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If demand gen doesn't have a seat at the product launch planning table, how did you get one?

What was the forcing function?

Ami Denman

Chime Sr. Director: Lifecycle & CRM | Formerly Atlassian, Walmart, Popchips, PlayStation • Jun 16

It's stressful when you don't have a seat. I've learned, the best way to get a one is by showing up to early planning with a clear point of view on what you need, when yo...

327 Views

How do you get PMM to sit in on enough sales calls that they stop writing messaging for the problem customers say they have versus the problem they're actually buying to solve?

Ami Denman

Chime Sr. Director: Lifecycle & CRM | Formerly Atlassian, Walmart, Popchips, PlayStation • Jun 16

Assuming you've been sitting in on sales calls, it can be as simple as setting up a meeting with the sales team and your PMM and facilitating the discussion. When I have ...

367 Views

When you've built something that outperforms PMM's recommended messaging, how do you share that finding in a way that strengthens the relationship rather than creating defensiveness?

Ami Denman

Chime Sr. Director: Lifecycle & CRM | Formerly Atlassian, Walmart, Popchips, PlayStation • Jun 16

Lead with the win, not the gap. If something outperformed, that's good news for everyone: the product, the campaign, the business. Remembering this and coming at the situ...

334 Views

How much should demand gen be shaping positioning based on what's working in channels vs. deferring to PMM's research?

Ami Denman

Chime Sr. Director: Lifecycle & CRM | Formerly Atlassian, Walmart, Popchips, PlayStation • Jun 16

Demand gen should be shaping positioning once it's in market via performance data. PMM's research tells you what the market thinks before they engage. Channel performance...

347 Views

How do you push back when PMM defines a launch as "awareness only" but you're on a pipeline number?

Ami Denman

Chime Sr. Director: Lifecycle & CRM | Formerly Atlassian, Walmart, Popchips, PlayStation • Jun 16

Usually when PMM is saying something is "awareness only", it's because there is either a miscommunication happening somewhere or it's a goal problem. In these situations,...

347 Views

How do you translate a positioning doc into actual ad copy, email subject lines, and landing page hierarchy?

Ami Denman

Chime Sr. Director: Lifecycle & CRM | Formerly Atlassian, Walmart, Popchips, PlayStation • Jun 16

Ideally, I'm not starting with just a positioning doc. PMM provides the positioning, messaging framework, value props, and proof points. Demand gen translates that into a...

373 Views

What does a healthy feedback loop from demand gen back to PMM actually look like in practice, not in theory?

Who owns closing that loop?

Ami Denman

Chime Sr. Director: Lifecycle & CRM | Formerly Atlassian, Walmart, Popchips, PlayStation • Jun 16

In practice, a healthy feedback loop is a two-way street with a regular cadence behind it. It can be its own meeting, but it can also live as a standing section in your w...

379 Views

How do you get PMM to build content that's actually usable in paid and lifecycle, not just thought leadership and sales decks?

Ami Denman

Chime Sr. Director: Lifecycle & CRM | Formerly Atlassian, Walmart, Popchips, PlayStation • Jun 16

In my experience, this is probably two problems.The first is that PMM may not have visibility into what content actually performs by buying stage and customer intent. The...

364 Views

How do you handle situations where PMM's positioning is right but the ICP they defined doesn't actually convert at the bottom of the funnel?

Ami Denman

Chime Sr. Director: Lifecycle & CRM | Formerly Atlassian, Walmart, Popchips, PlayStation • Jun 16

It can feel tricky or prickly depending on your approach. If you treat it like a joint optimization as opposed to a handoff problem, things will feel less tense and more ...

390 Views

Do you approach stakeholder management differently based on the team you're talking to? And if so, how?

Abhishek GP

Atlan VP, Growth • 4y

100%. A rule of thumb that has been helpful for me is that your organization's primary Go-to-market motion defines the primary and secondary stakeholders that you interac...

1,766 Views

How do you facilitate cross-functional collaboration between sales and demand gen when launching new products or entering new markets?

Emily Chisholm

Seso Inc. Head of Demand Generation • 1mo

Always be planning together. That means frequent meetings and a shared doc where everyone has a chance to give their input and sign off, including executive leadership. T...

362 Views

How do you align on the lead scoring model, and what processes are in place for continuously optimizing it based on sales outcomes?

Jeff Jewett

OfferFit Director of Demand Generation | Formerly Workday, Atlassian, Deel • 2mo

Lead scoring alignment breaks down when marketing builds the model and hands it to sales. Instead, start by sitting with sales leadership and a few reps and asking: what ...

396 Views

What are your strategies for managing discrepancies in pipeline forecasting between sales and demand gen?

Emily Chisholm

Seso Inc. Head of Demand Generation • 1mo

Remember that you're all on the same team—that mindset solves more forecasting disputes than any model does. The fastest structural fix is a strong RevOps analyst sitting...

368 Views

How do you handle situations where sales believes the leads are not converting due to demand gen’s targeting or messaging strategy?

Emily Chisholm

Seso Inc. Head of Demand Generation • 1mo

In short: believe them. If your company invests in enablement and you trust that sales is being held accountable for their ability to close, then you have no reason not t...

348 Views

In what ways have you integrated sales feedback into the demand gen strategy without compromising the broader marketing objectives?

Matt Hummel

Pipeline360 Chief Marketing Officer | Formerly Demandbase, Thomson Reuters • 1y

If done properly, integrating sales feedback should not only NOT compromise the broader marketing objectives, but it should actually make your marketing efforts more succ...

955 Views

How do you navigate the tension between sales-driven short-term goals and demand gen’s focus on long-term brand building?

Jeff Jewett

OfferFit Director of Demand Generation | Formerly Workday, Atlassian, Deel • 2mo

In my experience with B2B SaaS, this tension usually surfaces when sales has a shortfall and looks to demand gen to make it up within the quarter. My job is to be honest ...

370 Views

What mechanisms do you have in place to quantify the impact of demand gen efforts on the sales pipeline beyond just lead generation?

Jeff Jewett

OfferFit Director of Demand Generation | Formerly Workday, Atlassian, Deel • 2mo

Building on the forecasting model above, the metrics I care about most when measuring demand gen's impact on pipeline are: Marketing-sourced opportunity rate: what perce...

388 Views

What steps do you take to ensure that the demand gen content strategy aligns with the sales team’s evolving needs and customer conversations?

Jeff Jewett

OfferFit Director of Demand Generation | Formerly Workday, Atlassian, Deel • 2mo

The biggest risk in content strategy is building it around what marketing assumes buyers care about rather than what actually comes up in sales conversations. To close th...

414 Views

What role does Marketing Ops play in supporting Demand Gen's campaign planning and execution?

Jennifer King

Snowflake Head of Demand Generation • 8mo

Marketing Ops enables Demand Gen success by providing the data, systems, and processes that power campaigns. They ensure clean list targeting, efficient execution, and ac...

371 Views

What best practices have you implemented for joint Marketing Ops and Demand Gen planning sessions?

Mike Braund

Komodo Health VP Revenue Marketing • 1y

Some ideas I've tried or you can try are:Ideation sessions - keep them organized, set expectations, and identify next steps with the ideas that are prioritizedWe've used ...

425 Views

How do you ensure that Marketing Ops and Demand Gen teams are working towards the same customer journey goals?

Mike Braund

Komodo Health VP Revenue Marketing • 1y

Planning process, goal setting processes are helpful (for example OKRs as a common tool). Spending time aligning on the outcomes and requirements together during a projec...

468 Views

How do you balance the need for Marketing Ops efficiency with Demand Gen's creative requirements?

Mike Braund

Komodo Health VP Revenue Marketing • 1y

Communication, relationships, and defined workflows/process. Workflows and process can be right-sized to the team to provide value at the same time not being a burden on ...

469 Views

How do you operationalize ABM programs (account selection, hierarchies, target lists, SDR alignment, measurement)?

Jennifer King

Snowflake Head of Demand Generation • 8mo

Sales alignment is key to building a strong ABM program. Having a targeted account list with ICP is the first step, then leaning on data to help with account tiering.Base...

483 Views

How do you build a shared roadmap and capacity plan between Marketing Ops and Demand Gen?

Jennifer King

Snowflake Head of Demand Generation • 8mo

Being transparent on resource capacity is the first step in working collaboratively between teams. Having OKRs that are aligned to the top level goals of the company are ...

484 Views

How do you ensure that Marketing Ops is providing timely and accurate data for Demand Gen decision-making?

Mike Braund

Komodo Health VP Revenue Marketing • 1y

The long term answer is building a suite of views and dashboards designed to help with the core decisions the team is wanting to make. For example at Iterable we have a c...

1,157 Views

How do you measure your own success in your role? How much have those performance indicators evolved as you grew within your role?

Kayla Rockwell

Databricks Senior Group Manager, Demand Generation • 2y

I measure my success in a role in a few different ways. First, am I hitting my targets? KPIs, goals, etc as aligned and agreed upon by the business. Think of these as qua...

829 Views

How does your role interact with the sales organization?

Justin Carapinha

Salesforce Senior Director, Global SMB and Growth Campaigns • 10mo

I personally interact with the sales organization daily, as most successful demand generation marketers should. Demand generation functions cannot be successful if they a...

880 Views

How do you approach technology stack decisions to benefit both Marketing Ops and Demand Gen teams?

Mike Braund

Komodo Health VP Revenue Marketing • 1y

Starting with use cases and outcomes is what I've seen help decision making on tech selection the most. In my earlier years this was a shift from a list of product featur...

423 Views

What training or skill development programs have you implemented to improve alignment between Marketing Ops and Demand Gen?

Mike Braund

Komodo Health VP Revenue Marketing • 1y

These examples aren't specific to marketing ops and demand gen alignment but more broad. Project management - creating a project plan, role definitions, identify the outc...

421 Views

What metrics do you use to evaluate the effectiveness of Marketing Ops in supporting Demand Gen efforts?

Mike Braund

Komodo Health VP Revenue Marketing • 1y

Our Marketing Ops team sits in Demand Gen at Iterable so there is a lot of connection from the outcomes we're after when working together. I think that would be the place...

860 Views

Who do you align yourself with to gain momentum in the leadership organization?

Erika Barbosa

Counterpart Marketing Lead | Formerly Issuu, OpenText, Webroot • 3y

To gain momentum in the leadership organization it is important to build relationships with other leaders within the organization because it can help to create a more col...

903 Views

Demand generation managers often get pulled in several directions and everything feels urgent. How do we work with our Exec team to help narrow down what we focus on?

Matt Hummel

Pipeline360 Chief Marketing Officer | Formerly Demandbase, Thomson Reuters • 1y

It starts with aligning on outcomes. Oftentimes demand gen teams get pressured to "do more" - more campaigns, more leads, more activities - that's where I have seen many ...

431 Views

How do Demand Generation key stakeholders from other departments change as your company grows?

Erika Barbosa

Counterpart Marketing Lead | Formerly Issuu, OpenText, Webroot • 3y

The key stakeholders from other departments change due to the needs of the business changing. The swimlanes for demand generation typically become more defined. There are...

412 Views

What do demand generation managers get wrong when trying to influence the C-Suite?

Micha Hershman

JumpCloud Chief Marketing Officer | Formerly Envoy, Eventbrite, Brightroll, Animation Mentor, Dark Horse Comics, Borders Group • 2y

Three common mistakes come to mind when Demand Generation managers are trying to influence the C-Suite:Focusing too much on the top of the funnel:Awareness, traffic, and ...

672 Views

What are the top 3 things that will provide value to C-Suites as a demand generation manager?

Matt Hummel

Pipeline360 Chief Marketing Officer | Formerly Demandbase, Thomson Reuters • 1y

Strong understanding of the business goals/objectives, and ultimately how your work aligns and is impacting those goalsThe ability to tell a good story - demand gen is a ...

424 Views

How do you influence the C-Suite to get more resources?

Matt Hummel

Pipeline360 Chief Marketing Officer | Formerly Demandbase, Thomson Reuters • 1y

Before you ask, make sure you truly need additional resources. We're operating in a 'profit at all costs' model for the most part today, and asking for more resources is ...

434 Views

How do you ensure alignment when you have two senior executive stakeholders who disagree with each other on the proposed strategy and you are stuck in the middle?

Tamara Niesen

WooCommerce CMO | Formerly Shopify, D2L, BlackBerry • 3y

45 Views

How do you structure your demand gen team? How big is it, what does everyone do? How do you measure success of each function/person?

Laura Lewis

Lexia Learning Director, Demand Generation & ABM | Formerly Addigy, Qualia, Progress • 2y

This has changed depending on the company I've been a part of, and the strategy of that company. I've seen a few models, which have included:Global Demand Generation &amp...

445 Views

What has been the greatest accomplishment made when you’ve had to influence others without authority and did it make things easier for you when you needed buy-in on other projects?

Ami Denman

Chime Sr. Director: Lifecycle & CRM | Formerly Atlassian, Walmart, Popchips, PlayStation • 1y

This is a good question; most of my career required influencing others without authority until I got into management. One of my favorite examples is from Walmart Ecommerc...

402 Views

How do you collaborate with other teams, such as sales or product, within your organization using your tech stack to align demand generation efforts with overall business goals?

Ami Denman

Chime Sr. Director: Lifecycle & CRM | Formerly Atlassian, Walmart, Popchips, PlayStation • 1y

In order to collaborate with other teams using our tech stack to align DG efforts to business goals we need the following foundations: A source of truth for all data. W...

1,290 Views

How do you go about resolving conflict between team members?

Matt Hummel

Pipeline360 Chief Marketing Officer | Formerly Demandbase, Thomson Reuters • 2y

The best piece of advice I got here and can confirm through experience is the art of "breaking bread." When conflicts arise, don't sit on it - that doesn't mean you shoul...

389 Views

What are some examples of the types of insights you used to gain insight from internal stakeholders?

Jeff Jewett

OfferFit Director of Demand Generation | Formerly Workday, Atlassian, Deel • 1y

Sitting at the nexus between product marketing and sales, from a demand generation perspective I look for the following insights to allow me to design and execute success...

475 Views

What's a good way to approach decisions that other teams feel they should own vs. Demand Gen feels they should own?

Kelley Sandoval

Databricks Senior Director, Demand Generation • 1y

Always approach the discussion with an open mind to understand the “why” behind the ask. When people come to you asking about ownership it may be to create clarity, remov...

1,039 Views

Tips for managing stakeholder input: are there any templates or best practices for when to gather input and how to incorporate (i.e. whose feedback to incorporate vs. ignore, etc.), especially as it relates to a timeline?

Angela Shori

eQ8 Head of Marketing | Formerly Vyopta • 2y

“A camel is a horse that was designed by committee.” - Sir Alec IssigonisMarketoonist Tom Fishburne has a fantastic cartoon on this as well.When determining stakeholder i...

176 Views

What is the best cadence for gathering stakeholder feedback in preparation for a launch?

Kanchan Belavadi

Snowflake Director Field Marketing - GCC, India • 2y

The cadence is a function of multiple factors – launch schedule, preparedness, stage of the launch, etc. If you are launching something in a short time with a new set of ...

452 Views

How do you approach building successful partnerships across multiple functions?

Erika Barbosa

Counterpart Marketing Lead | Formerly Issuu, OpenText, Webroot • 3y

Building successful partnerships across multiple functions is key for progress and collaboration. You can’t do everything by yourself. Working in partnership with other t...

260 Views

What are some of your top strategies in driving alignment with Sales?

Pamela King

YouTube Marketing Lead for NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV | Formerly Google Cloud • 1y

Ensuring there's alignment between Sales and Marketing is always key. When working in B2B, I found these were some of the best ways to gain that alignment: Share Goals: M...

635 Views

What's your advice on improving a historically tense relationship between functions?

Laura Lewis

Lexia Learning Director, Demand Generation & ABM | Formerly Addigy, Qualia, Progress • 2y

In the case where you are new to an organization and trying to improve the relationship with another team there are three things to do first.Listen - Ask a lot of questio...

370 Views

What are the pillars of your demand-generation strategy? Key channels and approaches? How to you align the different stakeholders in these processes?

Erika Barbosa

Counterpart Marketing Lead | Formerly Issuu, OpenText, Webroot • 3y

What are the pillars of your demand-generation strategy? The foundation of a demand generation strategy starts with tracking, measurement and reporting. You need to hav...

355 Views

How important is it in your opinion to partner with other departments to run successful Demand Gen campaigns? Sales, CS, Operations?

Laura Lewis

Lexia Learning Director, Demand Generation & ABM | Formerly Addigy, Qualia, Progress • 1y

Partnering with other internal departments is incredibly important for success in marketing. You should be meeting with your counterparts on other teams regularly. Some t...

679 Views

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