Demand Gen Programs

Before going into strategy setting, it’s important to align and joint plan with your fellow counterparts in sales, business, product, analytics, operations, PR, and other marketing functions, etc. to establish the topline business target for the year (or quarter). If your team is not currently involved in this cross planning process, I would advocate to be part of it. From there, identify the key products rollout and timing. This helps to develop the key marketing moments and activations needed to contribute toward business goals. Once your marketing plan is in a good spot, you can then walkthrough with your external stakeholders or vendors.

For strategy development, I recommend thinking about this similar to a RACI model (responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed). You’ll need to include internal and external stakeholders who are involved to some capacity or need to be informed. You’ll want to be able to answer questions such as: * Who needs to sign off on the strategy? * Who needs to collaborate on the strategy? * Who needs to be informed? I like to operate from the perspective of over communicating. Transparency is key. Focus on what the goals are and who needs to be involved to accomplish said goals.

The hope is to be joining a company that's got some good data and documentation hygiene :)  Unfortunately, if this is missing, then the source of truth for me is Salesforce. I will always go to the sales operations team to start at revenue and work my way back toward up to the top of the funnel to marketing camapigns' successes or shortcomings.  The way I do this is to tie back campaign launches and the spending to calculate CAC:LTV over time. 

As a new leader at an organization, I recommend reviewing as many of the items below as possible. The more the better so that you can have the full picture. Even better if you can get a few different perspectives so that you can truly get a lay of the land. * Documentation. This is huge. Review as much documentation as available. * Data, reports, and dashboards. I’m a big believer in data and the insights that can surface from data. Get your hands on as much quality data and reporting as you can. * Access to platforms (e.g., Google Ads) for in platform reporting. In-platform data can be helpful to give you a different lens to view the data. * Speak with colleagues. Have conversations with colleagues, direct reports, and other individuals in the org to ensure you are understanding their historical perspectives. You’ll have to absorb all of the information and formulate a hypothesis on past strategies. You can then use this as a starting point under your leadership and strategy going forward.

Everything starts with a great organic strategy and an SEO friendly website. When I ran demand gen at a very small company, the sales team was just starting to ramp up and I didn’t have a budget so website/content was where I focused on first. In parallel, if you have a direct sales team outside of a product led selling motion, I would align with your sales leader and all the regional managers and individual AEs. Demand generation is an extension of your sales team and tight alignment between sales and marketing is a key ingrediant to your and your company's revenue goal success. More tactically speaking, this is how I think about the foundation of my demand gen strategy in priority order: * Organic & Paid Channels: Organic is your website. It's a place where your prospects and customers learn about your brand, servces and offerings. It is also a place where you already have existing traffic. SEO is your friend. Often times we get stuck on talking about our products and we fail to do research on the terms our users use to search to get to our website. Keyword research is important because it allows you to do more with less. Make content for high search volume topics. If you have budget, that’s great! Paid digital tactics and SEM, where you can bid on competitors and keywords. Get reviews from customers on G2 Crowd and Capterra, and of course relevant content is always essential. Partnerships can also expand your reach. * Website optimization: An easy way to optimize your website is to start running A/B tests. Here at Salesforce we run a lot of A/B test on form pages, campaign pages, and different types of ads (message and copy) — to ensure we are using the best message and on-page functionality that is the most optimal for the conversion path. * Email: If you are just starting out, think of your demand gen strategy as these 3 lifecycles: pre-purchase (prospecting), in-trial/evaluation (purchase), and post sales (retention, loyalty, cross-sell, upsell, upgrades). You can start of with building 1 nurture for each of these stages and get more sophisticated once you understand your target audience and their buying behavior more. I would also consider having a different nurture for different selling motion, for example, a nurture for self-service/product led and a separate one for direct sales. * Outbound Campaigns & prospecting - One way to get help your sales team with outbound motion is to target top prospect accounts, use data science & lead scoring to pinpoint high quality leads. Send direct mailers to high propensity prospects and personalized 1:1 direct mailers. Keeping tabs on the competition is important, set up Competitive plays and review sites for compete signals. * A personalized experience - create this with real time customer interactions across all touchpoints. Connect digital interactions to online/office channels and functions. Design personalized journey’s based on prospects and industries. Use data science and give sales a recommendation action (i.e talk track, assets, data sheets, webinars, etc) to help with their selling cycle. 

Programmatic display.  You cannot GENERATE demand without properly getting in front of folks and visually displaying what you're about. You'd be wasting money without the capabilities to target the RIGHT people to create demand. The right combination of intent data, funnel-specific messaging, and analytics will create the best top-of-funnel experience for prospects you're looking to generate demand. 

Specifically focusing on “foundational” channels, I would recommend three: SEO, email, and CRO. Depending on the business, there may be adjustments to this, but the channels I outlined below are applicable across the board. * Search engine optimization (SEO). Your SEO strategy is for playing the long game. You may be able to gain some quick wins depending on where your website is from an organic perspective, but it’s an investment in future wins. Produce content that adds value and is written for the users who would consume it - not just for the purpose of ranking. Write content in service of your customers and potential customers. * Email. Email is often underrated, but it is foundational to a demand generation strategy. Be sure the emails you send are valuable to the recipient. This branches out to lifecycle marketing motions, but email is the one tactic that I would say is a must. * Conversion rate optimization (CRO). I’m a firm believer in website testing. This may take the form of A/B testing or multivariate testing. Preferably this is done with a testing tool that can help you do smarter testing. Sure there are other channels such as paid search, ABM, and out-of-home to name a few, but I wouldn’t consider those required or foundational. All other channels outside of SEO, email, and CRO would be additive depending on the demand gen strategy; they build upon the foundation you have established.

Some of the biggest challenges are broad, anecdotal feedback from sales & marketing that nothing ever works. I think it's important to remain objective and quantitative and share how things actually went based on a baseline metric vs the campaign metrics.  It's also really important to bridge the cap between sales & marketing. Marketing isn't successful with sales closing deals, and sales isn't successful unless marketing builds awareness and drives users to convert. Without harmony between the two teams, your 30/60/90 day plans won't succeed. 

Everything.  Without being able to differentiate your product in the marketplace, what are you besides just noise?  Competitive research isn't specific to PLG or any strategy -- it's necessary for any business to survive and properly compete. The "build it, and they will come" strategy doesn't work in the real world. It's about building products/software that people WANT that does a JOB and stands out amongst your competitors. You're not doing this without properly doing research 

IMO -- we are tapped out in "cutting edge" tools in 2023. There are no cutting-edge tools that would replace good strategy. It doesn't matter how easy your tool makes sending physical gifts to prospects or how well your enrichment tool works -- without the right strategy in communicating with your prospects, none of the tools work. 

This question is very similar to the one asked below, titled: Are there specific channels you think are a foundation to a Demand Generation strategy? Short answer is focus on your website and email channel first. In addition to what I discussed in that section, I would highlight recommend aligning with your product leaders and support/customer service leaders the same way a demand gen leader would if they had a sales leaders they align with.  Your job is to convert users and help them adopt the product. Use data science to drive your marketing activities. Once you identify where the gaps are in your conversion process you can start to build marketing adoption programs based on the unique challenges your business is facing.  Here's an example of a problem statement that was one of our biggest challenge when I led demand gen for our self-service/product led product:  *  “Which in-app activities help SMBs convert being a free trial user to paying customers of salesforce”. What we learned from data science is that the biggest driver of conversion is getting someone to log back into the app on the 2nd day. If they don’t, we lose them. And on the flip side, If we can just increase Day 1 to Day 2 retention by +X% that will get us +XX% more conversions. So it’s absolutely critical to drive return logins early. And based on that, we have these 3 programs in market to encourage trialist to log in: 1. Launched a 90 day email nurture that includes a series of 15 emails to encourage feature adoption. 2. Best Practice webinars that will feature customers to talk about how they are using the features in our product to drive business value. 3. Our adoption team has an in going hands-on workshop to teach trialist how to do things like adding additional users and editing accounts & contacts - these are all features that these trialists must adopt in order to see the value in our product. Underneath all this we have a Propensity to Convert (PTC) score designed by our data intelligence/data science team where we graded each cohort's propensity to convert by the end of the 14 day trial period. This score not only helps you segment and customize your marketing journeys but it can also help you forecast to see how many conversions or revenue amount you will expect at any given month/quarter. 

PLG all comes down to a frictionless product experience. Many products out there claim to be PLG but without a human sales engineer to customer your experience, none of your customers will understand the product and convert. PLG comes down to ensuring you have the best tooltip experience inside the product along with analytics to help you understand where the biggest friction points are in your product. Understanding where users spend the MOST amount of time, and the LEAST amount of time in your product is probably a good start. The most amount of time either indicates confusion or a set of features they are really enjoying. The least also could indicate how intuitive it is so you can do more of that, or where they decide to give up -- follow the user's journey and you will get your answers for PLG.  As far as channels go, a free trial of your product will work on every and all channels. PLG simply is language that gets people into your product. Depending on your product and the target audience, things like FB, Reddit, or Quora might be cheap ways to get SMBs and solo users into your product. For enterprises, it's usually targeting the tactical executioners of a department to get into the product. The faster you can help these users understand your product and how to use it, the quicker and more effective they will be in explaining the product to their superiors who will likely be your decision-makers and buyers. 

Here's a quick laundry list of things to consider without diving into your business model and marketing plans. 1. Partnerships: Do you have partners you can work with to integrate a call-to-action? For example, in one of our small business campaigns where we were targeting small business owners we were able to partner with local banks to include our offering in their small business loan welcome package. I know integrations are tough and it requires more than marketing to champion so I would also think about co-marketing. Are there any partners that have a database of people you are currently not getting in front of? Cross-promoting in partnership channels is a great user acqusition tool.  2. Direct Mail: you're probably thinking this is old school but the campaigns my teams have run are showing positive ROI from direct mail. The reason? It's cheap and you can get a broad reach. We typically pair direct mail pieces with a call to action (ie, register to attend our event, download this ebook, get in touch with sales, etc). This creates a multi-touch journey to your campaigns.  3. Lastly you can run some fun guerilla marketing to drive foot traffic to your storefront. 

Great question -- I like to rely on our product marketing team to help me understand where my audience hangs out. If it's events, I work with field marketing to identify the best places our current customers go, and make sure we have a heavy presence at those events to capture more mindshare of that audience and even our existing customers.  I also like to ask my PR team what publications (digital and print) a specific audience group is heavily influenced by. I run digital programs there knowing their digital program will be cheap and try to tack on email and future event sponsorships because I know the deal will be better if I try to negotiate the digital-first approach.  Ultimately if you have customers in that group, you need to divert some attention to your current customers. Ask them where they get their industry news, what's the biggest event in their industry, where their peers go, what their competitors do annually etc. Having regional events where some of your best customers are will really go a long way in identifying new channels. 

Have a beginner's mind.  What worked in the past might not work in your new position (or it may? But you have to test it first before implementing something full blown). The challenges you have faced leading other teams are not going to be the same set of challenges you will face in your new role. I will think about my conversion path and buyer's journey before I even think about what go-to-market channels I need to build or optimize.  Step 1: I would start off by listening to all the functional leads in your new company (sales, product, support, ops). I will then sit down with the data science team or someone from ops to help you draw out the exact conversion, purchasing and upsell funnel for your prospects and customers.  Step 2: Identify from a marketing perspective when the key events happen (ie. web conversion, sales opp win/loss, what causes someone to convert, when upsells happen, what causes attrition...you get the point). Then figure out where the bottlenecks are that are preventing your users from taking the action you want them to take.  Step 3: Once you have a good grasp on your bottlenecks and conversion point then you can start thinking about (in priority order) how these channels can be used to drive conversions and sales: 1) website/SEO, 2) email/marketing automation, 3) paid digital strategy, 4) sales alignment/training, 5) content buildout 6) webinars/events. 

1. DG team -- it's important for me to take a quick glance at the numbers but more important to get a better, fuller, picture from the team. What in the last 6 months has been going on? What's worked, what's not worked, and very important to me: what did you work on that you enjoyed? 2. Start from the bottom of the funnel: Revenue. Track revenue in SFDC then work my way up the funnel; which channel(s) contributed to this deal? Which keyword(s)? What touchpoints did the champion visit before turning into an opp? 3. Google my closest competitors. Am I showing up? Are they bidding on my keywords? Do they have a competitive landing page against me? What are people on G2 saying about me compared to the competition? If they bid aggressively on me -- they see me as a threat let's make sure we are fighting back. If they are not -- I'm probably eating their lunch -- I better show up on every keyword and review. If not -- that's low-hanging fruit. 

The key to a successful marketing campaign is segmenting your target audience correctly and being customer-obsessed. But your job is not just to drive people to websites and have them fill out a form to become a lead; it’s to be responsible for the entire customer journey. In fact, 56% of high-performing marketers actively map the customer journey across their company. To successfully join this effort, you need to properly nurture customers. THE TOP-OF-MIND NURTURE B2C companies are experts at the top-of-mind nurture. My local wine shop sends me a weekly update of their tasting events and featured recipes on food and wine pairing. Nordstrom sends me daily reminders about exclusive sales “just for me.” These brands know it’s possible to stay in touch with a prospect who may be a good fit, but is not yet sales-ready. To create a top-of-mind nurture campaign, your small business should use educational and research-based content that establishes your company as a trusted advisor. You can include offers like webinars that explore trending topics in your industry, or content that shows how others are using your product. Don’t have the time or talent to make a webinar or demo? No worries — any free resource, whether an ebook, blog post, or how-to guide, can work. All you have to do is think of what free content your audience will find valuable. At Salesforce, we sometimes share thought-leadership content to help our audience become better at their jobs or in their industry. Once you feed your customers content that’s helpful and not salesy, create this drip nurture and sprinkle in secondary or tertiary call-to-actions (CTAs) like demos or trials to entice them to want more. Then, send an email every 7-9 days — an email every week is too frequent and every two weeks might not be enough. THE IN-TRIAL NURTURE, TRIGGERED BY PRODUCT ACTIONS Most B2B companies have a trial period so users can take a test drive before making their customers buy their actual “car.” For example, at Salesforce, we have a 14-day free trial for small businesses to use our CRM, Salesforce Essentials. Before our team creates content for an in-trial nurture, we did a ton of research. As a marketer, you want your product’s action triggers to connect to your marketing automation. This will help you send triggered emails based on users’ actions versus a time-based email journey. Here’s how we ensured we had a successful in-trial nurture campaign: 1. Consulted our data science team: * We learned that by performing an X action, the user will have an X% higher probability to buy * We learned our users are more likely to convert if they login more than once in their first two days of the trial 2. Collaborated with our support team: * We found what blockers prevent users from taking a specific action These learnings helped us adjust our email cadence, our content, and hone in on creating videos, how-to articles, and content to feed our in-trial nurture. If you don’t have a data science team or a customer support team, don’t fret! You can easily gather customer feedback by setting up focus groups with customers. Talk to your trialists. Talk to people who have never bought from you. Get on live chat. You get the point — talk to your customers! In addition to finding high “propensity to convert” actions, make sure you’re looking for features that create habit loops for your customers. Which features will make users want to login more frequently? How do you use emails or even in-app messaging to encourage those actions? Asking yourself these questions will help you craft a successful in-trial nurture triggered by product actions. THE UPSELL OR CROSS-SELL NURTURE Want to improve your customer’s lifetime value? Upsell and cross-sell nurtures can help. All you have to do is create a nurture campaign targeted to existing customers, then provide them with information and incentives to expand the list of products they currently use. With upsell and cross-sell nurtures, your goal should be to inspire and show (not tell!) customers how to reach maximum potential with your company’s products and services. The best part about this type of nurture? You’re already at an advantage because you’re talking to your biggest fans — not cold leads. Make sure you’re intentional with your content, send relevant information on specific products or services that would be beneficial to a specific segment of clients. Personalized recommendations within this nurture type are the key to success — use variable tags or dynamic content to ensure the right customers receive the right content. Also, make sure you explain the value of a new or existing unused product without being overly aggressive. Since your target list will include current customers, the timing for this program can be less aggressive — you can space emails out between 10-15 days.

I can share two particularly successful campaigns. One is a bit boring and obvious and the other was an interesting and fun one for me.  1. The boring one: It was a product launch for a consumer electronics brand. The product was a Bluetooth headphone launching in 1 week and we sent an email blast to the entire customer list minus those who had recently purchased a headset less than 30 days ago. The header image was a beautiful image and the reason why I say this one is boring is because I didn't do anything fancy -- it just followed the best practices. Subject line contained the what and when. The copy of the email contained the Why and the How. New headset launching in 1 weeks. Best noise cancelling headphone we've ever made, order directly through this link. In an effort to convert, you simply need to create demand for the item for a user. We used beautiful imagery along with brief, concise explanations of what job the item was meant to do -- offer a quiet environment anywhere you went -- long-lasting battery for every flight your business takes you, etc. 2. The more interesting one was a survey collection and an opt-out campaign to clean up our list. The subject line was a simple one: "Can we ask you something?" but the body of the email was an A/B test.  Version A: Typical company header image and template along with branded template.  Version B: 100% plain text email like it came from your dad.  The email asked a few things including why they joined our email list, what they want to see more of, etc. and finally, a very clear to opt-out. Both emails' CTA was to simply reply to the email and send us a response. Version B had a very statistically high amount of responses compared to the theme'ed email and way fewer opt-outs. We learned a lot about our audience with this email test.