What's a typical career path for a Demand Generation manager?

One of the great things about Demand Gen is that there isn't a set path into it. For example, I started my career in sales and account management before transitioning over to marketing. While somewhat atypical, I've found having a sales background to be beneficial as I've grown my career in DG because it gave me a first hand look into what the sales and marketing relationship looks like from the other perspective, and a deep empathy for being quota carrying. I've worked with incredible DG marketers who have come to DG from different fields (both from other functions in marketing and fields outside of marketing) and landed on Demand Gen. My recommendation would be to think about how your skills in another field can transfer over to a Demand Gen role. Chances are they are transferable and will provide you with a differentiated view point because of them. Use that to your advantage!

A typical career path for a Demand Generation manager that I have seen involves starting within marketing operations or digital marketing. This is not all-inclusive, but I feel is common.

Having a background in marketing operations makes for a strong demand generation marketer due to understanding how the business all connects between departments, between the tech stack and important processes like lead scoring, lead routing and more.

Digital marketing is also a natural path because these individuals own channels that feed into the demand generation world and drive awareness or revenue for the business.

Ultimately though, demand generation requires a person who is hungry, numbers driven and can problem solve quickly. So no matter your current focus, try to learn from the demand gen team at your org and find a community of likeminded marketer - like exitfive!

When it comes to moving forward after you have built a solid career within demand generation, natural moves are to continue in this path which could also be named Growth Marketing, Revenue Marketing or Integrated Marketing.

From my experience it's just so important to understand that our job is to drive revenue for the business.

A Demand generation manager career path usually takes one of two routes.

1. A specialized expertise in a particular area, audience, GTM motion, vertical, technology focus, etc.

2. A people manager role, helping teams execute. Depending on your organization there may be several levels within each of these paths that allow for various amounts of responsibility, expertise, and scope.

   Spending time reflecting on what aligns with your aspirations will be important as you progress throughout your career.

I would actually say there isn’t a “typical” career path. Lots of individuals come from areas such as SEM, SEO, product marketing, and field marketing, to name a few, but it’s a diverse space. There is lots of opportunity to grow in your career within demand generation too. Because demand generation covers so many channels, I recommend being knowledgeable about the various areas, but really dive deep into a topic to become a subject matter expert. You’ll find the career path also differs based on the org. Are you interested in PLG or more of a traditional enterprise sales and marketing motion? The skill set and career path for this will differ. One thing is for sure - you’ll never get bored! There is always something new to learn or a different path to explore.