mark donnigan startup marketing consultant

Mark Donnigan constructs disruptive ingenious startups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market strategies and marketing movements that drive genuine service outcomes for technical and product-centric founders. Mark's development and market advancement experience spans 20 years as a transformative B2B marketing and business leader, driving need, brand development, and technique for startup and growth-stage companies.

As a professional and virtual marketing leader (fractional-CMO), Mark Donnigan deals with start-up creators and CEOs from B2B disruptive development technology companies to help them develop, bootstrap, and scale their marketing and go-to-market actions.

DISCOVER MORE: https://growthstage.marketing

Mark Donnigan has managed teams as big as 25, making up SDRs, AEs, and marketing, producing $29mm/year. Mark carried budget plan 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 specialist, Mark Donnigan's incoming and outbound marketing experience include building and mentoring high-performance groups that carry out as needed generation, brand and item marketing, PR, digital, and occasions where he develops and executes high-impact programs that drive income, produce ROI, trigger the market, and delivers service outcomes.

Mark Donnigan thinks that the finest marketing specialists 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 & agency), and product marketing.

Mark is a problem solver and a first-principles thinker who is imaginative and analytical. Mark constantly works cross-functionally and has actually proven success, building, leading, and mentoring marketing, sales, and business advancement groups that have actually produced more than $500mm in revenue/shareholder worth.

Mark has actually found that constructing a classification must be the leading objective for every marketing leader and it is the structure of his approach and technique. Mark Donnigan has extensive B2B marketing experience that consists of structure and mentoring high-performance teams.

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he puts a high worth on teamwork. Mark has comprehensive experience working together with sales, product, operations, and finance to guarantee that the service and income objectives of the company are always gone beyond.

Development Phase Marketing exists to provide entrepreneurs and founders services for:

Architecting the marketplace category that is finest suited to the distinct worth proposal of your technology.
High impact marketing assistance so that you can reach your profits objectives and scale sustainably.
Achieving go-to-market positioning across the sales and marketing companies.
Extracting the greatest worth from every marketing dollar.
Expert knowledge and insights about the B2B buying journey and how to navigate a significantly fragmented customer choice hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and procedure advancement to making the first hires.

Ideas on what it requires a successful 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 finished by the marketing consultancy Fournaise found that 80% of President are not pleased with the work their top Marketing leader is doing. Assessing what the present business fact suggests for marketing leaders, I kept in mind the concept of a Peacetime leader and a Wartime leader from Ben Horowitz's book "The Hard Feature Of Hard Things."

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

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

Peacetime in business is when a company has the capability to grow in its core market due to a substantial benefit vs. the competition. In times of peace, the service concentrates on widening the market and enhancing business's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are completely complimentary to be imaginative with our brand name structure by attending each exhibition 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 different thing totally because, in Wartime, the life and death of our business may be on the line.
As I write this post, the entire world is fighting an invisible enemy called COVID-19, which has actually let loose a discouraging dosage of company unpredictability 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 a space with the light on, and unexpectedly you find yourself in pitch-black darkness, so you walk tepidly, continuing in the exact same instructions knowing that you were heading towards the door prior to the lights got turned off. No, not simply has the pandemic turned the lights out, its blown a huge crater in our path that was not there previous to, and devoid of light in the room, can not be seen. Nevertheless we must prevent at all costs falling into the crater.

Nobody wish for war, however a Wartime leader does not avoid the battle, rather, they recognize that Wartime is the single finest possibility to leapfrog sidetracked competitors and take ground away. What follows is a set of ideas and concepts to help you discover your "Wartime CMO battle plan."

How to function as a Wartime CMO.

During Wartime, everyone is in uncharted waters, but this is where the possibility is for numerous business who previously had a tough time to contend against bigger competitors and dominant market forces. Now, for the extremely very first time, you may be on comparable footing as your more effective rivals. It's the ideal possibility to specify your future.

In a worldwide reduction like what COVID-19 has actually set off, absolutely nothing makes sense. And yet, a few of your competitors will continue to perform their usual "attempted and genuine" marketing playback, presuming that constructing the trademark name with business interactions messages from the CEO is going to contribute to their company goals. Now is the best chance 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 inspect your necessary presumptions. As the worldwide business environment has actually changed, and the stability of the core service called into question, CMO's ought to be ready to reassess their preliminary plan.
Consider that less customers will correspond to decreased requirement. And lowered need implies markets will not react 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 educated about:

Investment bank Cowen and Company evaluated the last 6 financial declines considered that 1950 and discovered that spending on direct marketing grew throughout the previous economic declines. Significance, you will wish to consider your mix of trademark name marketing thoroughly compared to sales activation marketing. It's not time to stop marketing. Remember, there will be offers throughout the board as media outlets see companies cut their marketing and advertising spends. Press marketing and branding drops in a slowdown, however sales activation marketing always increases.

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

Recessions develop an opportunity for companies that are more effective at turning marketing financial investments into profits. In the middle of a sluggish down when advertisers are cutting their costs is an enjoyable time to take advantage of low CPMs and Certified public accounting professionals.

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising completed a research study in 2008 that discovered, "Following a budget plan cut, a brand will continue to acquire from the marketing investment made over the previous few years. This will reduce any short-term business impacts, and will result in a dangerously misleading boost in short-term success. The longer-term service damage will be more considerable, but will not be seen 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' during an economic recession by cutting their TELEVISION marketing invest for 6 months experienced a decline in Trademark name Use by 24% with a 28% reduction in Brand Image. Brands that cut their advertisement budget plan at a greater rate relative to their competitors were at an even greater danger of share loss.
There are an extraordinary number of marketing research studies that verify in a decline, brand that continue marketing and marketing efforts recover faster. It takes strong action to invest when the data recommends that ROI is not possible. A Wartime CMO fights to maintain the budget plan needed to continue marketing.

Maximize the worth of each lead produced.

In a slowdown, risk-averse purchasers take even longer to research study purchases, and this uses similarly to B2B and B2C purchasers. When you first 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 require this interaction. Marketing must take care not to move a prospect through the funnel too quickly. Remember, the possibility's skilled life has been turned on its head. What was an issue simply a couple of weeks or months ago, is likely not top of mind today.

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

Without lead scoring and an ideal possibility tracking system throughout your digital channels, as many as 9 out of 10 MQL's who are not yet sales-ready might be lost. They will buy, just not now. You do not 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 should do everything possible to enhance the worth of your MQL's.

CMO's that do a far better job of dealing with leads and establishing early-stage prospects into sales-ready leads will stay in the finest position to win during the crisis and most certainly once it has passed.

Concentrate on your present consumers.

It's less expensive to grow earnings with your existing customers. Think of whether now is the time to scale back your mass list building programs and focus on structure deeper relationships with those who currently know your service. This does not imply to stop your requirement gen efforts, but it does indicate that you might wish to explore with product and sales how you can sell more to your existing customers.

In Peacetime, marketing groups are working on autopilot in pursuit of driving MQL's to satisfy sales reps. For a service that has obtained traction on their method to becoming a classification king or queen, this method, though costly feels excellent considering that of the exceptional volume of activity that is being produced. Nevertheless, 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. extremely high CAC, greater than average churn for the classification, 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 considerable titles with huge business. There was a time when the marketing group may manage all business and item details and messaging with the market. If a buyer preferred to find out about a new product or check out whether a solution may satisfy their requirement, they had no alternative however to call the service.

Reactions to concerns such as, Who's authentic and who isn't? - Who's product works, and whose does not? - What's coming? Now where readily available with a single post on the appropriate forum or LinkedIn group. As a result, the power shifted to the purchaser.

We understand that online marketers are no longer in control of the buyer's journey. It is essential to specify a funnel that outlines evictions a prospect should 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 actually expanded to as lots of as 2 lots individuals, the notion that they will follow our procedure as we have in fact recommended is hardly ever real.

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

A revenue-focused CMO will manage the engine behind a CEO's advancement plan. The shift from companies being physical item developers or service business, to digital development companies where the item is dispersed as software application or software as a service through the Web, has reduced the function of marketing. And is the factor a revenue-focused CMO who is a worth developer is what all start-ups and disruptive innovation business require today.

Today, marketing requires greater levels of technical ability as an outcome of the explosion of digital media and the marketing innovations that are related to online marketing. This improvement has 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 income chauffeurs. Forrester goes on to report that a value designer, revenue-driven Online marketer, should be a story maker and not simply a writer.

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

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

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

A revenue-focused CMO develops content targeted at each phase of the buyer's journey. Think about the buyer's journey as a set of gates where the content responds to the primary issues a purchaser has at each action so that they can complete the purchasing journey.
The 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 timely and certified result in their sellers. A worth developer CMO sees marketing as close allies to the sales group.

The revenue-centered CMO is always discovering from and fine-tuning the process so that they can improve the quantity and quality of leads that contributed to the pipeline and closed service.
Revenues attribution and marketing ROI designs will show genuine results, not theorized or "presumed" requirements. This information is important for the revenue-focused CMO to fix since they appreciate marketing's influence on business.

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

What to search for in your next CMO.

In the vibrant state of company today, dealing with an efficient CMO is among the most challenging things to do. Every market, organization, and market section is various. Even where you can acknowledge potential customers from the very same company community or environment, it's inadequate to simply take a look at years of experience or education. You need to examine the motivations and believed patterns of the person. Ask:
Is the CMO an issue solver?

The most considerable danger today is on the market side and not development. A marketing leader who isn't a concern solver will struggle to deal with the fast-changing nature of the market and community structure.

Are they a doer?
In lots of marketing groups, there will be particular specialists who can work at the greatest level throughout the series of capabilities needed. It's incumbent for a marketing leader to command regard as a doer. The CMO, who can demonstrate practical capability in the core locations that the group operates, will be more trustworthy than a manager simply.

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest method to guarantee that you attract a CMO who is earnings and not brand-driven is to employ somebody who has actually turned up through product, sales, and corporate approach. Having direct exposure to the inner workings of item and sales is specifically beneficial as organization method is becoming a more substantial part of the CMO's series of commitments.

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

As digital has exploded the variety of marketing interface points, allowing purchasers to disaggregate business from the purchasing journey, a CMO ought to have the capability to consider systems and structures instead of firmly defined marketing lanes. It is no longer sufficient to prepare in concerns to the social job, material marketing project, occasions, and PR, all as separate activities. The successful CMO will start with business goal they are serving and be ready to question everything.

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

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

As the CMO will require to work cross-functionally to ensure that they have placing with product and sales, the marketing head ought to be a motivator. To establish a classification requires conversation, negotiation, and the ability to search for and reach an agreement.

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

A CMO who tries to lead with ultimate authority will struggle to accomplish business objectives of the organization. Marketing groups today should work as engineering groups work in a nimble style. Instead of well organized 90-day project cadences, a nimble marketing group performs a consistent circulation of initiatives while maintaining the flexibility to alter as the marketplace or business requirements determine.

Does the CMO comprehend classification design?

I have in fact composed about classification style and why every service needs to own a classification to accomplish its optimum capacity. There is a framework for executing classification design. Still, whether a Marketer follows the summary or approaches category design another method, a CMO needs to be putting regular idea and preparation into how they specify the classification they suggest to control. Without input from the CEO and other members of the executive group, there is no way to finish a correct classification style.

The Wartime CMO will need to increase the responsibility of marketing by showing the impact of each marketing activity on the pipeline as determined by income contribution.
In a slow down, marketing needs to move the understanding of being an expenditure center to an earnings vehicle driver. Reporting beyond the number of marketing certified leads produced to consist of the overall possibility worth for each lead source is an exceptional method to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the economic goals of service.

Research studies have in fact revealed that a properly designed 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, checking landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these methods can provide a 2.5 X boost for each single dollar you purchase marketing. Yes, conversion rate optimization makes a distinction.

During Wartime, every marketing dollar is valuable, and a Wartime CMO comprehends that winning will not boil down to a single strategy or "silver bullet" technique. Rather, numerous little things performed well. The CMO, who can not understand the interplay of copy, messaging, creative style, and development, will struggle to find and acknowledge quickly where little adjustments can provide much better conversions.

This material approach worked, for a season, sort-of. However with the increase of Google RankBrain, the method has not worked for several years. Without being in the middle of a crisis, you need to stop this inefficient activity. Now as budget plans 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 create needs to interest someone attempting to find our service, and it should consist of buyer intent triggers like keywords and expressions that a purchaser would utilize as they get near to acquiring decision. A Havas Group research study exposed that 84% of individuals expect brand names to produce content, yet 60% of the content produced is of bad quality or unimportant, stopping working to meet the needs of the audience. Regardless of a 71% connection in between content performance and a brand's impact on personal health, just 40% of the world's leading 1,500 trademark name produce material that meets this requirement. Brand's are failing to produce significant material.

Stop producing assembly line material that is simply meant to establish the trademark name or present the item. Instead, content must target specific personas to deal with any setbacks preventing the prospect from carrying on. This content will take longer to produce and require a higher community and item understanding level.

CMO's in Wartime should have an exceptional understanding of the buyer mind and their psychological needs so that they can develop material that eases fear and addresses the sincere 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 option, putting them in the enviable position to take as much as 76% of the economics from the entire category.

Check out more about Category Style.

The B2B sales process today is fragmented and complicated, with lots of stakeholders needing to confirm a purchase decision. This renders standard marketing ROI and attribution strategies less useful for anything besides academic research study.

The marketing function today breaks down into three practical pillars comprising Item, Requirement Generation, and Classification Style. Because lots of marketing leaders have actually not totally welcomed classification design, it's a remarkably easy method to beat an incumbent throughout a crisis. As quickly as the sector starts to go over the classification as you have really specified it, your company will wind up being the classification and the apparent option.

To do Classification Design requires a different working cadence. Wartime is the best time to start Classification Design considered that absolutely nothing is "normal" during a crisis.
To manage the obstacle of constructing a Classification King service needs a lots of grit, determination, and a steadfast drive to win. For the Wartime CMO, who takes on the difficulty, there can be no larger pot-o-gold if successful.

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