Mark Donnigan Startup Marketing Consultant

Mark Donnigan builds disruptive ingenious startups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market strategies and marketing motions that drive real company outcomes for technical and product-centric creators. Mark's development and market development experience spans 20 years as a transformative B2B marketing and magnate, driving demand, brand development, and method for start-up and growth-stage companies.

As a professional and virtual marketing leader (fractional-CMO), Mark Donnigan handles startup developers 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 teams as big as 25, comprising SDRs, AEs, and marketing, producing $29mm/year. Mark brought spending plan obligations to $3mm/year for operations and $400k/year for marketing. Offer sizes varying from mid-five figures to mid-six figures every year.

As a start-up marketing consultant, Mark Donnigan's incoming and outbound marketing experience include structure and mentoring high-performance teams that perform as needed generation, brand name and product marketing, PR, digital, and occasions where he develops and carries out high-impact programs that drive income, produce ROI, trigger the market, and delivers service outcomes.

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

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

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

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he positions a high value on teamwork. Mark has substantial experience working along with sales, item, operations, and financing to ensure that the company and profits goals of the company are always surpassed.

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

Architecting the marketplace classification that is finest fit to the distinct worth proposal of your technology.
High impact marketing support so that you can reach your earnings objectives and scale sustainably.
Accomplishing go-to-market alignment throughout the sales and marketing companies.
Extracting the greatest value from every marketing dollar.
Insider knowledge and insights about the B2B buying journey and how to navigate a progressively fragmented customer choice hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and process advancement to making the very 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 study completed by the marketing consultancy Fournaise discovered that 80% of President are not delighted with the work their top Marketing leader is doing. Assessing what the present organization reality means for marketing leaders, I kept in mind the concept of a Peacetime leader and a Wartime leader from Ben Horowitz's book "The Hard Aspect Of Hard Things."

Horowitz described the concept in a short article where he composed that the Peacetime CEO "concentrates on the big image and empowers her individuals 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 substantial benefit," while the Wartime CEO "is paranoid." Peacetime CEO "works to reduce conflict," and Wartime CEO "increases the contradictions."

Peacetime in business is when a company has the ability to grow in its core market due to a substantial benefit vs. the competitors. In times of peace, business focuses on broadening the market and enhancing the organization's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are absolutely free to be imaginative with our brand building by going to each exhibition with an even larger cubicle than in 2015's and investing exorbitantly on sponsorships, all under the guise of building the trademark name.

Wartime is a different thing completely because, in Wartime, the life and death of our company might 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 dosage of organization unpredictability globally. For CMO's, the COVID-19 pandemic is organization equivalent of war. No longer do our 2020 marketing methods make excellent 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 stroll tepidly, continuing in the exact same instructions understanding that you were heading toward the door prior to the lights got shut off. No, not simply has the pandemic turned the lights out, its blown an enormous crater in our course that was not there previous to, and devoid of light in the room, can not be seen. Nevertheless we must avoid at all costs falling under the crater.

Nobody wish for war, but a Wartime leader does not shrink from 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 ideas and concepts to assist you find your "Wartime CMO combat plan."

How to function as a Wartime CMO.

During Wartime, everybody is in uncharted waters, but this is where the chance is for lots of business who previously had a tough time to compete against larger rivals and dominant market forces. Now, for the very first time, you may be on comparable footing as your more powerful rivals. It's the perfect chance to specify your future.

In a global reduction like what COVID-19 has actually activated, absolutely nothing makes good sense. And yet, a few of your rivals will continue to perform their typical "tried and genuine" marketing playback, assuming that constructing the brand with business interactions messages from the CEO is going to contribute to their service 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 check your vital presumptions. As the worldwide organization environment has changed, and the stability of the core company called into concern, CMO's should be prepared to reassess their initial plan.
Think of that less consumers will correspond to reduced requirement. And decreased requirement means markets will not respond as they did prior to the crisis.

Believe about it in this way, when people purchase less, advertisers invest less. Nevertheless prior to you follow a slash and burn the marketing invest playbook, here are a couple of things to be knowledgeable about:

Financial investment bank Cowen and Business analyzed the last 6 economic declines provided that 1950 and discovered that costs on direct marketing grew throughout the previous economic recessions. 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 business cut their marketing and marketing invests. Press marketing and branding drops in a downturn, but sales activation marketing always increases.

Shift costs to more quantifiable channels so that you can adjust rapidly. Speed is whatever. Marketing initiatives able to be tracked with uniqueness will be a lot better than broad mass-market tasks. Slowdowns speed up the decrease of interruption-based mass marketing. In its place will be an increased focus on measurable and relationship-based techniques.

Slumps develop a chance for business that are more efficient at turning marketing financial investments into revenue. In the middle of a decrease when advertisers are cutting their costs is an enjoyable time to benefit from low CPMs and Certified public accounting professionals.

The Institute of Practitioners in Marketing completed a research study in 2008 that discovered, "Following a spending plan cut, a brand will continue to get from the marketing financial investment made over the previous couple of years. This will lower any short-term organization effects, and will result in an alarmingly misleading boost in short-term success. The longer-term service harm will be more considerable, however will not be seen in the start."

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

Take complete advantage of the worth of each lead produced.

In a downturn, risk-averse purchasers take even longer to research study purchases, and this applies equally to B2B and B2C purchasers. When you initially acknowledge a prospect, they will likely stay 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 must make sure not to move a possibility through the funnel too rapidly. Keep in mind, the prospect's skilled life has been turned on its head. What was an issue simply a couple of weeks or months back, is likely not top of mind today.

It's tempting in a decrease to tighten your grip on leads considering that the rationale is that now more than ever, all leads are necessary. 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 an extended duration so that you can groom the possibility to the optimum possible level prior to handing them off to sales as a SQL.

Without lead scoring and an ideal possibility tracking system throughout your digital channels, as numerous as 9 out of 10 MQL's who are not yet sales-ready might be lost. They will buy, just not now. You do not want to miss out on the future sale given that you didn't keep in contact and include worth though the journey. In a "Wartime" economy, you must do whatever possible to optimize the worth of your MQL's.

CMO's that do a better task of handling leads and developing early-stage prospects into sales-ready leads will stay in the finest position to win throughout the crisis and most absolutely once it has actually passed.

Focus on your present clients.

It's less expensive to grow earnings with your existing consumers. Think of whether now is the time to scale back your mass lead generation programs and concentrate on building deeper relationships with those who already know your service. This does not indicate to stop your need gen efforts, but it does suggest that you might want to check out with product 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 service that has actually acquired traction on their method to ending up being a classification king or queen, this approach, though pricey feels good because of the amazing volume of activity that is being produced. However, without careful analysis, the high degree of activity fools many CMO's and management groups into thinking that their need generation engine is finely tuned when, in truth, it's releasing huge contamination, i.e. extremely high CAC, higher than typical churn for the category, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing should align with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader worries the organization with an exceptional education and pedigree, having really held considerable titles with huge business. There was a time when the marketing group might handle all corporate and item information and messaging with the marketplace. If a purchaser wanted to discover out about a new item or check out whether a service might meet their requirement, they had no alternative but to call business.

Reactions to concerns such as, Who's authentic and who isn't? - Who's item works, and whose does not? - What's coming? Now where readily available with a single post on the appropriate 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 essential to specify a funnel that details evictions a prospect must pass on the method to doing business with business. Buyers can link with us on the platform of their choosing. As the buying group has actually expanded to as lots of as 2 lots people, the concept that they will follow our procedure as we have really recommended is rarely real.

You require 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 item developers or service business, to digital innovation companies where the product is dispersed as software or software as a service through the Web, has actually decreased the function of marketing. And is the element a revenue-focused CMO who is a worth designer is what all start-ups and disruptive innovation companies require today.

Today, marketing requires higher levels of technical capability as a result of the surge 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 earnings chauffeurs. Forrester goes on to report that a value designer, revenue-driven Online online marketer, should be a story maker and not simply a storyteller.

The CMO today need to be a professional at creating and leading imaginative engagement and business method to establish a category for the service to control.

Here are a number of methods that a revenue-driven CMO requirement to operate:

They will work thoroughly with the sales group to discover and map the buyer's journey. Where assumptions do not match what is happening in the market, a worth developer CMO will leave the office and hang out in the field. This leader comprehends that you can not drive earnings if you aren't near to where the sale takes location.

A revenue-focused CMO develops content targeted at each phase of the purchaser's journey. Think of the buyer's journey as a set of gates where the content reacts to the main concerns a buyer has at each action so that they can complete the buying journey.
The new generation CMO will collect engagement metrics for each gate while assessing the success of the end-to-end marketing cycle to provide the most timely and licensed leads to their sellers. A value 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 business.
Earnings attribution and marketing ROI designs will show genuine outcomes, not extrapolated or "presumed" requirements. This details is essential for the revenue-focused CMO to fix since they appreciate marketing's influence on company.

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

What to try to discover in your next CMO.

In the vibrant state of business today, dealing with an effective CMO is amongst the most hard things to do. Every market, organization, and market area is different. Even where you can recognize potential customers from the exact same business neighborhood or environment, it's not enough to simply have a look at years of experience or education. You require to examine the motivations and thought patterns of the individual. Ask:
Is the CMO an issue solver?

The most significant threat today is on the market side and not development. A marketing leader who isn't an issue solver will struggle to manage the fast-changing nature of the market and neighborhood building.

Are they a doer?
In numerous marketing groups, there will be specific specialists who can operate at the highest level throughout the series of capabilities needed. It's incumbent for more info a marketing leader to command consider a doer. The CMO, who can show practical capability in the core areas that the group runs, will be more reliable than a supervisor simply.

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest method to ensure that you draw in a CMO who is earnings and not brand-driven is to hire somebody who has turned up through product, sales, and corporate method. Having direct exposure to the inner functions of item and sales is particularly advantageous as organization method is becoming a more considerable part of the CMO's series of obligations.

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

As digital has blown up the number of marketing user interface points, making it possible for buyers to disaggregate the organization from the purchasing journey, a CMO should have the ability to think about systems and structures rather of safely defined marketing lanes. It is no longer adequate to plan in regards to the social project, content marketing project, events, and PR, all as separate activities. The successful CMO will start with organization objective they are serving and be ready to question everything.

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

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

As the CMO will need to work cross-functionally to ensure that they have placing with product and sales, the marketing head should be a motivator. To develop a classification needs conversation, settlement, and the ability to search for and reach a contract.

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

A CMO who attempts to lead with supreme authority will struggle to achieve organization goals of the organization. Marketing groups today ought to work as engineering groups operate in a nimble fashion. Rather of perfectly organized 90-day task cadences, a nimble marketing group performs a consistent blood circulation of initiatives while maintaining the adaptability to change as the marketplace or service needs identify.

Does the CMO comprehend category style?

I have in fact made up about category design and why every service needs to own a category to achieve its optimum potential. There is a structure for executing category style. Still, whether a Marketer follows the summary or approaches classification design another way, a CMO needs to be putting regular idea and preparation into how they define the classification they indicate to dominate. Without input from the CEO and other members of the executive group, there is no way to finish an appropriate category style.

The Wartime CMO will require to increase the accountability of marketing by revealing the effect of each marketing activity on the pipeline as figured out by revenue contribution.
In a sluggish down, marketing ought to move the understanding of being an expenditure center to an income motorist. Reporting beyond the variety of marketing certified leads produced to consist of the overall chance worth for each lead source is an exceptional way to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the financial objectives of company.

Research studies have actually revealed that a correctly developed landing page can double your conversion rate over sending traffic to the home page, which tends to do not have the proper call to action that matches the advertisement. Since of this, examining landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these strategies can supply a 2.5 X boost for every single dollar you buy marketing. Yes, conversion rate optimization makes a difference.

Throughout Wartime, every marketing dollar is important, and a Wartime CMO understands that winning will not boil down to a single strategy or "silver bullet" approach. Rather, lots of little things executed well. The CMO, who can not comprehend the interplay of copy, messaging, creative style, and innovation, will struggle to discover and recognize quickly where little adjustments can provide much better conversions.

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

Now, the material that we develop needs 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 close to purchasing decision. A Havas Group research study exposed that 84% of people expect brand to produce content, yet 60% of the material produced is of bad quality or unimportant, failing to meet the needs of the audience. No matter a 71% connection in between content efficiency and a brand name's impact on individual wellness, simply 40% of the world's leading 1,500 trademark name produce content that fulfills this requirement. Brand name's are failing to produce significant content.

Stop producing assembly line material that is just suggested to develop the trademark name or present the item. Instead, content needs to target specific personas to solve any troubles preventing the prospect from carrying on. This material will take longer to produce and require a greater community and product understanding level.

CMO's in Wartime ought to have an outstanding understanding of the buyer psyche and their mental needs so that they can develop content that relieves 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 enviable position to take as much as 76% of the economics from the whole classification.

Find out more about Classification Style.

The B2B sales procedure today is fragmented and complicated, with great deals of stakeholders needing to verify a purchase choice. This renders standard marketing ROI and attribution methods less helpful 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 many marketing leaders have in fact not completely welcomed category style, it's a remarkably easy method to beat an incumbent during a crisis. As quickly as the sector begins to talk about the category as you have actually defined it, your business will wind up being the category and the obvious choice.

To do Classification Style needs a different working cadence. Wartime is the perfect time to embark on Classification Style considered that definitely nothing is "normal" during a crisis.
To handle the challenge of building a Classification King organization needs a heap of grit, decision, and an unfaltering drive to win. For the Wartime CMO, who handles the difficulty, there can be no bigger pot-o-gold if successful.

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