mark donnigan marketing consultant

Mark Donnigan constructs disruptive ingenious start-ups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market plans and marketing motions that drive genuine organization results for technical and product-centric creators. Mark's growth and market development experience spans 20 years as a transformative B2B marketing and magnate, driving need, brand advancement, and strategy for startup and growth-stage companies.

As a professional and virtual marketing leader (fractional-CMO), Mark Donnigan handles start-up developers and CEOs from B2B disruptive innovation 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 actually handled teams as big as 25, making up SDRs, AEs, and marketing, producing $29mm/year. Mark carried spending plan responsibilities 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 start-up marketing specialist, Mark Donnigan's inbound and outbound marketing experience consist of structure and mentoring high-performance groups that perform as needed generation, brand and item marketing, PR, digital, and occasions where he establishes and executes high-impact programs that drive income, produce ROI, trigger the market, and delivers business results.

Mark Donnigan believes that the very best marketing experts and marketing leaders are doers. Mark's marketing experience includes all aspects of need generation, ABM, SEO, e-mail marketing, paid marketing, occasions, PR (internal & company), and product marketing.

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

Mark has discovered that constructing a classification should be the leading objective for each marketing leader and it is the foundation of his approach and technique. Mark Donnigan has comprehensive B2B marketing experience that includes structure and mentoring high-performance groups.

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he puts a high value on team effort. Mark has comprehensive experience working alongside sales, item, operations, and finance to ensure that the company and profits goals of the business are always gone beyond.

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

Architecting the marketplace classification that is best fit to the distinct value proposition of your innovation.
High impact marketing support so that you can reach your earnings goals and scale sustainably.
Accomplishing go-to-market positioning across the sales and marketing organizations.
Drawing out the highest worth from every marketing dollar.
Expert understanding and insights about the B2B buying journey and how to navigate a significantly fragmented customer choice 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 the business, you are not alone. A study completed by the marketing consultancy Fournaise discovered that 80% of Chief Executives are not delighted with the work their leading Marketing leader is doing. Assessing what the present organization reality 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 Thing About Hard Things."

Horowitz described the principle in a short article where he made up that the Peacetime CEO "concentrates on the huge image and empowers her people to make detailed decisions." The Wartime CEO, on the other hand, "appreciates a speck of dust on a gnat's ass if it interrupted the prime directive."

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

Peacetime in service is when a service has the ability to grow in its core market due to a substantial advantage vs. the competitors. In times of peace, business concentrates on broadening the market and boosting the organization's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are absolutely free to be creative with our brand name building by attending 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 various thing entirely because, in Wartime, the life and death of our organization may be on the line.
As I write this post, the whole world is battling an undetectable opponent called COVID-19, which has actually let loose an aggravating dose of company unpredictability worldwide. For CMO's, the COVID-19 pandemic is service equivalent of war. No longer do our 2020 marketing techniques make great sense.

This is more than being in a space with the light on, and unexpectedly you find yourself in pitch-black darkness, so you walk tepidly, continuing in the same guidelines 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 an enormous crater in our course that was not there prior to, and without light in the space, can not be seen. Nevertheless we must avoid at all expenditures falling under the crater.

Nobody wish for war, but a Wartime leader does not shrink from the battle, instead, they acknowledge that Wartime is the single finest opportunity to leapfrog sidetracked competitors and take ground away. What follows is a set of pointers and ideas to help you find your "Wartime CMO combat strategy."

How to function as a Wartime CMO.

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

In a worldwide decline like what COVID-19 has actually triggered, absolutely nothing makes good sense. And yet, a few of your competitors will continue to perform their typical "attempted and genuine" marketing playback, assuming that constructing the brand with business interactions messages from the CEO is going to add to their service objectives. Now is the perfect chance 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 necessary assumptions. As the worldwide service environment has actually altered, and the stability of the core service called into question, CMO's needs to be prepared to reassess their preliminary strategy.
Think of that less customers will equate to decreased need. And decreased requirement means markets will not respond as they did prior to the crisis.

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

Investment bank Cowen and Company analyzed the last 6 financial declines considered that 1950 and discovered that costs on direct marketing grew during the previous financial downturns. Significance, you will want to consider your mix of trademark name marketing thoroughly compared to sales activation marketing. It's not time to stop marketing. Keep in mind, there will be deals throughout the board as media outlets see business cut their advertising and marketing spends. Push marketing and branding drops in a slowdown, however sales activation marketing constantly increases.

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

Slumps produce a chance for companies that are more effective at turning marketing financial investments into income. 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 Marketing completed a study in 2008 that discovered, "Following a spending plan cut, a brand name will continue to acquire from the marketing investment made over the previous couple of years. This will reduce any short-term organization impacts, and will result in a precariously misleading increase in short-term success. The longer-term organization damage will be more substantial, however will not be noticed in the beginning."

Millward Brown reported in their research study "Marketing Throughout Economic Downturn: 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 Use by 24% with a 28% decrease in Brand Image. Brands that cut their advertisement budget plan at a higher rate relative to their rivals were at an even greater threat of share loss.
There are an extraordinary number of marketing research studies that verify in a decrease, brand that continue marketing and advertising efforts recover much faster. It takes strong action to invest when the information recommends that ROI is not possible. A Wartime CMO fights to keep the budget required to continue marketing.

Take complete benefit of the worth of each lead produced.

In a slowdown, risk-averse purchasers take even longer to research study purchases, and this uses equally 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 ought to make sure not to move a possibility through the funnel too rapidly. Remember, the prospect's professional life has actually been turned on its head. What was a concern simply a number 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 because the reasoning is that now more than ever, all leads are necessary. Here is where lead scoring can be a valuable tool to acknowledge extremely engaged potential customers from those who are not most likely to become your clients. Now is the time for Online marketers to hold on to MQL's for a prolonged duration so that you can groom the prospect to the optimum possible extent prior to handing them off to sales as a SQL.

Without lead scoring and an ideal prospect tracking system throughout your digital channels, as lots of as 9 out of ten MQL's who are not yet sales-ready may be lost. They will buy, just not now. You don't want to lose out on the future sale since you didn't keep in contact and include 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 much better job of managing leads and establishing early-stage prospects into sales-ready leads will remain in the finest position to win during the crisis and most definitely once it has passed.

Concentrate on your present consumers.

It's cheaper to grow incomes with your existing consumers. Consider whether now is the time to downsize your mass lead generation programs and focus on structure deeper relationships with those who already understand your organization. This does not indicate to stop your requirement gen efforts, but it does imply that you may wish to explore with product and sales how you can offer more to your existing clients.

In Peacetime, marketing groups are running on auto-pilot in pursuit of driving MQL's to please sales reps. For an organization that has actually obtained traction on their method to ending up being a classification king or queen, this technique, though pricey feels excellent since of the exceptional volume of activity that is being produced. However, without careful analysis, the high degree of activity fools lots of CMO's and management groups into thinking that their need generation engine is carefully tuned when, in reality, it's giving off massive contamination, i.e. exceptionally high CAC, greater than typical churn for the classification, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing must line up with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader worries business with an amazing education and pedigree, having in fact held substantial titles with huge companies. There was a time when the marketing group may handle all business and item information and messaging with the market. If a buyer preferred to learn about a new product or explore whether an option might satisfy their requirement, they had no option but to call business.

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

We understand that online marketers are no longer in control of the buyer's journey. It is crucial to specify a funnel that details expulsions a prospect ought to hand down the method to doing company with business. Buyers can get in touch with us on the platform of their picking. As the buying group has expanded to as numerous as two lots individuals, the idea that they will follow our process as we have in fact recommended is hardly ever real.

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

A revenue-focused CMO will handle the engine behind a CEO's development plan. The shift from companies being physical product developers or service business, to digital innovation companies where the item is dispersed as software application or software as a service through the Internet, 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 require today.

Today, marketing needs higher levels of technical capability as a result of the explosion of digital media and the marketing technologies that are connected with online 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 profits chauffeurs. Forrester goes on to report that a value developer, revenue-driven Online marketer, should be a story maker and not just a writer.

The CMO today need to be an expert at developing and leading creative engagement and organization technique to develop a category for the service to dominate.

Here are a number of approaches 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 presumptions do not match what is taking location in the market, a value designer CMO will leave the workplace and hang out in the field. This leader comprehends that you can not drive earnings if you aren't near to where the sale happens.

A revenue-focused CMO produces content targeted at each phase of the buyer's journey. Consider the buyer's journey as a set of gates where the content reacts to the primary issues a purchaser has at each action so that they can finish the purchasing journey.
The brand-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 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 finding from and fine-tuning the process 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 theorized or "presumed" requirements. This information is vital for the revenue-focused CMO to fix considering that they care about marketing's impact on company.

A revenue-focused CMO will focus on how their marketing efforts map to closed/won deals that drive the profits and business objectives of business. 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 service today, working with a reliable CMO is amongst the most difficult things to do. Every market, organization, and market section is numerous. Even where you can acknowledge potential customers from the same business community or environment, it's insufficient to simply have a look at years of experience or education. You need to analyze the motivations and thought patterns of the individual. Ask:
Is the CMO a problem solver?

The most substantial threat today is on the marketplace side and not innovation. A marketing leader who isn't a problem solver will have a hard time to deal with the fast-changing nature of the market and neighborhood structure.

Are they a doer?
In numerous marketing groups, there will be particular experts who can work at the greatest level throughout the series of capabilities required. It's incumbent for a marketing leader to command regard as a doer. The CMO, who can demonstrate practical ability in the core locations that the group runs, will be more trustworthy than a supervisor just.

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest method to make sure that you bring in a CMO who is revenue and not brand-driven is to employ someone who has actually come up through product, sales, and corporate technique. Having direct exposure to the inner operations of item and sales is especially beneficial as service method is becoming a more significant part of the CMO's series of responsibilities.

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

As digital has actually blown up the variety of marketing user interface points, allowing purchasers to disaggregate business from the purchasing journey, a CMO must have the ability to consider systems and structures instead of securely defined marketing lanes. It is no longer sufficient to plan in concerns to the social job, content marketing job, events, and PR, all as different activities. The successful CMO will begin with company goal they are serving and be ready to question whatever.

Can they connect outside the walls of the 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 the company. The most successful CMO's in any market are extremely noticeable spokespeople for their business.
Are they an incentive?

As the CMO will require to work cross-functionally to guarantee that they have positioning with item and sales, the marketing head ought to be an incentive. To develop a category requires discussion, settlement, and the capability to look for and reach an arrangement.

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

A CMO who tries to lead click here with supreme authority will have a hard time to accomplish organization objectives of business. Marketing groups today need to work as engineering groups work in a nimble style. Rather of well arranged 90-day project cadences, an agile marketing group carries out a constant flow of efforts while preserving the adaptability to change as the market or business needs determine.

Does the CMO comprehend category style?

I click here have actually made up about classification style and why every service requires to own a category to accomplish its optimum potential. There is a framework for carrying out category design. Still, whether a Marketer follows the summary or techniques category design another method, a CMO must be putting routine thought and preparation into how they define the category they imply to dominate. Without input from the CEO and other members of the executive group, there is no other way to complete a correct classification design.

The Wartime CMO will require 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 slow down, marketing must move the understanding of being a cost center to an earnings driver. Reporting beyond the variety of marketing qualified leads produced to include the overall opportunity worth for each lead source is an exceptional way to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the economic objectives of company.

Studies have actually revealed that a correctly developed landing page can double your conversion rate over sending out traffic to the house page, which tends to do not have the proper call to action that matches the advertisement. Due to the fact that of this, inspecting landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these methods can provide a 2.5 X boost for every single dollar you buy marketing. Yes, conversion rate optimization makes a distinction.

During Wartime, every marketing dollar is important, and a Wartime CMO comprehends that winning will not come down to a single method or "silver bullet" approach. Rather, lots of small things GET MORE INFO carried out well. The CMO, who can not comprehend the interaction of copy, messaging, imaginative style, and innovation, will have a hard time to find and recognize rapidly where small modifications can use better conversions.

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

Now, the material that we develop requirements to interest somebody looking for our solution, and it needs to include buyer intent triggers like keywords and expressions that a purchaser would utilize as they get close to purchasing choice. A Havas Group research study exposed that 84% of people expect brand to produce material, yet 60% of the content produced is of bad quality or unimportant, failing to satisfy the requirements of the audience. Regardless of a 71% connection in between content effectiveness and a brand's influence on personal wellness, simply 40% of the world's leading 1,500 brand produce content that meets this requirement. Brand's are stopping working to produce considerable content.

Stop producing assembly line content that is simply implied to establish the brand name or present the item. Instead, material needs to target particular personas to resolve any setbacks preventing the possibility from carrying on. This material will take longer to produce and require a greater community and product understanding level.

CMO's in Wartime need to have an exceptional understanding of the buyer mind and their psychological requirements so that they can create material that eliminates worry and addresses the genuine concerns they have.

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

Check out more about Category Design.

The B2B sales process today is fragmented and complicated, with lots of stakeholders requiring to verify a purchase choice. This renders standard marketing ROI and attribution techniques less useful for anything besides scholastic research study.

The marketing function today breaks down into three practical pillars making up Product, Requirement Generation, and Classification Style. Due to the fact that many marketing leaders have actually not entirely accepted classification style, it's a remarkably easy method to beat an incumbent throughout a crisis. As quickly as the sector begins to go over the classification as you have actually specified it, your service will wind up being the classification and the obvious choice.

To do Classification Style requires a various working cadence. Wartime is the best time to embark on Classification more information here Style considered that definitely nothing is "normal" during a crisis.
To Growth Stage Marketing manage the difficulty of constructing a Classification King business needs a ton of grit, decision, and a steadfast drive to win. For the Wartime CMO, who takes on the difficulty, there can be no bigger pot-o-gold if successful.

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