marketing consultant - mark donnigan

Mark Donnigan develops disruptive ingenious startups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market strategies and marketing motions that drive real business outcomes for technical and product-centric creators. Mark's development and market development experience covers twenty years as a transformative B2B marketing and magnate, driving need, brand name development, and technique for start-up and growth-stage companies.

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

FIND OUT MORE: https://growthstage.marketing

Mark Donnigan has handled teams as large as 25, making up SDRs, AEs, and marketing, producing $29mm/year. Mark brought spending 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 specialist, Mark Donnigan's inbound and outgoing marketing experience consist of building and mentoring high-performance teams that carry out on need generation, brand name and item marketing, PR, digital, and occasions where he develops and executes high-impact programs that drive profits, produce ROI, activate the market, and delivers organization outcomes.

Mark Donnigan thinks that the finest marketing consultants 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 & company), and product marketing.

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

Mark has found that constructing a classification needs to be the top goal for every marketing leader and it is the structure of his method and method. Mark Donnigan has extensive B2B marketing experience that consists of building and mentoring high-performance teams.

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he puts a high worth on teamwork. Mark has comprehensive experience working along with sales, item, operations, and finance to make sure that business and income objectives of the business are always gone beyond.

Development Phase Marketing exists to supply business owners and founders services for:

Architecting the market classification that is finest fit to the distinct value proposal of your innovation.
High impact marketing assistance so that you can reach your earnings goals and scale sustainably.
Attaining go-to-market positioning across the sales and marketing organizations.
Extracting the highest value from every marketing dollar.
Expert knowledge and insights about the B2B buying journey and how to navigate a progressively fragmented consumer choice hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and process advancement to making the very first hires.

Thoughts on what it takes to be a successful online marketer and CMO today.

If you are a CEO who feels your B2B marketing does not have a clear connection to the service, you are not alone. A research study completed by the marketing consultancy Fournaise found that 80% of President are not happy with the work their leading Marketing leader is doing. Assessing what the present service fact indicates 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 described the concept in a post where he made up that the Peacetime CEO "focuses on the huge image and empowers her people to make comprehensive decisions." The Wartime CEO, on the other hand, "appreciates a speck of dust on a gnat's ass if it interfered with the prime regulation."

The Peacetime CEO "understands what to do with a huge advantage," while the Wartime CEO "is paranoid." Peacetime CEO "works to lower conflict," and Wartime CEO "heightens the contradictions."

Peacetime in business is when a company has the ability to grow in its core market due to a significant advantage vs. the competition. In times of peace, business concentrates on widening the market and boosting business's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are absolutely free to be imaginative with our trademark name building by attending each exhibition with an even larger cubicle than last year's and investing exorbitantly on sponsorships, all under the guise of constructing the brand.

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

This is more than being in a space with the light on, and all of a sudden you find yourself in pitch-black darkness, so you stroll tepidly, continuing in the exact same instructions knowing that you were heading toward the door prior to the lights got shut off. No, not just has the pandemic turned the lights out, its blown a massive crater in our course that was not there previous to, and lacking light in the room, can not be seen. Nevertheless we need to prevent at all expenditures falling into the crater.

No one wish for war, however a Wartime leader does not avoid the battle, rather, they acknowledge that Wartime is the single finest chance to leapfrog sidetracked competitors and take ground away. What follows is a set of suggestions and ideas to help you discover your "Wartime CMO fight plan."

How to serve as a Wartime CMO.

Throughout Wartime, everybody is in uncharted waters, but this is where the possibility is for many companies who previously had a tough time to compete versus larger rivals and dominant market forces. Now, for the really very first time, you may be on equivalent footing as your more effective rivals. It's the best possibility to define your future.

In an international decrease like what COVID-19 has set off, definitely nothing makes sense. And yet, a few of your rivals will continue to perform their usual "tried and real" marketing playback, assuming that building the brand name with business interactions messages from the CEO is going to add to their organization objectives. Now is the best opportunity 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 assumptions. As the around the world organization environment has altered, and the stability of the core business brought into question, CMO's needs to be prepared to reassess their preliminary plan.
Consider that less customers will correspond to minimized need. And lowered requirement indicates markets will not react as they did prior to the crisis.

Believe about it in this manner, when people buy less, advertisers 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:

Financial investment bank Cowen and Business analyzed the last 6 financial declines offered that 1950 and discovered that costs on direct marketing grew throughout the previous financial downturns. 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. Keep in mind, there will be offers throughout the board as media outlets see business cut their marketing and marketing spends. Press marketing and branding drops in a downturn, however sales activation marketing constantly increases.

Shift costs to more measurable channels so that you can adapt quickly. Speed is whatever. Marketing initiatives able to be tracked with uniqueness will be a lot more important than broad mass-market tasks. Slowdowns speed up the decline of interruption-based mass marketing. In its place will be an increased concentrate on measurable and relationship-based strategies.

Declines develop a chance for companies that are more effective at turning marketing monetary investments into profits. In the middle of a decrease when marketers are cutting their spending is an enjoyable time to benefit from low CPMs and Licensed public accountants.

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising ended up a research study in 2008 that found, "Following a budget plan cut, a brand name will continue to acquire from the marketing investment made over the previous couple of years. This will decrease any short-term service impacts, and will lead to an alarmingly deceptive boost in short-term success. The longer-term business damage will be more significant, however will not be seen in the beginning."

Millward Brown reported in their research study "Marketing Throughout Economic Recession: To Invest or Not to Invest?" that 60% of brand that went 'dark' during a financial recession by cutting their TV marketing invest for 6 months experienced a decrease in Trademark name Usage by 24% with a 28% reduction in Trademark name Image. Brand names that cut their ad budget plan at a greater rate relative to their rivals were at an even greater danger of share loss.
There are an incredible number of marketing studies that confirm in a decline, brand that continue marketing and advertising efforts recuperate quicker. It takes strong action to invest when the data recommends that ROI is not possible. A Wartime CMO fights to maintain the budget 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 applies equally to B2B and B2C purchasers. When you first recognize a prospect, they will likely stay in the awareness stage of your funnel and will not be all set to engage with an SDR or BDR. Do not force this interaction. Marketing should make sure not to move a prospect through the funnel too quickly. Keep in mind, the possibility's professional life has been turned on its head. What was an issue just a couple of weeks or months ago, is most likely not top of mind today.

It's tempting in a slow down to tighten your grip on leads given that the reasoning is that now more than ever, all leads are important. Here is where lead scoring can be an important tool to recognize highly engaged prospects from those who are not most likely to become your clients. Now is the time for Online marketers to hang on to MQL's for a prolonged period so that you can groom the prospect to the maximum possible level prior to handing them off to sales as a SQL.

Without lead scoring and an ideal possibility tracking system throughout your digital channels, as lots of as 9 out of ten MQL's who are not yet sales-ready might be lost. They will purchase, just not now. You do not wish to lose 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 must do whatever possible to optimize the worth of your MQL's.

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

Focus on your present clients.

It's less expensive to grow earnings with your existing consumers. Consider whether now is the time to downsize your mass list building programs and focus on structure much deeper relationships with those who currently know your company. This does not imply to stop your need gen efforts, but it does suggest that you might wish to explore with item and sales how you can offer 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 business that has gotten traction on their method to becoming a classification king or queen, this method, though costly feels great since of the remarkable volume of activity that is being produced. Nevertheless, without cautious analysis, the high degree of activity fools lots of CMO's and management groups into thinking that their requirement generation engine is finely tuned when, in truth, it's giving off huge contamination, i.e. exceptionally high CAC, greater than typical churn for the category, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing should line up with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader concerns the service with an amazing education and pedigree, having actually held substantial titles with big companies. There was a time when the marketing group might handle all business and product information and messaging with the market. If a purchaser wanted to discover a new product or check out whether a solution might satisfy their requirement, they had no option however to call the company.

Reactions to issues such as, Who's genuine and who isn't? - Who's product works, and whose does not? - What's coming? Now where offered with a single post on the appropriate online 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 essential to specify a funnel that details expulsions a prospect must hand down the method to doing service with the service. Purchasers can link with us on the platform of their picking. As the purchasing group has actually expanded to as many as 2 lots individuals, the concept that they will follow our process as we have really recommended is hardly ever genuine.

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

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

Today, marketing requires higher levels of technical ability as click here 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, mentioning a 20-year-old transition to digital as the driving force behind CMOs moving from being brand-builders to earnings chauffeurs. Forrester goes on to report that a worth designer, revenue-driven Online marketer, must be a story maker and not just a storyteller.

The CMO today must be a professional at producing and leading creative engagement and organization approach to establish a category for business to control.

Here are a couple of techniques that a revenue-driven CMO need to run:

They will work thoroughly with the sales group to discover and map the purchaser's journey. Where assumptions do not match what is taking location in the market, a worth designer CMO will leave the workplace and hang out in the field. This leader understands that you can not drive income if you aren't near to where the sale takes location.

A revenue-focused CMO produces content targeted at each stage of the buyer's journey. Think about the buyer's journey as a set of gates where the content responds to the main issues a buyer has at each action so that they can complete the buying journey.
The new generation CMO will collect engagement metrics for each gate while assessing the success of the end-to-end marketing cycle to deliver the most timely and qualified leads to their sellers. A worth designer CMO sees marketing as close allies to the sales group.

The revenue-centered CMO is always discovering from and fine-tuning the procedure so that they can improve the amount and quality of leads that contributed to the pipeline and closed business.
Revenues attribution and marketing ROI designs will reflect real results, not extrapolated or "presumed" requirements. This details is important for the revenue-focused CMO to fix given that they care about marketing's influence on business.

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

What to try to find in your next CMO.

In the vibrant state of business today, dealing with an effective CMO is among the most hard things to do. Every market, business, and market section is different. Even where you can recognize prospects from the exact same company community or environment, it's not sufficient to simply take an appearance at years of experience or education. You require to take a look at the motivations and believed patterns of the person. Ask:
Is the CMO an issue solver?

The most considerable 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 neighborhood building.

Are they a doer?
In numerous marketing groups, there will be specific specialists who can work at the highest level throughout the series of capabilities needed. It's incumbent for a marketing leader to command consider as a doer. The CMO, who can demonstrate functional capability in the core areas that the group operates, will be more reputable than a manager just.

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest way to ensure that you attract a CMO who is profits and not brand-driven is to work with someone who has come up through product, sales, and business technique. Having direct exposure to the inner workings of product and sales is specifically useful as company method is ending up being a more significant part of the CMO's series of responsibilities.

Do they believe in systems or method service in a structured manner?

As digital has actually exploded the variety of marketing user interface points, making it possible for buyers to disaggregate business from the purchasing journey, a CMO needs to have the capability to consider systems and structures rather of securely defined marketing lanes. It is no longer adequate to plan in concerns to the social project, content marketing job, occasions, and PR, all as separate activities. The successful CMO will start with company objective they are serving and be ready to question everything.

Can they connect outside the walls of the company to the marketplace?

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

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 establish a category needs discussion, settlement, and the ability to try to find and reach an agreement.

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

A CMO who tries to lead with supreme authority will have a hard time to accomplish company goals of business. Marketing groups today must work as engineering groups operate in a nimble fashion. Instead of well arranged 90-day job cadences, an agile marketing group performs a constant circulation of efforts while keeping the adaptability to alter as the market or company needs figure out.

Does the CMO comprehend category style?

I have really composed about category style and why every business needs to own a classification to achieve its ideal potential. There is a structure for carrying out classification design. Still, whether an Online marketer follows the summary or techniques classification design another way, a CMO needs to be putting regular thought and preparation into how they define the classification they suggest to control. Without input from the CEO and other members of the executive group, there is no way to complete a right classification style.

The Wartime CMO will need to increase the responsibility of marketing by revealing the result of each marketing activity on the pipeline as figured out by revenue contribution.
In a decrease, marketing ought to move the understanding of being an expenditure center to an earnings driver. Reporting beyond the variety of marketing certified leads produced to include the overall possibility worth for each lead source is an excellent way to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the financial goals of service.

Studies have actually revealed 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. Because of this, checking landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these techniques can offer a 2.5 X boost for every single dollar you invest in marketing. Yes, conversion rate optimization makes a difference.

During Wartime, every marketing dollar is valuable, and a Wartime CMO understands that winning will not boil down to a single technique or "silver bullet" method. Instead, many small things carried out well. The CMO, who can not understand the interaction of copy, messaging, creative design, and innovation, will have a hard time to discover and acknowledge rapidly where small modifications can offer much better conversions.

This material technique worked, for a season, sort-of. However with the increase of Google RankBrain, the approach has actually not worked for numerous years. Without being in the middle of a crisis, you require to stop this ineffective activity. Now as budget plans are under pressure and every marketing activity ought to count, the manner in which we do content marketing requires to be updated.

Now, the content that we create requirements to interest somebody searching for our service, and it must consist of buyer intent activates like keywords and expressions that a buyer would use as they get near buying choice. A Havas Group research study exposed that 84% of people prepare for trademark name to produce content, yet 60% of the material produced is of bad quality or unimportant, failing to meet the needs of the audience. Regardless of a 71% connection in between content efficiency and a brand name's influence on personal health, just 40% of the world's leading 1,500 brand name names produce content that satisfies this requirement. Brand name's are stopping working to produce significant content.

Stop producing assembly line material that is simply implied to establish the brand name or introduce the product. Rather, material must target particular personalities to deal with any troubles preventing the prospect from proceeding. This material will take longer to produce and need a greater community and item knowledge level.

CMO's in Wartime must have an exceptional understanding of the purchaser psyche and their psychological needs so that they can produce content that eases worry 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 whole category.

Learn more about Category Style.

The B2B sales process today is fragmented and complicated, with lots of stakeholders requiring to validate a purchase decision. This renders basic marketing ROI and attribution methods less advantageous for anything besides academic research study.

The marketing function today breaks down into three practical pillars comprising Product, Need Generation, and Classification Style. Because lots of marketing leaders have in fact not entirely accepted classification style, it's a remarkably simple way to beat an incumbent during a crisis. As quickly as the sector begins to talk about the classification as you have really specified it, your business will end up being the category and the obvious choice.

To do Category Style requires a various working cadence. Wartime is the ideal time to embark on Category Style considered that definitely nothing is "normal" throughout a crisis.
To deal with the challenge of building a Category King organization requires a lots of grit, decision, and a steadfast drive to win. For the Wartime CMO, who handles the difficulty, there can be no larger pot-o-gold if effective.

Check out the book Play Bigger to discover out all about category design.