marketing consultant - mark donnigan

Mark Donnigan constructs disruptive ingenious startups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market strategies and marketing motions that drive genuine company results for technical and product-centric creators. Mark's development and market development experience covers 20 years as a transformative B2B marketing and service leader, driving need, brand name advancement, and strategy for startup and growth-stage companies.

As a specialist and virtual marketing leader (fractional-CMO), Mark Donnigan handles start-up creators and CEOs from B2B disruptive development technology business to help them establish, bootstrap, and scale their marketing and go-to-market actions.

DISCOVER MORE: https://growthstage.marketing

Mark Donnigan has actually managed teams as big as 25, comprising SDRs, AEs, and marketing, producing $29mm/year. Mark carried budget plan commitments to $3mm/year for operations and $400k/year for marketing. Deal sizes varying from mid-five figures to mid-six figures every year.

As a startup marketing expert, Mark Donnigan's incoming and outbound marketing experience consist of structure and mentoring high-performance groups that carry out as needed generation, brand name and item marketing, PR, digital, and occasions where he establishes and carries out high-impact programs that drive earnings, produce ROI, activate the marketplace, and delivers organization outcomes.

Mark Donnigan thinks that the finest marketing specialists and marketing leaders are doers. Mark's marketing experience consists of all aspects of need generation, ABM, SEO, e-mail marketing, paid marketing, occasions, PR (internal & firm), and item marketing.

Mark is a problem solver and a first-principles thinker who is creative and analytical. Mark constantly works cross-functionally and has shown success, building, leading, and mentoring marketing, sales, and service development groups that have actually produced more than $500mm in revenue/shareholder worth.

Mark has found that building a category should be the leading goal for each marketing leader and it is the foundation of his technique and approach. Mark Donnigan has comprehensive B2B marketing experience that includes building and mentoring high-performance teams.

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he places a high value on teamwork. Mark has comprehensive experience working together with sales, item, operations, and finance to make sure that the organization and income goals of the company are constantly gone beyond.

Growth Stage Marketing exists to offer entrepreneurs and creators services for:

Architecting the marketplace classification that is best matched to the unique value proposal of your innovation.
High impact marketing assistance so that you can reach your earnings goals and scale sustainably.
Achieving go-to-market alignment across the sales and marketing companies.
Drawing out the highest value from every marketing dollar.
Insider understanding and insights about the B2B purchasing journey and how to navigate an increasingly fragmented consumer decision hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and process development to making the first hires.

Thoughts on what it requires a successful marketer and CMO today.

If you are a CEO who feels your B2B marketing does not have a clear connection to the business, you are not alone. A research study finished by the marketing consultancy Fournaise found that 80% of Chief Executives are not happy with the work their top Marketing leader is doing. Evaluating what today company truth suggests for marketing leaders, I kept in mind the concept of a Peacetime leader and a Wartime leader from Ben Horowitz's book "The Hard Thing About Hard Things."

Horowitz described the principle in a post where he made up that the Peacetime CEO "focuses on the big image and empowers her people to make detailed choices." The Wartime CEO, on the other hand, "values a speck of dust on a gnat's ass if it disrupted the prime instruction."

The Peacetime CEO "comprehends what to do with a huge advantage," while the Wartime CEO "is paranoid." Peacetime CEO "works to lower disagreement," and Wartime CEO "increases the contradictions."

Peacetime in organization is when an organization has the capability to grow in its core market due to a substantial benefit vs. the competitors. In times of peace, the business focuses on widening the market and boosting the organization's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are completely complimentary to be creative with our brand building by participating in each exhibition with an even larger cubicle than last year's and investing exorbitantly on sponsorships, all under the guise of constructing the trademark name.

Wartime is a different thing completely because, in Wartime, the life and death of our organization might be on the line.
As I compose this post, the entire world is combating an invisible opponent called COVID-19, which has actually let loose a frustrating dose of business unpredictability worldwide. For CMO's, the COVID-19 pandemic is service equivalent of war. No longer do our 2020 marketing techniques make great sense.

This is more than remaining in a space with the light on, and unexpectedly you find yourself in pitch-black darkness, so you walk tepidly, continuing in the same instructions knowing that you were heading towards the door prior to the lights got turned off. No, not simply has the pandemic turned the lights out, its blown a massive crater in our course that was not there previous to, and devoid of light in the space, can not be seen. Nevertheless we need to avoid at all expenditures falling into the crater.

No one wish for war, however a Wartime leader does not avoid the fight, instead, they acknowledge that Wartime is the single finest possibility to leapfrog sidetracked rivals and take ground away. What follows is a set of suggestions and concepts to assist you discover your "Wartime CMO fight strategy."

How to function as a Wartime CMO.

During Wartime, everybody is in uncharted waters, however this is where the chance is for many business who previously had a hard time to complete against larger rivals and dominant market forces. Now, for the extremely first time, you may be on comparable footing as your more powerful competitors. It's the best possibility to define your future.

In an international reduction like what COVID-19 has activated, absolutely nothing makes good sense. And yet, a few of your competitors will continue to perform their normal "attempted and real" marketing playback, presuming that constructing the brand with corporate interactions messages from the CEO is going to add to their company objectives. Now is the perfect possibility for the Wartime CMO to take ground in the market.

Take strong action.

Creative marketing is required in Wartime more than ever. Now is the time to examine your important presumptions. As the worldwide company environment has actually modified, and the stability of the core company called into concern, CMO's should be prepared to reassess their preliminary strategy.
Think of that less consumers will relate to decreased need. And lowered requirement means markets will not respond as they did prior to the crisis.

Believe about it in this way, when individuals purchase less, marketers invest less. However prior to you follow a slash and burn the marketing invest playbook, here are a couple of things to be educated about:

Financial investment bank Cowen and Business analyzed the last 6 economic recessions considered that 1950 and discovered that costs on direct marketing grew throughout the previous financial declines. Significance, you will want to consider your mix of trademark name marketing carefully compared to sales activation marketing. It's not time to stop marketing. Remember, there will be deals throughout the board as media outlets see companies cut their marketing and advertising spends. Press marketing and branding drops in a downturn, but sales activation marketing always increases.

Shift spending to more measurable channels so that you can adjust rapidly. Speed is everything. Marketing initiatives able to be tracked with uniqueness will be a lot more important than broad mass-market jobs. Slowdowns accelerate the reduction of interruption-based mass marketing. In its place will be an increased concentrate on measurable and relationship-based strategies.

Declines develop a chance for business that are more efficient at turning marketing financial investments into revenue. In the middle of a decrease when marketers are cutting their costs is a fun time to gain from low CPMs and Licensed public accountants.

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising finished a research study in 2008 that discovered, "Following a spending plan cut, a brand will continue to get from the marketing investment made over the previous few years. This will reduce any short-term organization effects, and will result in a precariously deceptive boost in short-term success. The longer-term business harm will be more substantial, however will not be seen in the start."

Millward Brown reported in their research study "Marketing During Economic Recession: To Invest or Not to Invest?" that 60% of trademark name that went 'dark' during a financial recession by cutting their TV marketing invest for 6 months experienced a decrease in Brand name Usage by 24% with a 28% reduction in Trademark name Image. Brand names that cut their advertisement budget at a greater rate relative to their competitors were at an even higher danger of share loss.
There are an amazing variety of marketing studies that confirm in a decline, trademark name that continue marketing and advertising efforts recover faster. It takes strong action to invest when the information suggests that ROI is not possible. A Wartime CMO battles to preserve the budget needed to continue marketing.

Maximize the worth of each lead produced.

In a downturn, risk-averse purchasers take even longer to research study purchases, and this uses similarly to B2B and B2C buyers. When you first acknowledge a possibility, they will likely stay in the awareness phase of your funnel and will not be all set to engage with an SDR or BDR. Do not require this interaction. Marketing ought to take care not to move a possibility through the funnel too rapidly. Remember, the possibility's expert life has actually been switched on its head. What was a concern just a number of weeks or months ago, is most likely not top of mind today.

It's appealing in a decrease to tighten your grip on leads given that the reasoning is that now more than ever, all leads are necessary. Here is where lead scoring can be an important tool to acknowledge extremely engaged prospects from those who are not likely to become your consumers. Now is the time for Online marketers to hang on to MQL's for a prolonged duration so that you can groom the possibility to the maximum possible extent prior to handing them off to sales as a SQL.

Without lead scoring and a perfect prospect tracking system throughout your digital channels, as many as 9 out of 10 MQL's who are not yet sales-ready may be lost. They will buy, simply not now. You do not wish to miss out on out on the future sale given that you didn't keep in contact and consist of worth though the journey. In a "Wartime" economy, you should do whatever possible to optimize more information here the worth of your MQL's.

CMO's that do a better job of managing leads and establishing early-stage potential customers into sales-ready leads will stay in the finest position to win throughout the crisis and most definitely once it has passed.

Concentrate on your present clients.

It's cheaper to grow incomes with your existing consumers. Believe about whether now is the time to scale back your mass list building programs and focus on structure deeper relationships with those who already understand your organization. This does not indicate to stop your need gen efforts, however it does more information here imply that you might want to check out with item and sales how you can sell more to your existing clients.

In Peacetime, marketing groups are running on auto-pilot in pursuit of driving MQL's to please sales reps. For an organization that has acquired traction on their way to becoming a category king or queen, this approach, though costly feels great given that of the remarkable volume of activity that is being produced. However, without mindful analysis, the high degree of activity fools numerous CMO's and management groups into believing that their requirement generation engine is finely tuned when, in reality, it's discharging massive contamination, i.e. exceedingly high CAC, greater than typical churn for the category, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing must line up with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader worries business with an exceptional education and pedigree, having actually held considerable titles with big companies. There was a time when the marketing group may handle all corporate and product information and messaging with the marketplace. If a purchaser wanted to discover a brand-new product or check out whether a solution may fulfill their requirement, they had no alternative however to call the company.

Reactions to issues such as, Who's authentic and who isn't? - Who's product works, and whose does not? - What's coming? Now where offered with a single post on the correct online forum or LinkedIn group. As an outcome, the power moved to the purchaser.

We understand that online marketers are no longer in control of the buyer's journey. It is very important to define a funnel that outlines expulsions a possibility ought to hand down the method to doing service with the company. Purchasers can get in touch with us on the platform of their picking. As the buying group has broadened to as many as 2 lots individuals, the idea that they will follow our procedure as we have really recommended is rarely genuine.

You require a value designer CMO who is revenue-focused.

A revenue-focused CMO will manage the engine behind a CEO's development plan. The shift from business being physical product designers or service business, to digital development business where the item is dispersed as software application or software as a service through the Web, has actually decreased the function of marketing. And is the aspect a revenue-focused CMO who is a value developer is what all start-ups and disruptive innovation companies require today.

Today, marketing requires greater levels of technical capability as an outcome of the explosion of digital media and the marketing technologies that are connected with internet marketing. This improvement has actually been highlighted by Forrester, discussing a 20-year-old shift to digital as the driving force behind CMOs moving from being brand-builders to income drivers. Forrester goes on to report that a worth developer, revenue-driven Online marketer, must be a story maker and not simply a writer.

The CMO today need to be a specialist at creating and leading creative engagement and organization approach to develop a classification for business to dominate.

Here are a number of approaches that a revenue-driven CMO requirement to run:

They will work carefully with the sales group to discover and map the purchaser's journey. Where presumptions do not match what is taking location in the market, a worth developer CMO will leave the work environment and hang out in the field. This leader understands that you can not drive revenue if you aren't close to where the sale occurs.

A revenue-focused CMO produces content targeted at each stage of the buyer's journey. Think of the purchaser's journey as a set of gates where the material reacts to the primary concerns a purchaser has at each action so that they can complete the buying journey.
The brand-new generation CMO will collect engagement metrics for each gate while evaluating the success of the end-to-end marketing cycle to provide the most prompt and qualified cause their sellers. A value developer CMO sees marketing as close allies to the sales group.

The revenue-centered CMO is constantly finding from and tweak the process so that they can enhance the quantity and quality of leads that added to the pipeline and closed service.
Incomes attribution and marketing ROI styles will show genuine outcomes, not theorized or "presumed" requirements. This information is essential for the revenue-focused CMO to solve since they appreciate marketing's impact on company.

A revenue-focused CMO will concentrate on how their marketing efforts map to closed/won deals that drive the profits and organization objectives of the company. Vanity metrics like traffic, click-thru rates, CPM, and CTA conversions tell simply a piece of the story.

What to search for in your next CMO.

In the vibrant state of company today, working with an efficient CMO is amongst the most hard things to do. Every market, service, and market area is different. Even where you can acknowledge potential customers from the exact same organization neighborhood or environment, it's inadequate to simply have a look at years of experience or education. You require to analyze the inspirations and thought patterns of the person. Ask:
Is the CMO an issue solver?

The most significant threat today is on the market side and not innovation. A marketing leader who isn't an issue solver will have a hard time to manage the fast-changing nature of the marketplace and community structure.

Are they a doer?
In lots of marketing groups, there will specify specialists who can work at the highest level throughout the series of capabilities needed. It's incumbent for a marketing leader to command regard as a doer. The CMO, who can show practical ability in the core locations that the group operates, will be more dependable than a manager just.

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest way to ensure that you draw in a CMO who is earnings and not brand-driven is to employ someone who has actually come up through product, sales, and business technique. Having direct exposure to the inner workings of product and sales is particularly beneficial as company technique is becoming a more substantial part of the CMO's series of commitments.

Do they think in systems or approach organization in a structured way?

As digital has exploded the variety of marketing user interface points, enabling buyers to disaggregate the service from the buying journey, a CMO should have the capability to consider systems and structures rather of securely defined marketing lanes. It is no longer adequate to prepare in regards to the social job, content marketing task, events, and PR, all as different activities. The successful CMO will start with business objective they are serving and be prepared to question whatever.

Can they interact outside the walls of business to the market?

To wind up being a story-maker, you ought to be worthy of listening to. A CMO remains in the ideal position to presume the evangelistic function for the organization. The most successful CMO's in any market are extremely noticeable spokespeople for their company.
Are they an incentive?

As the CMO will need to work cross-functionally to make sure that they have positioning with item and sales, the marketing head must be an incentive. To develop a category requires conversation, settlement, and the capability to INFO search for and reach an arrangement.

Do they allow their group, or run by command and control?

A CMO who tries to lead with ultimate authority will struggle to accomplish service objectives of business. Marketing groups today ought to work as engineering groups operate in a nimble style. Rather of perfectly arranged 90-day task cadences, a nimble marketing group carries out a constant circulation of initiatives while maintaining the flexibility to change as the market or company needs identify.

Does the CMO comprehend classification style?

I have really composed about classification design and why every organization requires to own a category to accomplish its optimal capacity. There is a structure for performing classification style. Still, whether an Online marketer follows the summary or methods category style another method, a CMO needs to be putting regular idea and preparation into how they define the category they indicate to control. Without input from the CEO and other members of the executive group, there is no chance to complete an appropriate classification design.

The Wartime CMO will require to increase the responsibility of marketing by revealing the impact of each marketing activity on the pipeline as figured out by profits contribution.
In a slow down, marketing must move the understanding of being an expenditure center to an income driver. Reporting beyond the variety of marketing qualified leads produced to include the total chance worth for each lead source is an outstanding method to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the financial objectives of business.

Studies have really revealed that a properly designed landing page can double your conversion rate over sending out traffic to your house page, which tends to do not have the appropriate call to action that matches the ad. Since of this, inspecting landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these techniques can offer a 2.5 X boost for every single single dollar you invest in marketing. Yes, conversion rate optimization makes a difference.

During Wartime, every marketing dollar is important, and a Wartime CMO understands that winning will not boil down to a single technique or "silver bullet" method. Instead, many little things carried out well. The CMO, who can not understand the interplay of copy, messaging, imaginative design, and development, will have a hard time to find and acknowledge quickly where small adjustments can use much better conversions.

This content method worked, for a season, sort-of. Nevertheless with the boost of Google RankBrain, the technique has not worked for several years. Without remaining in the middle of a crisis, you need to stop this inefficient activity. Now as spending plans are under pressure and every marketing activity must count, the way that we do content marketing needs to be updated.

Now, the content that we create requirements to interest somebody searching for our solution, and it must consist of purchaser intent triggers like keywords and expressions that a buyer would use as they get near purchasing choice. A Havas Group research study revealed that 84% of individuals anticipate trademark name to produce content, yet 60% of the material produced is of bad quality or unimportant, stopping working to fulfill the requirements of the audience. Regardless of a 71% connection in between content effectiveness and a brand name's influence on individual wellness, simply 40% of the world's leading 1,500 brand names produce content that fulfills this requirement. Brand name's are stopping working to produce significant material.

Stop producing assembly line content that is simply meant to establish the brand name or present the product. Instead, material must target specific personalities to deal with any troubles preventing the possibility from moving on. This material will take longer to produce and need a greater neighborhood and item knowledge level.

CMO's in Wartime need to have an outstanding understanding of the buyer psyche and their mental requirements so that they can create content that eliminates fear and addresses the sincere issues they have.

CMO's in Wartime double down on Classification Style so that their company will come out as the leader, making them the dominant option, putting them in the enviable position to take as much as 76% of the economics from the entire category.

Learn more about Category Design.

The B2B sales procedure today is fragmented and complicated, with lots of stakeholders needing to validate a purchase choice. This renders basic marketing ROI and attribution techniques less useful for anything besides scholastic research study.

The marketing function today breaks down into three practical pillars making up Product, Requirement Generation, and Category Design. Because many marketing leaders have really not completely welcomed category style, it's a remarkably simple method to beat an incumbent during a crisis. As quickly as the sector starts to talk about the category as you have in fact specified it, your business will end up being the classification and the apparent option.

To do Classification Style requires a different working cadence. Wartime is the best time to start Category Style considered that absolutely nothing is "regular" throughout a crisis.
To manage the challenge of building a Classification King organization requires a lots of grit, determination, and a steadfast drive to win. For the Wartime CMO, who handles the obstacle, there can be no larger pot-o-gold if successful.

Read the book Play Larger to find out all about category design.