What's the most effective way to scale a Demand Generation team beyond the first Demand Generation manager?

My number one tip when building or scaling a Demand Gen function and team is to ensure that there is a clear path to measureable outcomes and impact across the DG team. While understanding impact and building a sense of accountability is important for all marketing functions, it's critical for Demand Gen. Regardless of how your company is structured, every Demand Generation member should have a set of tangible metrics and business outcomes that they are working towards. This is generally a pipel ...Read More

From my perspective, the most effective way to scale a demand generation team is by being able to define the following: What roles will help you move faster and what would be the associated impact? How will you gauge success for this role including associated metrics? What is your vision for the first 90 days of this role? Essentially, you have to be able to tell the story of the value each role will add, the impact the role will make on the business including KPIs, and how the different roles w ...Read More

The most effective way to scale a demand generation team after hire #1#1 is by partnering with freelancers and/or agencies.  When you first join a company, understand its best and worst-performing channels. Then, compare that performance to your competitors. If your competitors are all benefiting from channels you are underperforming in, those are the areas to experiment in.  First, I will run a pilot test in each one of those channels myself. Then, whichever channels show promise, I will look f ...Read More

In my personal experience, it was best to expand the team by bringing in a marketing generalist with an interest in Demand Generation. Someone who had a solid base of entry-level marketing skills in multiple departments and that was eager to learn the role of Demand Generation, allowed me to have a starting point to expand and grow upon.  A generalist has experience in all of the marketing basics and can be a "pinch hitter" for all aspects of your program. ie. If you need a content writer or edi ...Read More

There are a few different lens to think about this organizationally so the answer is nuanced. On one hand, you may want to align DG with products or personas, but on the other hand, you may want to align DG to marketing capabilities. First and foremost, I'd spend some time thinking critically about the current DG Manager in place - what are the capabilities he/she/they have that are very strong, where is he/she/they lacking in? What do you believe will add the most value and drive the most pipel ...Read More

So I’m going to be a bit salty here, hope you don’t mind. But I think this isn’t the right frame of reference. The most effective way to scale a Demand Gen team isn’t by adding people, it’s by scaling return on effort. I don’t start with roles. I start by identifying opportunities that are clearly constrained by the current team’s capacity or skill set and estimating the ROI of unlocking them. That includes expected pipeline or revenue impact, the cost of hiring, and the operational overhead req ...Read More

The best way to scale a Demand Gen team after your first manager is to build for repeatability before adding headcount. Make sure what you’re scaling actually works. Start by nailing the basics, a clear playbook for how campaigns are planned, launched, measured, and reported. Get consistent processes, lead definitions, SLAs with sales, reliable data flow, and shared KPIs. You can’t scale chaos, so focus on systems before output. Then, scale by function, not volume. Add roles that remove bottlene ...Read More

The most effective way is to scale in a way that best fits the organization’s needs and abilities. Build vs fix: You might want to scale the function that is either doing well or is a critical need. For example, if social campaigns are effective and you know what needs to be done and how – then hire someone so you can scale it and hand it over. That will free your bandwidth to build and scale other tactics and programs. It can also be the reverse, e.g. if the SEO is not effective and you need to ...Read More

Scaling beyond your first DG Manager is both an exciting time but also one that can bring about a lot of uncertainty - there are so many directions you could go! With that said, it's likely that you are still in high-growth mode and I would strongly recommend considering bringing on a paid media specialist. Someone who knows systems like LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Ads, and if you're lucky you can find someone who has that experience plus some web experience such as CRO and even SEO. Your best be ...Read More

It depends on your company and your market. As a baseline guide, I map Demand Generation resources to sales teams. If there are 2 products being sold by 2 different sales organizations, you need support for both products and both sales teams. That might be 2 Demand Generation Managers - one for Product A and one for Product B. In a situation where there is only a singular product or sales team, I look more at the approaches. Are we doing ABM for our Enterprise accounts, but still running Integra ...Read More

Scaling a Demand Generation team beyond the first manager involves a multifaceted approach that encompasses organizational structure, talent development, technology adoption, and strategic alignment. Here's a more in-depth guide: Strategic Alignment: Ensure that the demand generation strategy is aligned with overall business goals. Regularly revisit and refine the strategy based on market changes, competitor activities, and business priorities. Leadership and Structure: Establish a leadership hi ...Read More