you’re just throwing money into the void. Marketing Ops is what makes everything run smoothly. They make sure leads are getting scored and routed correctly, that attribution is set up so we know what’s actually driving pipeline, and that we’re focused on quality over quantity.
Because that’s a big trap—thinking that more leads means better performance, it doesn’t. If you’re bringing in leads that aren’t high-intent or a good fit, they won’t convert, and all you’ve done is inflate vanity metrics. That’s why having an Ops function is critical from the start.
Once that foundation is solid, the next hire really depends on the business’s goals. If acquisition is a priority, then a paid media or growth marketing specialist makes sense. If you’re targeting larger accounts, you need ABM expertise. If retention is an area of focus, then a lifecycle marketer should be next.
But none of those roles can function properly without a strong Ops foundation. If your data is a mess, your lead flow is broken, and your reporting isn’t giving you the insights you need, scaling becomes impossible. Operations is the backbone of a successful Demand Gen team. Without it, everything slows down.
It's tough question. It's really a team effort. You have multiple disciplines like performance marketing, field marketing, analytics, ABM, email marketing, MarTech. Each of these plays a really important role. If I could only have 1 hire and still needed to drive demand, I'd choose a growth marketer who has experience in performance ads, email marketing, website CRO, and inbound marketing tactics.