What are the biggest frustrations you have as a Demand Generation manager?

My biggest frustration is the fact that sometimes programs work really well and then two months later, that same program will just not work. It's tough when you forecast a certain volume of new names or registrants coming in and it doesn't hit. There are some factors that influence this like seasonality (summer time or holiday months can influence the effectiveness of a program) or world events like a pandemic. 

While this is a frustration, it is the reason why demand gen leaders should have a good mix of programs every month/quarter in order to hit their pipeline goals, because that program you are banking on just may not hit.

It can be incredibly frustrating when other teams lack respect for the time and effort it takes to execute a demand gen program. Sales teams and others can sometimes take the effort for granted and expect opportunities to flow in. And when things aren't going as expected, they are quick to blame the team without understanding the underlying factors at play or the work that happens daily. Your friend here is to educate your teammates and departments on your work and how it ultimately impacts the bottom line.

Data quality issues. From duplicate records, invalid contact info, and missing fields. The lack of and inaccurate data can create a ton of manual work for the team.

Misalignment at the top. When marketing and sales leaders are not aligned, it will trickle down to confusion, frustration and a lack of efficiency for the business. While you cannot control who is in each seat and their opinions/relationships, you can do your best to vert it out during interviewing for new opportunities.

Some of the top frustrations are around expectations and timelines. E.g. Being asked to generate leads immediately in the same month/quarter for enterprise customers, being asked to only connect with CXOs, being held responsible for an opportunity pipeline – without the supporting infrastructure – are all challenges and frustrations of a typical demand gen leader.

What sets you apart is in how you educate the larger organization on the value that you can add to the business. As you continue to educate and enable them, these challenges will make way for opportunities and you can demonstrate success on mutually agreed metrics.

I believe one of the biggest frustrations in demand generation is that sometimes you can’t provide a crisp definitive answer for performance. I spend lots of time in reporting and analysis, but sometimes you just land on a hypothesis. One could argue the constant change in demand gen is one of the benefits, but there could be cons to this too. Have you ever spent so much time digging into the data that at some point you have to call it and move on based on what you’ve identified to date?

It’s critical to have solid tracking and reporting in place as this is foundational, but know you may have to make an educated data-informed hypothesis when faced with this scenario.