mark donnigan marketing consultant



Mark Donnigan builds disruptive innovative startups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market plans and marketing movements that drive real service outcomes for technical and product-centric creators. Mark's growth and market development experience covers 20 years as a transformative B2B marketing and magnate, driving demand, brand advancement, and technique for start-up and growth-stage companies.

As a specialist and virtual marketing leader (fractional-CMO), Mark Donnigan handles startup developers and CEOs from B2B disruptive innovation technology companies to help them develop, bootstrap, and scale their marketing and go-to-market actions.

FIND OUT MORE: https://growthstage.marketing

Mark Donnigan has managed groups as large as 25, making up SDRs, AEs, and marketing, producing $29mm/year. Mark carried budget plan obligations 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 inbound and outgoing marketing experience include structure and mentoring high-performance groups that perform as needed generation, brand and item marketing, PR, digital, and occasions where he develops and carries out high-impact programs that drive revenue, produce ROI, trigger the marketplace, and provides business results.

Mark Donnigan thinks that the very best marketing experts and marketing leaders are doers. Mark's marketing experience includes all aspects 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 constantly works cross-functionally and has actually proven success, structure, leading, and mentoring marketing, sales, and organization advancement groups that have really produced more than $500mm in revenue/shareholder value.

Mark has actually found that building a category ought to be the top goal for every single marketing leader and it is the structure of his technique and approach. Mark Donnigan has substantial B2B marketing experience that includes building and mentoring high-performance groups.

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he puts a high worth on teamwork. Mark has comprehensive experience working together with sales, product, operations, and financing to ensure that the company and income objectives of the company are always surpassed.

Growth Stage Marketing exists to provide entrepreneurs and founders services for:

Architecting the marketplace category that is best matched to the unique value proposition of your innovation.
High impact marketing support so that you can reach your income goals and scale sustainably.
Attaining 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 browse a significantly fragmented customer decision hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and procedure development to making the first hires.

Thoughts 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 Chief Executives are not pleased with the work their top Marketing leader is doing. Assessing what the present service fact indicates for marketing leaders, I remembered the concept of a Peacetime leader and a Wartime leader from Ben Horowitz's book "The Hard Thing About Hard Things."

Horowitz explained the principle in an article where he composed that the Peacetime CEO "focuses on the big image and empowers her people to make in-depth decisions." The Wartime CEO, on the other hand, "values a speck of dust on a gnat's ass if it interfered with the prime instruction."

The Peacetime CEO "understands what to do with a huge benefit," while the Wartime CEO "is paranoid." Peacetime CEO "works to decrease dispute," and Wartime CEO "heightens the contradictions."

Peacetime in service is when a company has the capability to grow in its core market due to a significant advantage vs. the competitors. In times of peace, business concentrates on broadening the marketplace and enhancing business's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are totally complimentary to be creative with our brand structure by participating in each exhibition with an even bigger cubicle than in 2015's and investing exorbitantly on sponsorships, all under the guise of building the brand.

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

This is more than remaining in an area with the light on, and all of a sudden you find yourself in pitch-black darkness, so you walk tepidly, continuing in the exact same directions knowing that you were heading towards the door prior to the lights got switched off. No, not simply has the pandemic turned the lights out, its blown a huge crater in our path that was not there prior to, and devoid of light in the room, can not be seen. However we should prevent at all expenditures falling under the crater.

Nobody longs for war, but a Wartime leader does not diminish from the fight, instead, they acknowledge that Wartime is the single finest opportunity to leapfrog sidetracked rivals and take ground away. What follows is a set of ideas and ideas to assist you discover your "Wartime CMO battle plan."

How to act as a Wartime CMO.

During Wartime, everybody is in uncharted waters, but this is where the opportunity is for lots of companies who previously had a difficult time to complete versus bigger rivals and dominant market forces. Now, for the extremely first time, you might be on comparable footing as your more effective rivals. It's the best opportunity to specify your future.

In a worldwide reduction like what COVID-19 has actually activated, absolutely nothing makes good sense. And yet, a few of your competitors will continue to perform their usual "tried and genuine" marketing playback, assuming that building the brand with corporate interactions messages from the CEO is going to add to their company objectives. Now is the ideal 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 check your vital assumptions. As the around the world service environment has changed, and the stability of the core organization brought into question, CMO's ought to be prepared to reassess their initial strategy.
Think of that less customers will equate to minimized need. And lowered need means markets will not respond as they did prior to the crisis.

Think 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 knowledgeable about:

Financial investment bank Cowen and Company analyzed the last 6 economic recessions considered that 1950 and found that costs on direct marketing grew during the previous financial 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 offers throughout the board as media outlets see companies cut their marketing and advertising spends. Push marketing and branding drops in a downturn, however sales activation marketing constantly increases.

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

Declines create a chance for companies that are more efficient at turning marketing financial investments into income. In the middle of a slow down when advertisers are cutting their costs is an enjoyable time to take advantage of low CPMs and Licensed public accountants.

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising finished a research study in 2008 that discovered, "Following a budget cut, a brand will continue to get from the marketing investment made over the previous couple of years. This will lower any short-term service effects, and will result in a dangerously misleading boost in short-term success. The longer-term company harm will be more significant, however will not be noticed in the beginning."

Millward Brown reported in their research study "Marketing Throughout Economic Slump: To Invest or Not to Invest?" that 60% of brand that went 'dark' throughout a financial recession by cutting their TELEVISION marketing invest for 6 months experienced a decrease in Trademark name Use by 24% with a 28% reduction in Brand Image. Brands that cut their ad spending plan at a greater rate relative to their rivals were at an even higher danger of share loss.
There are an unbelievable variety of marketing studies that validate in a decrease, brand that continue marketing and advertising efforts recover quicker. It takes strong action to invest when the data advises that ROI is not possible. A Wartime CMO battles to keep the budget required to continue marketing.

Make the most of the worth of each lead produced.

In a downturn, risk-averse purchasers take even longer to research purchases, and this applies similarly to B2B and B2C buyers. 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 must take care not to move a possibility through the funnel too quickly. Keep in mind, the prospect's professional life has been switched on its head. What was an issue simply a number of weeks or months earlier, is most likely not top of mind today.

It's tempting in a sluggish down to tighten your grip on leads since the reasoning is that now more than ever, all leads are important. Here is where lead scoring can be an important tool to recognize extremely engaged prospects from those who are not likely to become your clients. Now is the time for Online marketers to hang on to MQL's for an extended period so that you can groom the possibility to the maximum possible degree prior to 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 ten MQL's who are not yet sales-ready may be lost. They will buy, simply not now. You don't wish 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 better job of handling leads and establishing early-stage prospects into sales-ready leads will stay in the finest position to win throughout the crisis and most certainly once it has actually passed.

Focus on your present consumers.

It's cheaper to grow incomes with your existing clients. Consider whether now is the time to scale back your mass list building programs and focus on structure deeper relationships with those who already more info know your organization. This does not imply to stop your need gen efforts, but it does indicate that you might wish to check out 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 actually acquired traction on their way to ending up being a classification king or queen, this technique, though costly feels good since of the exceptional 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 believing that their need generation engine is carefully tuned when, in truth, it's emitting massive contamination, i.e. extremely high CAC, higher than average churn for the classification, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing needs to line up with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader concerns the company with an amazing education and pedigree, having actually held considerable titles with huge companies. There was a time when the marketing group might handle all corporate and item information and messaging with the market. If a buyer preferred to discover a brand-new product or explore whether an option might meet their requirement, they had no alternative however to call business.

Responses 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 proper forum or LinkedIn group. As an outcome, the power shifted to the buyer.

We know that online marketers are no longer in control of the buyer's journey. It is necessary to define a funnel that outlines expulsions a prospect must pass on the method to doing business with the service. Purchasers can link with us on the platform of their picking. As the purchasing group has expanded to as lots of as two lots people, the concept that they will follow our procedure as we have actually prescribed is seldom real.

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

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

Today, marketing needs higher levels of technical capability as an outcome of the surge of digital media and the marketing technologies that are connected with internet marketing. This transformation has been highlighted by Forrester, pointing out a 20-year-old shift to digital as the driving force behind CMOs moving from being brand-builders to earnings motorists. Forrester goes on to report that a value developer, revenue-driven Online marketer, must be a story maker and not simply a writer.

The CMO today must be an expert at creating and leading creative engagement and organization method to develop a classification for the organization to control.

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

They will work carefully with the sales group to discover and map the purchaser's journey. Where assumptions do not match what is happening 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 where the sale happens.

A revenue-focused CMO produces content targeted at each phase of the buyer's journey. Think of the purchaser's journey as a set of gates where the material responds to the main issues a buyer has at each action so that they can finish 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 provide the most timely and certified cause their sellers. A worth designer CMO sees marketing as close allies to the sales group.

The revenue-centered CMO is constantly discovering from and fine-tuning the procedure so that they can enhance the quantity and quality of leads that added to the pipeline and closed company.
Earnings attribution and marketing ROI designs will reflect real outcomes, not extrapolated or "presumed" requirements. This information is crucial for the revenue-focused CMO to fix since they care about marketing's influence on organization.

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

What to look for in your next CMO.

In the dynamic state of service today, dealing with a reliable CMO is amongst the most tough things to do. Every market, service, and market area is numerous. Even where you can acknowledge prospects from the exact same company community or environment, it's inadequate to merely have a look at years of experience or education. You require to take a look at the inspirations and believed patterns of the individual. Ask:
Is the CMO an issue solver?

The most considerable risk today is on the market side and not development. A marketing leader who isn't an issue solver will struggle to handle the fast-changing nature of the market and neighborhood structure.

Are they a doer?
In lots of marketing groups, there will be particular professionals who can operate at the greatest level throughout the series of abilities required. It's incumbent for a marketing leader to command consider as a doer. The CMO, who can show practical ability in the core areas that the group runs, will be more trustworthy than a supervisor just.

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest way to ensure that you attract a CMO who is revenue and not brand-driven is to employ someone who has come up through product, sales, and business method. Having direct exposure to the inner operations of item and sales is specifically helpful as company approach is ending up being a more significant part of the CMO's series of obligations.

Do they think in systems or technique service in a structured way?

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

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

To wind up being a story-maker, you should deserve 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 extremely noticeable spokespeople for their organization.
Are they an incentive?

As the CMO will require to work cross-functionally to make sure that they have placing with product and sales, the marketing head should be a motivator. To develop a classification requires conversation, settlement, and the ability to try to find and reach an arrangement.

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

A CMO who tries to lead with ultimate authority will have a hard time to achieve organization objectives of the organization. Marketing groups today need to work as engineering groups work in a nimble style. Instead of nicely arranged 90-day job cadences, an agile marketing group performs a constant blood circulation of efforts while keeping the flexibility to change as the marketplace or service needs determine.

Does the CMO comprehend category style?

I have actually made up about classification design and why every service needs to own a classification to accomplish its optimum potential. There is a structure for performing classification design. Still, whether a Marketer follows the summary or approaches category style another method, a CMO needs to be putting routine 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 other way to finish an appropriate category design.

The Wartime CMO will need to increase the responsibility of marketing by showing the impact of each marketing activity on the pipeline as figured out by revenue contribution.
In a sluggish down, marketing should move the understanding of being a cost center to an earnings driver. Reporting beyond the number of marketing certified leads produced to consist of the total possibility worth for each lead source is an outstanding method to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the economic objectives of company.

Studies have really revealed that an effectively developed landing page can double your conversion rate over sending out traffic to your house page, which tends to do not have the proper call to action that matches the advertisement. Because of this, examining landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these methods can supply a 2.5 X increase for every single dollar you invest in marketing. Yes, conversion rate optimization makes a difference.

Throughout Wartime, every marketing dollar is valuable, and a Wartime CMO understands that winning will not boil down to a single strategy or "silver bullet" approach. Rather, lots of small things performed well. The CMO, who can not understand the interaction of copy, messaging, imaginative design, and innovation, will struggle to find and recognize quickly where little adjustments can offer much better conversions.

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

Now, the content that we produce requirements to interest someone attempting to discover our solution, and it should include buyer intent triggers like keywords and expressions that a buyer would use as they get near acquiring decision. A Havas Group research study exposed that 84% of individuals prepare for brand to produce content, yet 60% of the material produced is of bad quality or unimportant, stopping working to fulfill the needs of the audience. No matter a 71% connection in between content effectiveness and a brand name's impact on individual wellness, simply 40% of the world's leading 1,500 brand produce material that satisfies this requirement. Brand name's are stopping working to produce considerable content.

Stop producing assembly line content that is simply indicated to develop the trademark name or present the item. Rather, material needs to target particular personas to deal with any troubles avoiding the possibility from proceeding. This material will take longer to produce and require a greater neighborhood and item understanding level.

CMO's in Wartime must have an excellent understanding of the purchaser psyche and their psychological needs so that they can develop material that eases worry and addresses the sincere concerns they have.

CMO's in Wartime double down on Category Design so that their organization will come out as the leader, making them the dominant choice, putting them in the excellent position to take as much as 76% of the economics from the whole classification.

Learn more about Classification Design.

The B2B sales procedure today is fragmented and complex, with great deals of stakeholders needing to verify a purchase decision. This renders standard marketing ROI and attribution techniques less advantageous for anything besides academic research study.

The marketing function today breaks down into three functional pillars making up Item, Requirement Generation, and Category Style. Since lots of marketing leaders have really not entirely accepted classification style, it's a remarkably easy way to beat an incumbent throughout a crisis. As soon as the sector starts to go over the classification as you have actually defined it, your service will end up being the classification and the obvious option.

To do Classification Design requires a different working cadence. Wartime is the best time to start Category Design considered that absolutely nothing is "normal" throughout a crisis.
To manage the difficulty of constructing a Category King company needs a lot of grit, determination, and an unfaltering drive to win. For the Wartime CMO, who takes on the difficulty, there can be no larger pot-o-gold if successful.

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

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