Mark Donnigan - growth stage marketing

Mark Donnigan builds disruptive innovative start-ups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market plans and marketing movements that drive genuine organization outcomes for technical and product-centric founders. Mark's growth and market advancement experience spans twenty years as a transformative B2B marketing and magnate, driving demand, brand name advancement, and method for start-up and growth-stage companies.

As an expert and virtual marketing leader (fractional-CMO), Mark Donnigan handles startup creators and CEOs from B2B disruptive innovation technology business to assist them establish, bootstrap, and scale their marketing and go-to-market actions.

FIND OUT MORE: https://growthstage.marketing

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

As a start-up marketing consultant, Mark Donnigan's incoming and outgoing marketing experience consist of structure and mentoring high-performance teams that execute as needed generation, brand and item marketing, PR, digital, and occasions where he establishes and implements high-impact programs that drive income, produce ROI, activate the market, and delivers organization results.

Mark Donnigan thinks that the very best marketing specialists and marketing leaders are doers. Mark's marketing experience includes all elements of requirement generation, ABM, SEO, e-mail marketing, paid marketing, events, PR (internal & agency), and product marketing.

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

Mark has actually discovered that building a classification needs to be the top objective for every marketing leader and it is the structure of his technique and approach. Mark Donnigan has comprehensive B2B marketing experience that consists of building and mentoring high-performance groups.

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he positions a high worth on teamwork. Mark has substantial experience working together with sales, product, operations, and finance to guarantee that business and revenue goals of the business are always surpassed.

Growth Stage Marketing exists to provide business owners and founders services for:

Architecting the market classification that is finest fit to the special worth proposal of your technology.
High impact marketing support so that you can reach your income objectives and scale sustainably.
Achieving go-to-market alignment across the sales and marketing companies.
Drawing out the greatest worth from every marketing dollar.
Expert understanding and insights about the B2B purchasing journey and how to browse a progressively fragmented consumer choice hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and procedure development to making the first hires.

Ideas on what it requires an effective marketer and CMO today.

If you are a CEO who feels your B2B marketing does not have a clear connection to business, you are not alone. A study completed by the marketing consultancy Fournaise discovered that 80% of President are not delighted with the work their leading Marketing leader is doing. Examining what the present company truth means for marketing leaders, I kept in mind the concept of a Peacetime leader and a Wartime leader from Ben Horowitz's book "The Hard Aspect Of Hard Things."

Horowitz explained the principle in an article where he made up that the Peacetime CEO "concentrates on the big image and empowers her individuals to make in-depth choices." The Wartime CEO, on the other hand, "appreciates a speck of dust on a gnat's ass if it disrupted the prime directive."

The Peacetime CEO "comprehends what to do with a big benefit," while the Wartime CEO "is paranoid." Peacetime CEO "works to lower conflict," and Wartime CEO "increases the contradictions."

Peacetime in service is when an organization has the ability to grow in its core market due to a considerable advantage vs. the competitors. In times of peace, business focuses on broadening the marketplace and enhancing business's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are completely free to be creative with our brand name 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 building 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 write this post, the whole world is battling an invisible opponent called COVID-19, which has actually let loose a frustrating dose of business unpredictability globally. For CMO's, the COVID-19 pandemic is organization equivalent of war. No longer do our 2020 marketing strategies 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 very same directions knowing that you were heading toward the door prior to the lights got switched off. No, not just has the pandemic turned the lights out, its blown a huge crater in our course that was not there previous to, and devoid of light in the room, can not be seen. However we ought to prevent at all expenditures falling under the crater.

No one longs for war, but a Wartime leader does not avoid the battle, rather, 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 ideas to help you discover your "Wartime CMO battle strategy."

How to function as a Wartime CMO.

During Wartime, everybody is in uncharted waters, but this is where the possibility is for lots of business who formerly had a tough time to complete versus larger rivals and dominant market forces. Now, for the really very first time, you may be on comparable footing as your more effective rivals. It's the ideal possibility to define your future.

In a worldwide reduction like what COVID-19 has actually set off, absolutely nothing makes good sense. And yet, a few of your rivals will continue to perform their typical "attempted and real" marketing playback, assuming that building the brand with corporate interactions messages from the CEO is going to contribute to their organization objectives. Now is the best possibility for the Wartime CMO to take ground in the market.

Take strong action.

Imaginative marketing is required in Wartime more than ever. Now is the time to check your essential presumptions. As the around the world organization environment has actually changed, and the stability of the core company brought into question, CMO's should be all set to reassess their preliminary plan.
Consider that less customers will correspond to decreased requirement. And minimized need means markets will not react as they did prior to the crisis.

Believe about it in this way, when individuals buy less, marketers invest less. Nevertheless prior to you follow a slash and burn the marketing invest playbook, here are a couple of things to be well-informed about:

Investment bank Cowen and Company analyzed the last 6 financial recessions considered that 1950 and discovered that spending on direct marketing grew throughout the previous economic declines. Significance, you will wish to consider your mix of trademark name marketing carefully compared to sales activation marketing. It's not time to stop marketing. Keep in mind, there will be deals throughout the board as media outlets see business cut their advertising and marketing invests. Press marketing and branding drops in a slowdown, but sales activation marketing constantly increases.

Shift spending to more measurable channels so that you can adapt rapidly. Speed is everything. Marketing initiatives able to be tracked with uniqueness will be a lot more valuable than broad mass-market tasks. Downturns accelerate the decline of interruption-based mass marketing. In its location will be an increased concentrate on quantifiable and relationship-based techniques.

Declines create an opportunity for business that are more effective at turning marketing monetary investments into earnings. In the middle of a slow down when marketers are cutting their costs is a fun time to gain from low CPMs and Certified public accounting professionals.

The Institute of Practitioners in Marketing finished a study in 2008 that discovered, "Following a budget cut, a brand will continue to acquire from the marketing financial investment made over the previous couple of years. This will minimize any short-term organization impacts, and will result in a precariously misleading boost in short-term success. The longer-term company damage will be more considerable, but will not be observed in the start."

Millward Brown reported in their research study "Marketing Throughout Economic Decline: To Invest or Not to Invest?" that 60% of trademark name that went 'dark' during an economic recession by cutting their TELEVISION marketing invest for 6 months experienced a decline in Brand Usage by 24% with a 28% reduction in Trademark name Image. Brand names that cut their advertisement spending plan at a greater rate relative to their rivals were at an even greater threat of share loss.
There are an amazing number of marketing studies that confirm in a decline, trademark name that continue marketing and advertising efforts recuperate faster. It takes strong action to invest when the data advises that ROI is not possible. A Wartime CMO battles to keep the spending plan needed to continue marketing.

Maximize the worth of each lead produced.

In a slowdown, risk-averse purchasers take even longer to research study purchases, and this uses similarly to B2B and B2C buyers. When you initially acknowledge a prospect, they will likely remain 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 needs to make sure not to move a prospect through the funnel too quickly. Keep in mind, the possibility's skilled life has actually been switched on its head. What was a concern simply a number of weeks or months back, is likely not top of mind today.

It's appealing in a decrease to tighten your grip on leads considering that the rationale is that now more than ever, all leads are important. Here is where lead scoring can be an important tool to recognize extremely engaged potential customers from those who are not likely to become your consumers. Now is the time for Online marketers to hang on to MQL's for an extended duration so that you can groom the prospect to the optimum possible degree prior to more information here handing them off to sales as a SQL.

Without lead scoring and an ideal possibility tracking system throughout your digital channels, as many as 9 out of 10 MQL's who are not yet sales-ready might be lost. They will purchase, just not now. You do not want to lose out on the future sale given that you didn't keep in contact and include worth though the journey. In a "Wartime" economy, you should do whatever possible to optimize the worth of your MQL's.

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

Concentrate on your present consumers.

It's less expensive to grow earnings with your existing clients. Think of whether now is the time to scale back your mass list building programs and focus on structure deeper relationships with those who currently know your company. This does not indicate to stop your need gen efforts, however it does indicate that you might want to check out with item and sales how you can sell more to your existing consumers.

In Peacetime, marketing groups are running on autopilot in pursuit of driving MQL's to please sales reps. For a company that has actually gotten traction on their way to becoming a classification king or queen, this method, though pricey feels great given that of the amazing volume of activity that is being produced. Nevertheless, without mindful analysis, the high degree of activity fools many CMO's and management groups into thinking that their need generation engine is finely tuned when, in truth, it's releasing enormous contamination, i.e. exceedingly high CAC, higher than average churn for the category, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing needs to line up with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader worries the business with an exceptional education and pedigree, having in fact held substantial titles with big companies. There was a time when the marketing group might handle all corporate and product details and messaging with the market. If a buyer wanted to learn about a brand-new item or check out whether a service might meet their requirement, they had no alternative but to call the company.

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

We understand that online marketers are no longer in control of the purchaser's journey. It is very important to define a funnel that lays out expulsions a possibility need to hand down the method to doing service with the service. Purchasers can get in touch with us on the platform of their picking. As the purchasing group has expanded to as many as two lots people, the notion that they will follow our process as we have really recommended is seldom genuine.

You need a worth developer CMO who is revenue-focused.

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

Today, marketing requires higher levels of technical capability as an outcome of the explosion of digital media and the marketing innovations that are related to internet marketing. This change has been highlighted by Forrester, discussing a 20-year-old transition to digital as the driving force behind CMOs moving from being brand-builders to profits motorists. Forrester goes on to report that a worth developer, revenue-driven Online online marketer, should be a story maker and not simply a storyteller.

The CMO today should be a professional at developing and leading creative engagement and business approach to develop a classification for the business to control.

Here are a number of techniques that a revenue-driven CMO requirement to operate:

They will work carefully with the sales group to discover and map the purchaser's journey. Where presumptions do not match what is happening 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 income if you aren't near where the sale takes place.

A revenue-focused CMO produces content targeted at each stage of the buyer's journey. Consider the buyer'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 finish the purchasing journey.
The new generation CMO will gather engagement metrics for each gate while examining the success of the end-to-end marketing cycle to deliver the most timely and licensed leads to their sellers. A worth designer CMO sees marketing as close allies to the sales group.

The revenue-centered CMO is constantly finding from and fine-tuning the process so that they can improve the quantity and quality of leads that contributed to the pipeline and closed business.
Earnings attribution and marketing ROI designs will show real results, not theorized or "presumed" requirements. This information is vital for the revenue-focused CMO to solve considering that they care about marketing's impact on service.

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

What to search for in your next CMO.

In the dynamic state of organization today, dealing with a reliable CMO is amongst the most hard things to do. Every market, organization, and market area is different. Even where you can recognize potential customers from the very same company community or environment, it's not sufficient to merely take an appearance at years of experience or education. You require to examine the inspirations and thought patterns of the person. Ask:
Is the CMO an issue solver?

The most significant risk today is on the market side and not development. A marketing leader who isn't a concern solver will have a hard time to handle the fast-changing nature of the market and neighborhood building.

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

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest way to make sure that you draw in a CMO who is revenue and not brand-driven is to work with somebody who has actually come up through product, sales, and corporate approach. Having direct exposure to the inner functions of item and sales is specifically advantageous as business technique is becoming a more significant part of the CMO's series of obligations.

Do they believe in systems or method business in a structured way?

As digital has actually blown up the variety of marketing user interface points, making it possible for purchasers to disaggregate business from the buying journey, a CMO must have the capability to consider systems and structures rather of securely specified marketing lanes. It is no longer adequate to prepare in regards to the social project, material marketing project, occasions, and PR, all as separate activities. The successful CMO will start with service objective they are serving and be prepared to question whatever.

Can they engage outside the walls of the business to the marketplace?

To end up being a story-maker, you must be worthy of listening to. A CMO is in the ideal position to presume the evangelistic function for the service. The most effective CMO's in any market are highly visible spokespeople for their service.
Are they an incentive?

As the CMO will require to work cross-functionally to ensure that they have placing with product and sales, the marketing head need to be a motivator. To develop a category needs conversation, settlement, and the ability to try to find and reach an agreement.

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

A CMO who tries to lead with ultimate authority will struggle to accomplish service objectives of the organization. Marketing groups today should work as engineering groups work in an agile style. Rather of perfectly arranged 90-day task cadences, a nimble marketing group carries out a constant circulation of initiatives while maintaining the versatility to change as the marketplace or organization requirements figure out.

Does the CMO comprehend category design?

I have really composed about classification style and why every business requires to own a classification to achieve its ideal potential. There is a framework for executing category design. Still, whether an Online marketer follows the summary or approaches category design another method, a CMO needs to be putting routine thought and preparation into how they specify the category they indicate to dominate. Without input from the CEO and other members of the executive group, there is no chance to complete a proper category style.

The Wartime CMO will need to increase the responsibility of marketing by showing the effect of each marketing activity on the pipeline as figured out by earnings contribution.
In a sluggish down, marketing needs to move the understanding of being a cost center to an income motorist. Reporting beyond the number of marketing certified leads produced to include the overall possibility worth for each lead source is an outstanding method to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the financial goals of business.

Research studies have in fact exposed that a properly designed landing page can double your conversion rate over sending out traffic to your home page, which tends to do not have the correct call to action that matches the advertisement. Due to the fact that of this, inspecting landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these methods can supply a 2.5 X boost for every single single dollar you invest in marketing. Yes, conversion rate optimization makes a distinction.

Throughout Wartime, every marketing dollar is important, and a Wartime CMO understands that winning will not come down to a single technique or "silver bullet" approach. Instead, lots of small things performed well. The CMO, who can not understand the interplay of copy, messaging, creative design, and innovation, will have a hard time to discover and recognize quickly where little modifications can provide much better conversions.

This material method worked, for a season, sort-of. Nevertheless with the boost of Google RankBrain, the method has not worked for lots of years. Without being in the middle of a crisis, you require to stop this ineffective activity. Now as budgets are under pressure and every marketing activity need to count, the way that we do content marketing needs to be updated.

Now, the material that we create needs to interest somebody looking for our option, and it needs to include purchaser intent activates like keywords and expressions that a purchaser would utilize as they get near acquiring decision. A Havas Group research study revealed that 84% of people expect brand to produce material, yet 60% of the material produced is of bad quality or unimportant, stopping working to meet the requirements of the audience. Regardless of a 71% correlation in between content effectiveness and a brand name's impact on individual health, simply 40% of the world's leading 1,500 brand name names produce material that satisfies this requirement. Trademark name's are stopping working to produce substantial material.

Stop producing assembly line material that is simply indicated to establish the trademark name or introduce the item. Instead, content must target specific personas to resolve any holdups avoiding the possibility from carrying on. This material will take longer to produce and require a greater community and item knowledge level.

CMO's in Wartime ought to have an outstanding understanding of the purchaser psyche and their mental requirements so that they can produce content that relieves fear and addresses the genuine 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 excellent position to take as much as 76% of the economics from the entire classification.

Check out more about Category Style.

The B2B sales process today is fragmented and intricate, with great deals of stakeholders requiring to confirm a purchase choice. This renders standard marketing ROI and attribution techniques less beneficial for anything besides scholastic research study.

The marketing function today breaks down into three functional pillars comprising Item, Requirement Generation, and Category Style. Due to the fact that numerous marketing leaders have actually not entirely accepted classification design, it's a surprisingly simple way to beat an incumbent throughout a crisis. As quickly as the sector starts to go over the category as you have actually defined it, your company will wind up being the classification and the apparent choice.

To do Category Style requires a different working cadence. Wartime is the ideal time to start Classification Design considered that definitely nothing is "typical" throughout a crisis.
To deal with the obstacle of constructing a Classification King business requires a load of grit, decision, and a steadfast drive to win. For the Wartime CMO, who handles the obstacle, there can be no bigger pot-o-gold if effective.

Check out the book Play Bigger to learn everything about category design.