Mark Donnigan Startup Marketing Consultant

Mark Donnigan builds disruptive innovative startups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market plans and marketing movements that drive genuine company outcomes for technical and product-centric founders. Mark's growth and market development experience covers 20 years as a transformative B2B marketing and magnate, driving demand, brand name 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 business to assist them establish, bootstrap, and scale their marketing and go-to-market actions.

DISCOVER MORE: https://growthstage.marketing

Mark Donnigan has handled teams as big as 25, comprising SDRs, AEs, and marketing, producing $29mm/year. Mark brought spending plan responsibilities to $3mm/year for operations and $400k/year for marketing. Deal sizes differing from mid-five figures to mid-six figures every year.

As a startup marketing expert, Mark Donnigan's inbound and outgoing marketing experience consist of building and mentoring high-performance groups that execute as needed generation, brand and item marketing, PR, digital, and events where he develops and implements high-impact programs that drive revenue, produce ROI, trigger the market, and provides company results.

Mark Donnigan thinks that the best marketing experts and marketing leaders are doers. Mark's marketing experience consists of all aspects of requirement generation, ABM, SEO, email marketing, paid marketing, events, PR (internal & company), and item marketing.

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

Mark has actually discovered that constructing a classification ought to be the leading objective for every 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 groups.

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he places a high value on teamwork. Mark has extensive experience working along with sales, product, operations, and finance to make sure that the company and earnings objectives of the business are constantly exceeded.

Development Phase Marketing exists to offer business owners and founders services for:

Architecting the market category that is best suited to the unique worth proposal of your technology.
High effect marketing assistance so that you can reach your revenue goals and scale sustainably.
Achieving go-to-market alignment across the sales and marketing companies.
Drawing out the highest value from every marketing dollar.
Insider understanding and insights about the B2B buying journey and how to browse an increasingly fragmented consumer decision hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and procedure advancement to making the first hires.

Thoughts on what it takes to be a successful online marketer and CMO today.

If you are a CEO who feels your B2B marketing does not have a clear connection to the organization, you are not alone. A study finished by the marketing consultancy Fournaise discovered that 80% of Chief Executives are not delighted with the work their leading Marketing leader is doing. Evaluating what today organization truth suggests 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 explained the concept in an article where he made up that the Peacetime CEO "concentrates on the huge 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 interrupted the prime directive."

The Peacetime CEO "comprehends what to do with a substantial benefit," while the Wartime CEO "is paranoid." Peacetime CEO "works to reduce conflict," and Wartime CEO "heightens the contradictions."

Peacetime in business is when an organization has the capability to grow in its core market due to a significant benefit vs. the competitors. In times of peace, the business concentrates on widening the market and boosting business's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are totally complimentary to be creative with our trademark name structure by going to each exhibition with an even bigger cubicle than last year's and investing exorbitantly on sponsorships, all under the guise of building the trademark name.

Wartime is a various thing totally 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 let loose a discouraging dose of service uncertainty globally. For CMO's, the COVID-19 pandemic is company equivalent of war. No longer do our 2020 marketing strategies make good sense.

This is more than being in a space with the light on, and suddenly you find yourself in pitch-black darkness, so you stroll tepidly, continuing in the very same directions understanding that you were heading toward the door prior to the lights got turned off. No, not simply has the pandemic turned the lights out, its blown a massive crater in our path that was not there previous to, and lacking light in the space, can not be seen. However we ought to avoid at all expenditures falling under the crater.

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

How to function as a Wartime CMO.

Throughout Wartime, everybody remains in uncharted waters, however this is where the possibility is for many companies who previously had a difficult time to contend versus bigger competitors and dominant market forces. Now, for the very very first time, you may be on equivalent footing as your more effective competitors. It's the perfect possibility to specify your future.

In a global reduction like what COVID-19 has set off, absolutely nothing makes good sense. And yet, a few of your competitors will continue to perform their typical "tried and real" marketing playback, presuming that constructing the brand name with business interactions messages from the CEO is going to contribute to their organization objectives. Now is the perfect opportunity for the Wartime CMO to take ground in the market.

Take strong action.

Creative marketing is required in Wartime more than ever. Now is the time to check your necessary assumptions. As the around the world company environment has actually modified, and the stability of the core company brought into question, CMO's should be all set to reassess their initial plan.
Consider that less consumers will correspond to lowered need. And minimized requirement means markets will not respond as they did prior to the crisis.

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

Investment bank Cowen and Company evaluated the last 6 financial declines considered that 1950 and found that spending on direct marketing grew during the previous financial recessions. Significance, you will want to consider your mix of trademark name marketing carefully compared to sales activation marketing. It's not time to stop marketing. Remember, there will be offers throughout the board as media outlets see business cut their advertising and marketing spends. Push marketing and branding drops in a slowdown, but sales activation marketing constantly increases.

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

Recessions develop a chance for companies that are more efficient at turning marketing monetary investments into revenue. In the middle of a slow down when marketers are cutting their costs is an enjoyable time to gain from low CPMs and Qualified public accounting professionals.

The Institute of Practitioners in Marketing completed a study in 2008 that found, "Following a spending plan cut, a brand name will continue to acquire from the marketing financial investment made over the previous few years. This will minimize any short-term service impacts, and will result in an alarmingly misleading boost in short-term success. The longer-term business damage will be more substantial, but will not be noticed in the beginning."

Millward Brown reported in their research study "Marketing During Economic Downturn: To Invest or Not to Invest?" that 60% of brand that went 'dark' throughout a financial recession by cutting their TELEVISION marketing invest for 6 months experienced a decrease in Brand Usage 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 risk of share loss.
There are an incredible variety of marketing studies that validate in a decline, trademark name that continue marketing and marketing efforts recuperate much faster. It takes strong action to invest when the data recommends that ROI is not possible. A Wartime CMO battles to maintain the budget plan required to continue marketing.

Take full advantage of the worth of each lead produced.

In a downturn, risk-averse purchasers take even longer to research purchases, and this uses equally to B2B and B2C purchasers. When you initially recognize a possibility, 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 needs to make sure not to move a possibility through the funnel too quickly. Keep in mind, the prospect's professional life has actually been turned on its head. What was a concern simply a couple of weeks or months back, is most likely not top of mind today.

It's tempting in a decrease to tighten your grip on leads since the reasoning is that now more than ever, all leads are essential. Here is where lead scoring can be a valuable tool to acknowledge extremely engaged prospects 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 duration so that you can groom the possibility 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 numerous 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 since 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 far better job of handling leads and establishing early-stage potential customers into sales-ready leads will stay in the finest position to win throughout the crisis and most absolutely once it has passed.

Focus on your present customers.

It's less expensive to grow incomes with your existing clients. Think of whether now is the time to downsize your mass list building programs and focus on building deeper relationships with those who already know your organization. This does not indicate to stop your requirement gen efforts, however it does indicate that you may wish to explore with item and sales how you can sell more to your existing customers.

In Peacetime, marketing groups are working on auto-pilot in pursuit of driving MQL's to please sales reps. For a company that has obtained traction on their method to ending up being a classification info king or queen, this technique, though pricey feels good because of the amazing volume of activity that is being produced. However, without mindful analysis, the high degree of activity fools lots of CMO's and management groups into thinking that their need generation engine is finely tuned when, in truth, it's producing enormous contamination, i.e. exceptionally high CAC, higher than typical churn for the classification, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing must line up with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader worries the company with an amazing education and pedigree, having actually held considerable titles with huge business. There was a time when the marketing group might handle all corporate and product information and messaging with the market. If a buyer preferred to discover out about a brand-new item or check out whether a solution may satisfy their requirement, they had no option but to call the business.

Actions to issues such as, Who's real and who isn't? - Who's item works, and whose does not? - What's coming? Now where available 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 necessary to define a funnel that outlines expulsions a possibility must hand down the way to doing organization with business. Purchasers can connect with us on the platform of their choosing. As the buying group has expanded to as lots of as two lots people, the notion that they will follow our procedure as we have actually prescribed is seldom genuine.

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

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

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

The CMO today ought to be a specialist at developing and leading creative engagement and organization method to develop a category for the company to dominate.

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

They will work thoroughly with the sales group to discover and map the buyer's journey. Where presumptions do not match what is occurring in the market, a value developer CMO will leave the work environment and hang out in the field. This leader understands that you can not drive income if you aren't close to where the sale takes place.

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 main issues 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 deliver the most prompt and qualified result in their sellers. A value developer 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 amount and quality of leads that contributed to the pipeline and closed company.
Profits attribution and marketing ROI styles will show real outcomes, not extrapolated or "presumed" requirements. This details is essential for the revenue-focused CMO to resolve because they appreciate marketing's impact on company.

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

What to try to discover in your next CMO.

In the dynamic state of business today, dealing with a reliable CMO is amongst the most challenging things to do. Every market, business, and market area is various. Even where you can acknowledge potential customers from the exact same business neighborhood or environment, it's not sufficient to merely have a look at years of experience or education. You need to analyze the inspirations and believed patterns of the person. Ask:
Is the CMO an issue solver?

The most considerable risk today is on the marketplace side and not development. A marketing leader who isn't a concern 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 particular experts who can operate 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 capability in the core areas that the group operates, will be more dependable than a manager simply.

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest way to ensure that you draw in a CMO GET MORE INFO who is earnings and not brand-driven is to work more information here with somebody who has turned up through product, sales, and business approach. Having direct exposure to the inner workings of item and sales is especially helpful as business method is becoming 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 blown up the number of marketing interface points, enabling buyers to disaggregate business from the purchasing journey, a CMO must have the ability to think about systems and structures instead of safely defined marketing lanes. It is no longer adequate to prepare in concerns to the social job, material marketing project, occasions, and PR, all as different activities. The effective CMO will start with company goal they are serving and be all set to question everything.

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

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

As the CMO will require to work cross-functionally to guarantee that they have positioning with product and sales, the marketing head need to be a motivator. To develop a classification requires discussion, settlement, and the ability to search for and reach a contract.

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

A CMO who attempts to lead with ultimate authority will have a hard time to achieve organization goals of the business. Marketing groups today need to work as engineering groups operate in a nimble style. Rather of nicely arranged 90-day job cadences, a nimble marketing group carries out a consistent circulation of efforts while maintaining the adaptability to alter as the market or company needs determine.

Does the CMO comprehend category design?

I have really made up about category style and why every organization requires to own a category to achieve its optimal capacity. There is a framework for performing category style. Still, whether an Online marketer follows the summary or methods category design another way, a CMO needs to be putting routine thought and preparation into how they define the category they mean to control. Without input from the CEO and other members of the executive group, there is no other way to finish a correct classification design.

The Wartime CMO will require to increase the accountability of marketing by showing the result of each marketing activity on the pipeline as determined by income contribution.
In a decrease, marketing should 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 possibility worth for each lead source is an excellent way to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the economic goals of service.

Research studies have really exposed that a correctly developed landing page can double your conversion rate over sending traffic to your home page, which tends to do not have the correct call to action that matches the advertisement. Because of this, examining landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these methods can supply a 2.5 X increase for every single dollar you purchase marketing. Yes, conversion rate optimization makes a distinction.

Throughout Wartime, every marketing dollar is valuable, and a Wartime CMO understands that winning will not boil down to a single method or "silver bullet" technique. Instead, many small things performed well. The CMO, who can not comprehend the interplay of copy, messaging, creative design, and innovation, will have a hard time to discover and acknowledge rapidly where little adjustments can offer better conversions.

This content method worked, for a season, sort-of. Nevertheless with the increase of Google RankBrain, the approach has not worked for several years. Without being in the middle of a crisis, you need to stop this ineffective activity. Now as budget plans are under pressure and every marketing activity need to count, the method that we do content marketing needs to be upgraded.

Now, the content that we develop requirements to interest someone looking for our option, and it should include purchaser intent activates like keywords and expressions that a purchaser would utilize as they get near to buying choice. A Havas Group research study revealed that 84% of individuals expect brand to produce material, yet 60% of the material produced is of bad quality or unimportant, failing to meet the needs of the audience. Regardless of a 71% connection in between content performance and a brand's influence on personal wellness, just 40% of the world's leading 1,500 brand names produce material that fulfills this requirement. Trademark name's are stopping working to produce considerable content.

Stop producing assembly line material that is just implied to establish the brand or introduce the item. Instead, content needs to target specific personas to solve any setbacks preventing the possibility from moving on. This material will take longer to produce and require a higher neighborhood and item understanding level.

CMO's in Wartime should have an exceptional understanding of the purchaser mind and their mental needs so that they can develop content that alleviates worry and addresses the sincere concerns they have.

CMO's in Wartime double down on Category Style 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 whole category.

Read more about Category Design.

The B2B sales process today is fragmented and complicated, with great deals of stakeholders needing to validate a purchase decision. This renders basic marketing ROI and attribution strategies less advantageous for anything besides scholastic research study.

The marketing function today breaks down into 3 functional pillars making up Product, Requirement Generation, and Classification Style. Since lots of marketing leaders have in fact not completely accepted category design, it's a remarkably simple way to beat an incumbent during a crisis. As quickly as the sector starts to discuss the classification as you have really specified it, your service will end up being the category and the apparent option.

To do Category Style needs a various working cadence. Wartime is the ideal time to embark on Category Style given that absolutely nothing is "regular" throughout a crisis.
To deal with the difficulty of building a Classification King organization 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 Larger to discover everything about category design.