startup marketing consultant - mark donnigan

Mark Donnigan builds disruptive ingenious start-ups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market strategies and marketing movements that drive real service results for technical and product-centric founders. Mark's growth and market development experience covers 20 years as a transformative B2B marketing and business leader, driving demand, brand name advancement, and technique for start-up and growth-stage companies.

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

FIND OUT MORE: https://growthstage.marketing

Mark Donnigan has actually managed groups as large as 25, comprising 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 start-up marketing specialist, Mark Donnigan's incoming and outgoing marketing experience include building and mentoring high-performance groups that perform as needed generation, brand and item marketing, PR, digital, and events where he develops and implements high-impact programs that drive revenue, produce ROI, activate the marketplace, and delivers company outcomes.

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

Mark is an issue solver and a first-principles thinker who is imaginative and analytical. Mark constantly works cross-functionally and has actually proven success, building, leading, and mentoring marketing, sales, and business development groups that have actually produced more than $500mm in revenue/shareholder value.

Mark has discovered that building a category ought to be the top objective for each marketing leader and it is the foundation of his approach and technique. Mark Donnigan has substantial B2B marketing experience that includes structure and mentoring high-performance teams.

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

Development Phase Marketing exists to supply entrepreneurs and founders services for:

Architecting the market category that is finest matched to the special worth proposal of your technology.
High impact marketing assistance so that you can reach your revenue objectives and scale sustainably.
Attaining go-to-market positioning throughout the sales and marketing organizations.
Extracting the greatest worth from every marketing dollar.
Insider knowledge and insights about the B2B purchasing journey and how to browse a significantly fragmented consumer decision hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and procedure development to making the first hires.

Thoughts on what it requires a successful online 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 research study completed by the marketing consultancy Fournaise discovered that 80% of President are not happy with the work their top Marketing leader is doing. Evaluating what the present organization reality indicates for marketing leaders, I remembered the principle of a Peacetime leader and a Wartime leader from Ben Horowitz's book "The Hard Thing About Hard Things."

Horowitz explained the principle in a post where he made up that the Peacetime CEO "focuses on the huge image and empowers her people to make detailed choices." The Wartime CEO, on the other hand, "appreciates a speck of dust on a gnat's ass if it interfered with the prime directive."

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

Peacetime in organization is when a service has the ability to grow in its core market due to a significant benefit vs. the competitors. In times of peace, the service focuses on expanding the market and enhancing the service's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are completely complimentary to be imaginative with our trademark name building by going to each exhibit with an even bigger cubicle than last year's and investing exorbitantly on sponsorships, all under the guise of building the brand name.

Wartime is a different thing entirely because, in Wartime, the life and death of our business may be on the line.
As I compose this post, the entire world is combating an undetectable enemy called COVID-19, which has let loose a discouraging dose of service unpredictability internationally. For CMO's, the COVID-19 pandemic is service equivalent of war. No longer do our 2020 marketing methods make good sense.

This is more than remaining in a space 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 guidelines understanding that you were heading towards the door prior to the lights got shut off. No, not simply has the pandemic turned the lights out, its blown a massive crater in our path that was not there prior to, and lacking light in the space, can not be seen. Nevertheless we ought to prevent at all expenditures falling under 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 possibility to leapfrog sidetracked competitors and take ground away. What follows is a set of ideas and ideas to assist you find your "Wartime CMO fight plan."

How to act as a Wartime CMO.

During Wartime, everybody remains in uncharted waters, but this is where the possibility is for numerous companies who formerly had a difficult time to contend against bigger competitors and dominant market forces. Now, for the very first time, you might be on equivalent footing as your more powerful rivals. It's the best opportunity to specify your future.

In a worldwide decrease like what COVID-19 has activated, definitely nothing makes good sense. And yet, a few of your competitors will continue to perform their usual "attempted and genuine" marketing playback, presuming that constructing the brand name with business interactions messages from the CEO is going to add to their company 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 inspect your vital assumptions. As the around the world organization environment has altered, and the stability of the core organization brought into question, CMO's needs to be all set to reassess their initial plan.
Think of that less customers will correspond to decreased requirement. And minimized need suggests markets will not respond as they did prior to the crisis.

Think about it in this manner, when individuals buy less, marketers invest less. However prior to you follow a slash and burn the marketing invest playbook, here are a number of things to be experienced about:

Investment bank Cowen and Business analyzed the last 6 financial downturns offered that 1950 and found that costs on direct marketing grew during the previous economic recessions. Significance, you will want to consider your mix of brand marketing thoroughly compared to sales activation marketing. It's not time to stop marketing. Remember, there will be offers throughout the board as media outlets see companies cut their advertising and marketing invests. Press marketing and branding drops in a slowdown, but sales activation marketing always increases.

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

Downturns develop a chance for companies that are more efficient at turning marketing financial investments into revenue. In the middle of a sluggish down when advertisers are cutting their spending is a fun time to gain from low CPMs and Qualified public accountants.

The Institute of Practitioners in Marketing ended up a study in 2008 that found, "Following a spending plan cut, a brand will continue to acquire from the marketing financial investment made over the previous couple of years. This will lower any short-term organization effects, and will result in a precariously deceptive increase in short-term success. The longer-term organization damage will be more significant, but will not be seen in the start."

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

Take complete advantage of the worth of each lead produced.

In a slowdown, risk-averse purchasers take even longer to research study purchases, and this applies similarly 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 require this interaction. Marketing must take care not to move a possibility through the funnel too rapidly. Keep in mind, the prospect's expert life has 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 tempting in a decrease to tighten your grip on leads given that the rationale is that now more than ever, all leads are important. Here is where lead scoring can be a valuable tool to acknowledge highly engaged potential customers from those who are not likely to become your clients. Now is the time for Online marketers to hold on to MQL's for a prolonged period so that you can groom the possibility to the maximum possible level prior to handing them off to sales as a SQL.

Without lead scoring and a perfect prospect tracking system throughout your digital channels, as numerous as 9 out of ten MQL's who are not yet sales-ready may be lost. They will purchase, simply not now. You do not wish to miss out on out on the future sale since you didn't keep in contact and include worth though the journey. In a "Wartime" economy, you need to do everything possible to optimize the worth of your MQL's.

CMO's that do a better job of dealing with leads and developing early-stage prospects 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 consumers.

It's cheaper to grow earnings with your existing customers. Believe about whether now is the time to downsize your mass lead generation programs and focus on building much deeper relationships with those who already know your service. This does not suggest to stop your requirement gen efforts, but it does indicate that you may wish to explore with product and sales more info how you can sell more to your existing customers.

In Peacetime, marketing groups are operating on auto-pilot in pursuit of driving MQL's to please sales reps. For a service that has acquired traction on their way to becoming a classification king or queen, this technique, though pricey feels great considering that of the impressive volume of activity that is being produced. Nevertheless, without cautious analysis, the high degree of activity fools many CMO's and management groups into believing that their need generation engine is finely tuned when, in reality, it's emitting enormous contamination, i.e. exceptionally high CAC, higher than typical churn for the category, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing needs to align with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader worries business with an amazing education and pedigree, having actually held substantial titles with huge companies. There was a time when the marketing group may handle all business and item details and messaging with the market. If a purchaser wanted to discover out about a new item or check out whether a solution might meet their requirement, they had no alternative however to call business.

Actions to concerns 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 online forum or LinkedIn group. As an outcome, the power moved to the purchaser.

We know that online marketers are no longer in control of the purchaser's journey. It is necessary to specify a funnel that describes evictions a possibility should pass on the way to doing company with the service. Purchasers can get in touch with us on the platform of their choosing. As the buying group has broadened to as many as two lots people, the concept that they will follow our procedure as we have in fact prescribed is rarely real.

You need a value designer 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 product developers or service business, to digital development business where the product is distributed as software application or software application as a service through the Web, has reduced the function of marketing. And is the aspect a revenue-focused CMO who is a worth designer is what all start-ups and disruptive development business need today.

Today, marketing requires higher levels of technical ability as an outcome of the explosion of digital media and the marketing innovations that are associated with online marketing. This improvement 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 profits motorists. Forrester goes on to report that a value designer, revenue-driven Online online marketer, should be a story maker and not just a writer.

The CMO today need to be a professional at developing and leading imaginative engagement and service method to establish a classification for the company to dominate.

Here are a number of methods that a revenue-driven CMO need to run:

They will work carefully with the sales group to find and map the buyer's journey. Where presumptions do not match what is happening in the market, a value designer CMO will leave the workplace and hang out in the field. This leader understands that you can not drive profits if you aren't near to 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 content reacts to the main concerns a purchaser has at each action so that they can finish the purchasing journey.
The new generation CMO will collect engagement metrics for each gate while evaluating the success of the end-to-end marketing cycle to deliver the most prompt and certified result in 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 process so that they can improve the amount and quality of leads that contributed to the pipeline and closed organization.
Profits attribution and marketing ROI styles will show genuine results, not extrapolated or "presumed" requirements. This details is important for the revenue-focused CMO to resolve since they appreciate marketing's influence on organization.

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

What to search for in your next CMO.

In the vibrant state of service today, working with a reliable CMO is amongst the most challenging things to do. Every market, business, and market area is numerous. Even where you can recognize prospects from the very same company neighborhood or environment, it's not sufficient 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 threat today is on the market side and not innovation. A marketing leader who isn't an issue solver will struggle to deal with the fast-changing nature of the market and neighborhood structure.

Are they a doer?
In many marketing groups, there will specify specialists who can operate at the greatest level throughout the series of capabilities required. It's incumbent for a marketing leader to command consider a doer. The CMO, who can demonstrate functional ability in the core areas that the group operates, will be more dependable than a manager just.

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest method to ensure that you bring in a CMO who is earnings and not brand-driven is to hire someone who has actually come up through item, sales, and corporate approach. Having direct exposure to the inner operations of product and sales is especially helpful as organization technique is ending up being a more significant part of the CMO's series of obligations.

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

As digital has exploded the variety of marketing interface points, enabling purchasers to disaggregate business from the purchasing journey, a CMO ought to have the ability to consider systems and structures rather of securely defined marketing lanes. It is no longer sufficient to plan in concerns to the social project, content marketing task, occasions, and PR, all as different activities. The effective CMO will begin with company objective they are serving and be all set to question everything.

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

To end up being a story-maker, you need to be worthy of listening to. A CMO is in the perfect position to presume the evangelistic function for business. The most effective 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 guarantee that they have positioning with product and sales, the marketing head must be a motivator. To develop a category requires conversation, negotiation, and the ability to look for and reach an agreement.

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

A CMO who tries to lead with ultimate authority will struggle to achieve service objectives of business. Marketing groups today must work as engineering groups operate in a nimble style. Instead of well arranged 90-day job cadences, a nimble marketing group performs a consistent circulation of initiatives while maintaining the versatility to alter as the marketplace or service needs determine.

Does the CMO comprehend category style?

I have really made up about category style and why every company needs to own a classification to achieve its ideal potential. There is a structure for performing classification design. Still, whether an Online marketer follows the summary or techniques classification design another way, a CMO must be putting routine thought and preparation into how they define the category they imply to control. Without input from the CEO and other members of the executive group, there is no method to finish a right classification design.

The Wartime CMO will need to increase the responsibility of marketing by showing the effect of each marketing activity on the pipeline as determined by earnings contribution.
In a decrease, marketing must move the understanding of being an expenditure center to an earnings motorist. Reporting beyond the variety of marketing qualified leads produced to consist of the total chance worth for each lead source is an exceptional way to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the financial goals of organization.

Studies have actually exposed that an appropriately designed landing page can double your conversion rate over sending traffic to your house page, which tends to do not have the appropriate call to action that matches the advertisement. Because of this, inspecting landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these methods can offer a 2.5 X boost for every single dollar you buy marketing. Yes, conversion rate optimization makes a difference.

During Wartime, every marketing dollar is important, and a Wartime CMO understands that winning will not come down to a single technique or "silver bullet" technique. Instead, numerous little things executed well. The CMO, who can not understand the interplay of copy, messaging, imaginative style, and development, will have a hard time to find and acknowledge quickly where little adjustments can offer better conversions.

This content technique worked, for a season, sort-of. However with the boost of Google RankBrain, the approach has not worked for several 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 should count, the manner in which we do content marketing needs to be upgraded.

Now, the material that we develop requirements to interest somebody looking for our option, and it should consist of buyer intent activates like keywords and expressions that a purchaser would utilize as they get near to acquiring choice. A Havas Group research study exposed that 84% of individuals expect brand to produce content, yet 60% of the content produced is of bad quality or unimportant, stopping working to meet the requirements of the audience. Despite a 71% correlation in between content effectiveness and a brand's impact on individual health, just 40% of the world's leading 1,500 brand names produce content that meets this requirement. Trademark name's are failing to produce significant material.

Stop producing assembly line content that is just suggested to establish the brand name or present the product. Instead, material should target specific personalities to deal with any holdups avoiding the prospect from moving on. This material will take longer to produce and require a higher community and item understanding level.

CMO's in Wartime should have an outstanding understanding of the buyer mind and their mental requirements so that they can create content that alleviates worry and addresses the genuine issues 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.

Read more about Category Style.

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

The marketing function today breaks down into three practical pillars making up Item, Requirement Generation, and Category Design. Because numerous marketing leaders have in fact not totally embraced category style, it's a remarkably easy method to info beat an incumbent throughout a crisis. As quickly as the sector begins to discuss the category as you have in fact specified it, your service will wind up being the classification and the obvious option.

To do Classification Style needs a various working cadence. Wartime is the perfect time to start Classification Design considered that absolutely nothing is "normal" during a crisis.
To handle the difficulty of constructing a Classification King business requires a lot of grit, determination, and an unfaltering drive to win. For the Wartime CMO, who handles the challenge, there can be no larger pot-o-gold if effective.

Read the book Play Bigger to discover all about category design.