Mark Donnigan Consultant

Mark Donnigan develops disruptive innovative start-ups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market strategies and marketing movements that drive real organization results for technical and product-centric creators. Mark's development and market advancement experience covers twenty years as a transformative B2B marketing and magnate, driving need, brand name advancement, and method for startup and growth-stage companies.

As an expert and virtual marketing leader (fractional-CMO), Mark Donnigan deals with start-up creators 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 managed groups as big as 25, comprising SDRs, AEs, and marketing, producing $29mm/year. Mark carried budget commitments 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 startup marketing consultant, Mark Donnigan's incoming and outgoing marketing experience include structure and mentoring high-performance groups that perform on need generation, brand and product marketing, PR, digital, and events where he establishes and carries out high-impact programs that drive earnings, produce ROI, activate the market, and provides company outcomes.

Mark Donnigan believes that the very best marketing specialists and marketing leaders are doers. Mark's marketing experience consists of all aspects of requirement generation, ABM, SEO, e-mail marketing, paid marketing, occasions, PR (internal & agency), 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 proven success, building, leading, and mentoring marketing, sales, and organization advancement groups that have really produced more than $500mm in revenue/shareholder value.

Mark has found that building a category needs to be the top objective for every marketing leader and it is the foundation of his technique and method. Mark Donnigan has comprehensive B2B marketing experience that includes building and mentoring high-performance groups.

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he puts a high worth on team effort. Mark has comprehensive experience working along with sales, product, operations, and financing to make sure that business and profits objectives of the business are always surpassed.

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

Architecting the marketplace category that is best fit to the unique value proposition of your innovation.
High effect marketing support so that you can reach your earnings objectives and scale sustainably.
Accomplishing go-to-market positioning throughout the sales and marketing companies.
Extracting the highest value from every marketing dollar.
Expert knowledge and insights about the B2B buying journey and how to browse an increasingly fragmented customer decision hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and process advancement to making the very first hires.

Ideas on what it takes to be an effective marketer and CMO today.

If you are a CEO who feels your B2B marketing does not have a clear connection to business, you are not alone. A research study completed by the marketing consultancy Fournaise discovered that 80% of President are not delighted with the work their top Marketing leader is doing. Assessing what today service fact implies 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 explained the principle in an article where he composed that the Peacetime CEO "concentrates on the huge image and empowers her people to make comprehensive decisions." The Wartime CEO, on the other hand, "values a speck of dust on a gnat's ass if it interrupted the prime regulation."

The Peacetime CEO "understands what to do with a big advantage," while the Wartime CEO "is paranoid." Peacetime CEO "works to reduce disagreement," 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 considerable benefit vs. the competitors. In times of peace, the organization concentrates on widening the marketplace and enhancing business's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are absolutely complimentary to be imaginative with our brand building by participating in each exhibition with an even larger cubicle than in 2015's and investing exorbitantly on sponsorships, all under the guise of building the brand name.

Wartime is a various thing completely because, in Wartime, the life and death of our organization might be on the line.
As I write this post, the entire world is combating an invisible enemy called COVID-19, which has actually let loose a frustrating dose of service uncertainty internationally. For CMO's, the COVID-19 pandemic is company equivalent of war. No longer do our 2020 marketing methods make great sense.

This is more than remaining in an area with the light on, and unexpectedly you discover yourself in pitch-black darkness, so you walk tepidly, continuing in the same guidelines understanding 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 a huge crater in our course that was not there previous to, and lacking light in the room, can not be seen. However we ought to prevent at all costs falling into the crater.

Nobody longs for war, but a Wartime leader does not shrink from the battle, rather, 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 find your "Wartime CMO fight plan."

How to serve as a Wartime CMO.

During Wartime, everybody remains in uncharted waters, however this is where the opportunity is for lots of companies who formerly had a tough time to contend versus bigger competitors and dominant market forces. Now, for the really first time, you might be on comparable footing as your more effective rivals. It's the perfect opportunity to specify your future.

In a global reduction like what COVID-19 has activated, absolutely nothing makes sense. And yet, a few of your competitors will continue to perform their usual "tried and genuine" marketing playback, assuming that building the brand name with business interactions messages from the CEO is going to add to their organization goals. Now is the perfect 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 necessary presumptions. As the worldwide organization environment has modified, and the stability of the core organization brought into question, CMO's ought to be prepared to reassess their initial strategy.
Think of that less consumers will relate to minimized need. And decreased requirement means markets will not react as they did prior to the crisis.

Believe about it in this manner, when people buy less, advertisers 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 evaluated the last 6 economic slumps considered that 1950 and discovered that costs on direct marketing grew during 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. Remember, there will be offers throughout the board as media outlets see business cut their marketing and advertising spends. Push marketing and branding drops in a downturn, however sales activation marketing constantly increases.

Shift spending to more measurable channels so that you can adjust quickly. Speed is whatever. Marketing initiatives able to be tracked with specificity will be a lot better than broad mass-market projects. Downturns accelerate the reduction of interruption-based mass marketing. In its location will be an increased focus on measurable and relationship-based techniques.

Downturns develop a chance for companies that are more efficient at turning marketing monetary investments into earnings. In the middle of a decrease when advertisers are cutting their spending is a fun time to benefit from low CPMs and Licensed public accountants.

The Institute of Practitioners in Marketing completed a study in 2008 that found, "Following a budget cut, a brand will continue to gain from the marketing investment made over the previous few years. This will reduce any short-term business impacts, and will lead to a precariously deceptive increase in short-term success. The longer-term company harm will be more substantial, but will not be discovered in the start."

Millward Brown reported in their research study "Marketing During Economic Recession: 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 Trademark name Use by 24% with a 28% decrease in Brand Image. Brand names that cut their advertisement budget plan at a greater rate relative to their rivals were at an even higher risk of share loss.
There are an amazing number of marketing research studies that confirm in a decline, trademark name that continue marketing and advertising efforts recover quicker. It takes strong action to invest when the data advises that ROI is not possible. A Wartime CMO battles to keep the spending plan needed to continue marketing.

Make the most of the worth of each lead produced.

In a downturn, risk-averse purchasers take even longer to research purchases, and this uses similarly to B2B and B2C purchasers. When you first recognize a possibility, 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 force this interaction. Marketing ought to make sure not to move a prospect through the funnel too quickly. Keep in mind, the possibility's skilled life has been switched on its head. What was an issue simply a number of weeks or months earlier, is most likely not top of mind today.

It's tempting in a sluggish down to tighten your grip on leads since the rationale is that now more than ever, all leads are vital. Here is where lead scoring can be a valuable tool to recognize extremely engaged prospects from those who are not most likely to become your customers. Now is the time for Online marketers to hang 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 a perfect possibility 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 wish 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 optimize the worth of your MQL's.

CMO's that do a better job of dealing with leads and establishing early-stage potential customers 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 clients.

It's cheaper to grow incomes with your existing clients. Think of whether now is the time to scale back your mass list building programs and focus on building much deeper relationships with those who already understand your business. This does not imply to stop your need gen efforts, however it does imply that you may wish to explore with item and sales how you can offer more to your existing customers.

In Peacetime, marketing groups are running on auto-pilot in pursuit of driving MQL's to satisfy sales reps. For a company that has actually acquired traction on their way to becoming a classification king or queen, this technique, though costly feels excellent considering that of the remarkable volume of activity that is being produced. However, without careful analysis, the high degree of activity fools numerous CMO's and management groups into believing that their requirement generation engine is finely tuned when, in truth, it's emitting massive contamination, i.e. extremely high CAC, greater than average churn for the category, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing should align with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader worries business with a remarkable education and pedigree, having actually held substantial titles with huge companies. There was a time when the marketing group might manage all corporate and item details and messaging with the market. If a buyer preferred to discover out about a brand-new product or explore whether a service may meet their requirement, they had no alternative but to call the service.

Actions to issues such as, Who's authentic and who isn't? - Who's product works, and whose does not? - What's coming? Now where offered with a single post on the appropriate online forum or LinkedIn group. As a result, the power moved to the purchaser.

We understand that online marketers are no longer in control of the purchaser's journey. It is necessary to define a funnel that lays out evictions a prospect need to hand down the method to doing service with the service. Purchasers can get in touch with us on the platform of their picking. As the purchasing group has expanded to as many as two lots people, the concept that they will follow our process as we have actually recommended is hardly ever genuine.

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

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

Today, marketing needs higher levels of technical capability as an outcome of the explosion of digital media and the marketing technologies that are associated with internet marketing. This improvement 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 motorists. Forrester goes on to report that a worth developer, revenue-driven Online online marketer, ought to be a story maker and not simply a storyteller.

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

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

They will work thoroughly with the sales group to find and map the purchaser's journey. Where assumptions do not match what is occurring in the market, a worth developer CMO will leave the work environment and hang out in the field. This leader comprehends that you can not drive income if you aren't near where the sale happens.

A revenue-focused CMO produces content targeted at each stage of the purchaser's journey. Consider the buyer's journey as a set of gates where the material reacts to the primary concerns a buyer has at each action so that they can finish the buying journey.
The brand-new generation CMO will collect engagement metrics for each gate while examining the success of the end-to-end marketing cycle to provide the most prompt and qualified cause their sellers. A value developer CMO sees marketing as close allies to the sales group.

The revenue-centered CMO is always finding from and tweak the procedure so that they can enhance the amount and quality of leads that contributed to the pipeline and closed company.
Incomes attribution and marketing ROI styles will show genuine outcomes, not theorized or "presumed" requirements. This information is vital for the revenue-focused CMO to solve considering that they appreciate marketing's influence on service.

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

What to search for in your next CMO.

In the dynamic state of organization today, dealing with a reliable CMO is among the most hard things to do. Every market, company, and market area is numerous. Even where you can acknowledge prospects from the very same company community or environment, it's inadequate to simply take an appearance at years of experience or education. You need to take a look at the motivations and thought patterns of the individual. Ask:
Is the CMO an issue solver?

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

Are they a doer?
In numerous marketing groups, there will be specific specialists who can work at the greatest level throughout the series of abilities needed. 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 reliable than a manager simply.

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest way to make sure that you attract a CMO who is earnings and not brand-driven is to work with someone who has actually turned up through product, sales, and corporate technique. Having direct exposure to the inner workings of item and sales is specifically helpful as organization approach is ending up being a more considerable part of the CMO's series of obligations.

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

As digital has blown up the number of marketing user interface points, allowing buyers to disaggregate business from the buying journey, a CMO ought to have the capability to think about systems and structures rather of safely specified marketing lanes. It is no longer appropriate to prepare in regards to the social task, content marketing task, occasions, and PR, all as separate activities. The successful CMO will start with service goal they are serving and be ready to question everything.

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

To end up being a story-maker, you ought to be worthy of listening to. A CMO remains in the ideal position to presume the evangelistic function for business. The most successful CMO's in any market are extremely noticeable spokespeople for their business.
Are they a motivator?

As the CMO will need to work cross-functionally to make sure that they have placing with item and sales, the marketing head ought to be a motivator. To establish a category requires conversation, negotiation, and the capability to try to find and reach an agreement.

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

A CMO who attempts to lead with supreme authority will struggle to accomplish company goals of business. Marketing groups today must work as engineering groups work in an agile fashion. Instead of well organized 90-day job cadences, a nimble marketing group carries out a constant blood circulation of efforts while preserving the flexibility to change as the market or organization needs figure out.

Does the CMO comprehend classification style?

I have actually composed about classification style and why every organization needs to own a classification to accomplish its optimum capacity. There is a structure for executing classification design. Still, whether an Online marketer follows the summary or approaches category design info another way, a CMO should be putting regular idea 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 other way to complete a proper classification design.

The Wartime CMO will need to increase the responsibility of marketing by revealing the effect of each marketing activity on the pipeline as identified by profits contribution.
In a decrease, marketing should move the understanding of being an expense center to an earnings motorist. Reporting beyond the variety of marketing certified leads produced to include the general chance worth for each lead source is an excellent method to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the financial goals of service.

Studies have actually exposed that a correctly designed landing page can double your conversion rate over sending traffic to your 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 offer a 2.5 X increase for every single dollar you purchase 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 strategy or "silver bullet" technique. Rather, many little things carried out well. The CMO, who can not comprehend the interaction of copy, messaging, creative style, and development, will struggle to find and acknowledge rapidly where little adjustments can offer much better conversions.

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

Now, the content that we develop needs to interest somebody attempting to discover our solution, and it must consist of buyer intent activates like keywords and expressions that a buyer would utilize as they get close to purchasing decision. A Havas Group research study revealed that 84% of people anticipate trademark name to produce material, yet 60% of the content produced is of bad quality or unimportant, stopping working to meet the needs of the audience. No matter a 71% connection in between content efficiency and a brand's influence on personal wellness, just 40% of the world's leading 1,500 trademark name produce content that meets this requirement. Brand name's are failing to produce significant content.

Stop producing assembly line material that is simply implied to develop the brand or introduce the product. Rather, material should target specific personas to fix any troubles avoiding the prospect from proceeding. This material will take longer to produce and need a higher neighborhood and item knowledge level.

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

CMO's in Wartime double down on Classification Style so that their company 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 whole category.

Learn more about Category Design.

The B2B sales process today is fragmented and complex, with great deals of stakeholders requiring to validate a purchase choice. This renders standard marketing ROI and attribution techniques less helpful for anything besides scholastic research study.

The marketing function today breaks down into 3 functional pillars making up Product, Need Generation, and Category Style. Because lots of marketing leaders have really not completely accepted classification design, it's a surprisingly simple way to beat an incumbent throughout a crisis. As soon as the sector begins to go over the category as you have really defined it, your company will wind up being the classification and the apparent choice.

To do Category Style requires a various working cadence. Wartime is the perfect time to embark on Classification Design considered that definitely nothing is "typical" throughout a crisis.
To deal with the obstacle of constructing a Classification King business requires a lot of grit, decision, and a steadfast drive to win. For the Wartime CMO, who handles the challenge, there can be no bigger pot-o-gold if effective.

Check out the book Play Bigger to discover out everything about category design.