growth stage marketing consultant Mark Donnigan

Mark Donnigan develops disruptive innovative start-ups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market strategies and marketing movements that drive genuine company results for technical and product-centric founders. Mark's development and market development experience covers twenty years as a transformative B2B marketing and magnate, driving need, brand development, and strategy 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 innovation technology companies to assist them establish, bootstrap, and scale their marketing and go-to-market actions.

DISCOVER MORE: https://growthstage.marketing

Mark Donnigan has actually handled groups as big as 25, making up SDRs, AEs, and marketing, producing $29mm/year. Mark brought budget plan obligations to $3mm/year for operations and $400k/year for marketing. Offer sizes differing from mid-five figures to mid-six figures every year.

As a startup marketing consultant, Mark Donnigan's inbound and outbound marketing experience include building and mentoring high-performance groups that carry out on demand generation, brand name and product marketing, PR, digital, and events where he develops and carries out high-impact programs that drive income, produce ROI, trigger the market, and delivers company results.

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

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

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

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he places a high value on team effort. Mark has substantial experience working alongside sales, product, operations, and financing to ensure that the service and profits goals of the company are always gone beyond.

Growth Stage Marketing exists to offer business owners and creators services for:

Architecting the marketplace category that is best suited to the unique value proposition of your innovation.
High impact marketing support so that you can reach your profits objectives and scale sustainably.
Accomplishing go-to-market alignment across the sales and marketing companies.
Extracting the greatest value from every marketing dollar.
Insider knowledge and insights about the B2B purchasing journey and how to navigate a progressively fragmented customer decision hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and procedure development to making the very first hires.

Thoughts on what it takes to be an effective 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 finished by the marketing consultancy Fournaise discovered that 80% of Chief Executives are not happy with the work their leading Marketing leader is doing. Examining what today company fact implies for marketing leaders, I remembered the principle of a Peacetime leader and a Wartime leader from Ben Horowitz's book "The Hard Aspect Of Hard Things."

Horowitz described the principle in a post where he composed that the Peacetime CEO "concentrates on the big image and empowers her individuals to make detailed decisions." The Wartime CEO, on the other hand, "appreciates a speck of dust on a gnat's ass if it disrupted the prime instruction."

The Peacetime CEO "understands what to do with a substantial advantage," while the Wartime CEO "is paranoid." Peacetime CEO "works to minimize dispute," and Wartime CEO "increases the contradictions."

Peacetime in service is when a business has the capability to grow in its core market due to a considerable benefit vs. the competition. In times of peace, business concentrates on widening the market and improving the company's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are absolutely free to be imaginative with our trademark name structure by going to each exhibit 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 various thing totally because, in Wartime, the life and death of our company might be on the line.
As I write this post, the whole world is fighting an invisible enemy called COVID-19, which has let loose a discouraging dosage of organization uncertainty internationally. For CMO's, the COVID-19 pandemic is company equivalent of war. No longer do our 2020 marketing methods make excellent sense.

This is more than remaining in an area with the light on, and all of a sudden you discover yourself in pitch-black darkness, so you walk tepidly, continuing in the same guidelines knowing that you were heading towards the door prior to the lights got turned 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 space, can not be seen. However we ought to avoid at all expenses falling under the crater.

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

How to function as a Wartime CMO.

Throughout Wartime, everybody is in uncharted waters, but this is where the chance is for numerous business who formerly had a difficult time to compete against bigger rivals and dominant market forces. Now, for the extremely first time, you may be on comparable footing as your more effective rivals. It's the perfect chance to specify your future.

In an international reduction like what COVID-19 has actually activated, definitely nothing makes good sense. And yet, a few of your rivals will continue to perform their usual "tried and genuine" marketing playback, presuming that constructing the brand with corporate interactions messages from the CEO is going to contribute to their company goals. Now is the perfect opportunity for the Wartime CMO to take ground in the market.

Take strong action.

Creative marketing is needed in Wartime more than ever. Now is the time to inspect your important presumptions. As the around the world business environment has modified, and the stability of the core company cast doubt on, CMO's should be prepared to reassess their preliminary strategy.
Believe about that less customers will relate to lowered requirement. And lowered requirement suggests markets will not respond as they did prior to the crisis.

Think about it in this manner, when people buy 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 experienced about:

Financial investment bank Cowen and Business analyzed the last 6 financial recessions considered that 1950 and found that spending on direct marketing grew throughout the previous financial downturns. 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 marketing and advertising invests. Push marketing and branding drops in a slowdown, but sales activation marketing always increases.

Shift spending to more quantifiable channels so that you can adapt quickly. Speed is everything. Marketing initiatives able to be tracked with uniqueness will be a lot more important than broad mass-market projects. Slowdowns speed up the reduction of interruption-based mass marketing. In its location will be an increased concentrate on quantifiable and relationship-based techniques.

Downturns produce an opportunity for business that are more efficient at turning marketing financial investments into profits. In the middle of a slow down when marketers are cutting their spending is an enjoyable time to take advantage of low CPMs and Licensed public accounting professionals.

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising completed a study in 2008 that found, "Following a spending plan cut, a brand will continue to get from the marketing financial investment made over the previous few years. This will reduce any short-term service effects, and will result in a dangerously misleading boost in short-term success. The longer-term organization damage will be more substantial, however will not be discovered in the start."

Millward Brown reported in their research study "Marketing Throughout Economic Slump: To Invest or Not to Invest?" that 60% of trademark name that went 'dark' throughout a financial recession by cutting their TELEVISION marketing invest for 6 months experienced a decline in Brand name Usage by 24% with a 28% reduction in Trademark name Image. Brands that cut their ad budget plan at a higher rate relative to their competitors were at an even higher threat of share loss.
There are an amazing number of marketing studies that confirm in a decline, brand names that continue marketing and advertising efforts recuperate quicker. It takes strong action to invest when the information suggests that ROI is not possible. A Wartime CMO fights to keep the spending plan required to continue marketing.

Take full advantage of 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 purchasers. When you first 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 ought to take care not to move a prospect through the funnel too quickly. Remember, the possibility's professional life has actually been switched on its head. What was a concern just a couple of weeks or months ago, is likely not top of mind today.

It's appealing in a slow down to tighten your grip on leads considering that the rationale is that now more than ever, all leads are essential. Here is where lead scoring can be a valuable tool to recognize highly engaged prospects from those who are not likely to become your consumers. Now is the time for Marketers to hang on to MQL's for a prolonged duration so that you can groom the prospect to the maximum possible degree prior to handing them off to sales as a SQL.

Without lead scoring and an ideal prospect 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 buy, just not now. You don't want to miss out on out on the future sale considering that you didn't keep in contact and consist of worth though the journey. In a "Wartime" economy, you ought to do whatever possible to enhance the worth of your MQL's.

CMO's that do a better task 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 certainly once it has actually passed.

Focus on your present consumers.

It's cheaper to grow earnings with your existing consumers. Think about whether now is the time to downsize your mass lead generation programs and focus on building much deeper relationships with those who already understand your business. This does not suggest to stop your requirement gen efforts, but it does indicate that you might wish to check out with product and sales how you can sell more to your existing consumers.

In Peacetime, marketing groups are running on auto-pilot in pursuit of driving MQL's to please sales reps. For an organization that has acquired traction on their method to becoming a classification king or queen, this approach, though pricey feels great since 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 requirement generation engine is finely tuned when, in reality, it's releasing huge contamination, i.e. extremely high CAC, greater than typical churn for the classification, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing must align with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader worries business with a remarkable education and pedigree, having really held considerable titles with big business. There was a time when the marketing group might handle all corporate and item information and messaging with the market. If a buyer wanted to learn about a new item or explore whether a solution may satisfy their requirement, they had no alternative but to call the business.

Actions to issues such as, Who's genuine and who isn't? - Who's item 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 purchaser.

We understand that online marketers are no longer in control of the purchaser's journey. It is very important to define a funnel that describes expulsions a prospect ought to hand down the method to doing service with the company. Purchasers can connect with us on the platform of their choosing. As the purchasing group has expanded to as lots of as two lots individuals, the idea that they will follow our procedure as we have actually recommended is seldom real.

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

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

Today, marketing needs higher levels of technical capability as an outcome of the surge of digital media and the marketing innovations that are connected with online marketing. This transformation has actually been highlighted by Forrester, pointing out a 20-year-old transition to digital as the driving force behind CMOs moving from being brand-builders to profits drivers. Forrester goes on to report that a worth developer, revenue-driven Online online marketer, need to be a story maker and not simply a storyteller.

The CMO today should be a professional at creating and leading imaginative engagement and company method to develop a classification for business to control.

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

They will work carefully with the sales group to find 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 comprehends that you can not drive profits if you aren't near where the sale happens.

A revenue-focused CMO creates content targeted at each stage of the buyer's journey. Believe about the buyer's journey as a set of gates where the content reacts to the primary concerns 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 evaluating the success of the end-to-end marketing cycle to deliver the most prompt and qualified cause 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 enhance the amount and quality of leads that included to the pipeline and closed business.
Incomes attribution and marketing ROI styles will show real results, not theorized or "presumed" requirements. This information is vital for the revenue-focused CMO to resolve since they care about marketing's influence on organization.

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

What to look for in your next CMO.

In the vibrant state of company today, working with a reliable CMO is amongst the most difficult things to do. Every market, company, and market section is numerous. Even where you can acknowledge potential customers from the very same organization neighborhood or environment, it's inadequate to simply take an appearance at years of experience or education. You require to examine the motivations and believed patterns of the individual. Ask:
Is the CMO a problem solver?

The most considerable risk today is on the market side and not innovation. A marketing leader who isn't an issue solver will have a hard time to deal with 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 functional ability in the core areas that the group operates, will be more dependable than a supervisor just.

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest way to ensure that you bring in a CMO who is revenue and not brand-driven is to employ somebody who has turned up through item, sales, and business approach. Having direct exposure to the inner workings of product and sales is especially advantageous as company technique is ending up being a more substantial part of the CMO's series of obligations.

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

As digital has exploded the variety of marketing interface points, allowing purchasers to disaggregate business from the purchasing journey, a CMO must have the capability to consider systems and structures instead of securely specified marketing lanes. It is no longer appropriate to prepare in regards to the social project, content marketing task, occasions, and PR, all as separate activities. The effective CMO will begin with business objective they are serving and be prepared to question everything.

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

To wind up being info a story-maker, you must deserve listening to. A CMO remains in the ideal position to presume the evangelistic function for the business. The most effective CMO's in any market are highly noticeable spokespeople for their company.
Are they an incentive?

As the CMO will require to work cross-functionally to guarantee that they have placing with item and sales, the marketing head ought to be an incentive. To develop a classification needs conversation, settlement, and the capability to try to find and reach a contract.

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

A CMO who attempts to lead with ultimate authority will have a hard time to accomplish company goals of business. Marketing groups today must work as engineering groups work in a nimble fashion. Instead of well organized 90-day project cadences, a nimble marketing group carries out a consistent circulation of efforts while preserving the flexibility to change as the marketplace or service needs figure out.

Does the CMO comprehend category design?

I have actually composed about category design 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 techniques classification design another method, a CMO should be putting regular thought and preparation into how they define the category they suggest to control. Without input from the CEO and other members of the executive group, there is no chance to complete an appropriate classification design.

The Wartime CMO will need to increase the accountability of marketing by showing the result of each marketing activity on the pipeline as figured out by profits contribution.
In a decrease, marketing should 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 possibility worth for each lead source is an outstanding way to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the financial goals of organization.

Research studies have actually exposed that an appropriately designed landing page can double your conversion rate over sending traffic to the house page, which tends to do not have the correct call to action that matches the ad. Since of this, checking landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these techniques can provide a 2.5 X boost for every single single dollar you purchase marketing. Yes, conversion rate optimization makes a distinction.

During Wartime, every marketing dollar is important, and a Wartime CMO understands that winning will not boil down to a single strategy or "silver bullet" technique. Rather, many small things carried out well. The CMO, who can not comprehend the interaction of copy, messaging, creative style, and innovation, will have a hard time to find and recognize rapidly where little modifications can provide much better conversions.

This content technique 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 need 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 requires to be updated.

Now, the content that we create needs to interest someone searching for our solution, and it should consist of buyer intent triggers like keywords and expressions that a buyer would use as they get close to buying choice. A Havas Group research study exposed that 84% of individuals prepare for trademark name to produce content, yet 60% of the content produced is of bad quality or unimportant, failing to satisfy the requirements of the audience. No matter a 71% correlation in between content efficiency and a brand's influence on personal health, just 40% of the world's leading 1,500 brand name names produce content that meets this requirement. Trademark name's are failing to produce significant material.

Stop producing assembly line content that is simply implied to establish the brand or introduce the item. Rather, content must target particular personas to solve any holdups avoiding the prospect from carrying on. This content will take longer to produce and need a higher community and item understanding level.

CMO's in Wartime should have an excellent understanding of the purchaser mind and their psychological needs so that they can develop material 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 enviable position to take as much as 76% of the economics from the entire category.

Read more about Classification Style.

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

The marketing function today breaks down into three functional pillars making up Item, Requirement Generation, and Category Design. Since many marketing leaders have actually not completely welcomed category style, it's a surprisingly simple method to beat an incumbent during a crisis. As quickly as the sector begins to talk about the classification as you have actually defined it, your organization will end up being the classification and the obvious option.

To do Classification Design needs a different working cadence. Wartime is the best time to embark on Category Style offered that absolutely nothing is "regular" throughout a crisis.
To manage the difficulty of building a Category King company requires a lots 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 Larger to discover all about category design.