Mark Donnigan

Mark Donnigan builds disruptive innovative start-ups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market plans and marketing movements that drive genuine company results for technical and product-centric founders. Mark's development and market advancement experience covers 20 years as a transformative B2B marketing and magnate, driving demand, brand development, and technique for startup and growth-stage business.

As a specialist and virtual marketing leader (fractional-CMO), Mark Donnigan deals with startup 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 large as 25, comprising SDRs, AEs, and marketing, producing $29mm/year. Mark brought budget plan obligations to $3mm/year for operations and $400k/year for marketing. Deal sizes varying from mid-five figures to mid-six figures every year.

As a start-up marketing specialist, Mark Donnigan's inbound and outgoing marketing experience consist of building and mentoring high-performance groups that carry out on need generation, brand and product marketing, PR, digital, and events where he develops and carries out high-impact programs that drive income, produce ROI, trigger the marketplace, and provides service outcomes.

Mark Donnigan believes that the finest 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, occasions, 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 proven success, structure, leading, and mentoring marketing, sales, and company development groups that have in fact produced more than $500mm in revenue/shareholder worth.

Mark has discovered that constructing a classification must be the top goal for every single marketing leader and it is the foundation of his approach and technique. Mark Donnigan has extensive B2B marketing experience that consists of building and mentoring high-performance groups.

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he places a high value on team effort. Mark has comprehensive experience working along with sales, product, operations, and financing to ensure that the organization and profits objectives of the company are always surpassed.

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

Architecting the market classification that is best fit to the special value proposition of your innovation.
High effect marketing support so that you can reach your earnings objectives and scale sustainably.
Attaining go-to-market positioning across the sales and marketing companies.
Extracting the highest value from every marketing dollar.
Expert knowledge and insights about the B2B purchasing journey and how to navigate a significantly fragmented consumer decision hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and procedure advancement to making the very 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 business, you are not alone. A study finished by the marketing consultancy Fournaise found that 80% of Chief Executives are not delighted with the work their leading Marketing leader is doing. Examining what today organization reality means for marketing leaders, I kept in mind the principle of a Peacetime leader and a Wartime leader from Ben Horowitz's book "The Hard Thing About Hard Things."

Horowitz explained the concept in a short article where he made up 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 interrupted the prime directive."

The Peacetime CEO "comprehends what to do with a big advantage," while the Wartime CEO "is paranoid." Peacetime CEO "works to lower disagreement," and Wartime CEO "increases the contradictions."

Peacetime in organization is when a company has the capability to grow in its core market due to a considerable benefit vs. the competitors. In times of peace, business focuses on expanding the market and improving business's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are completely complimentary to be imaginative with our brand structure by attending each exhibition with an even larger 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 organization might be on the line.
As I write this post, the entire world is fighting an unnoticeable opponent called COVID-19, which has actually let loose a frustrating dose of company uncertainty internationally. For CMO's, the COVID-19 pandemic is company equivalent of war. No longer do our 2020 marketing strategies make great 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 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 huge crater in our path that was not there prior to, and lacking light in the room, can not be seen. However we should prevent at all costs falling into the crater.

No one longs for war, however a Wartime leader does not shrink from the battle, rather, they acknowledge that Wartime is the single finest possibility to leapfrog sidetracked rivals and take ground away. What follows is a set of pointers and ideas to help you discover your "Wartime CMO fight strategy."

How to act as a Wartime CMO.

Throughout Wartime, everyone remains in uncharted waters, but this is where the opportunity is for many companies who formerly had a difficult time to contend against bigger competitors and dominant market forces. Now, for the very very first time, you may be on comparable footing as your more powerful competitors. It's the ideal opportunity to define your future.

In an international decline like what COVID-19 has actually activated, definitely nothing makes sense. And yet, a few of your competitors will continue to perform their typical "tried and real" marketing playback, presuming that constructing the brand with business interactions messages from the CEO is going to add to their organization objectives. Now is the best opportunity for the Wartime CMO to take ground in the market.

Take strong action.

Creative marketing is needed in Wartime more than ever. Now is the time to examine your essential presumptions. As the worldwide company environment has actually modified, and the stability of the core business called into question, CMO's should be all set to reassess their preliminary strategy.
Believe about that less customers will correspond to minimized need. And minimized requirement indicates markets will not respond as they did prior to the crisis.

Think 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 couple of things to be experienced about:

Investment bank Cowen and Business analyzed the last 6 economic downturns offered 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 deals throughout the board as media outlets see business cut their marketing and advertising invests. Push marketing and branding drops in a slowdown, however sales activation marketing always increases.

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

Declines create an opportunity for companies that are more effective at turning marketing financial investments into profits. In the middle of a decrease when advertisers are cutting their spending is a fun time to take advantage of low CPMs and Qualified public accounting professionals.

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising finished a study in 2008 that discovered, "Following a budget cut, a brand name will continue to gain from the marketing financial investment made over the previous couple of years. This will decrease any short-term business effects, and will lead to a precariously deceptive increase in short-term success. The longer-term service harm will be more considerable, but will not be discovered in the beginning."

Millward Brown reported in their research study "Marketing During Economic Slump: To Invest or Not to Invest?" that 60% of trademark name that went 'dark' throughout an economic recession by cutting their TV marketing invest for 6 months experienced a decrease in Brand name Use by 24% with a 28% decrease in Trademark name Image. Brand names that cut their advertisement budget at a higher rate relative to their rivals were at an even higher risk of share loss.
There are an amazing variety of marketing research studies that verify in a decrease, brand name names that continue marketing and advertising efforts recover quicker. It takes strong action to invest when the data suggests that ROI is not possible. A Wartime CMO battles to maintain the budget plan needed to continue marketing.

Take complete benefit 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 first recognize 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 force this interaction. Marketing must make sure not to move a possibility through the funnel too rapidly. Keep in mind, the possibility's professional life has actually been turned on its head. What was an issue just a number of weeks or months earlier, is most likely not top of mind today.

It's appealing in a slow down to tighten your grip on leads because the reasoning is that now more than ever, all leads are important. Here is where lead scoring can be a valuable tool to recognize highly engaged prospects from those who are not likely to become your customers. Now is the time for Marketers to hold on to MQL's for an extended period 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 ten MQL's who are not yet sales-ready might be lost. They will buy, just not now. You don't wish to miss 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 enhance the worth of your MQL's.

CMO's that do a better task 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 definitely once it has actually passed.

Concentrate on your present clients.

It's cheaper to grow earnings with your existing clients. Think about whether now is the time to downsize your mass list building programs and focus on building deeper more info relationships with those who already understand your company. This does not imply to stop your requirement gen efforts, however it does indicate that you may wish to explore with item and sales how you can offer more to your existing consumers.

In Peacetime, marketing groups are operating 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 approach, though pricey feels excellent considering that of the amazing 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 requirement 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 category, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing needs to align with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader worries business with an impressive education and pedigree, having in fact held considerable titles with huge business. There was a time when the marketing group might manage all corporate and item details and messaging with the marketplace. If a purchaser wanted to discover out about a new item or explore whether a service may meet their requirement, they had no option however to call business.

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 available with a single post on the appropriate online forum or LinkedIn group. As an outcome, the power moved to the purchaser.

We understand that online marketers are no longer in control of the buyer's journey. It is crucial to define a funnel that outlines expulsions a more info possibility should hand down the way to doing service with business. Buyers can connect with us on the platform of their picking. As the purchasing group has broadened to as many as two lots individuals, the concept that they will follow our procedure as we have really recommended is hardly ever genuine.

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

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

The CMO today ought to be an expert at producing and leading imaginative engagement and business approach to develop a category for business to control.

Here are a couple of approaches that a revenue-driven CMO requirement to operate:

They will work thoroughly with the sales group to find and map the buyer's journey. Where assumptions do not match what is taking place in the market, a value designer CMO will leave the workplace and hang out in the field. This leader understands that you can not drive profits if you aren't close to where the sale happens.

A revenue-focused CMO creates content targeted at each phase of the purchaser's journey. Believe about the buyer's journey as a set of gates where the content reacts to the primary concerns a purchaser has at each action so that they can finish the buying journey.
The new generation CMO will gather engagement metrics for each gate while evaluating the success of the end-to-end marketing cycle to deliver the most prompt and licensed result in their sellers. A value designer CMO sees marketing as close allies to the sales group.

The revenue-centered CMO is always finding from and tweak the process so that they can improve the quantity and quality of leads that contributed to the pipeline and closed company.
Incomes attribution and marketing ROI designs will reflect genuine outcomes, not extrapolated or "presumed" Growth Stage Marketing Consultant requirements. This details is vital for the revenue-focused CMO to resolve given that they care about marketing's impact on company.

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

What to search for in your next CMO.

In the vibrant state of organization today, working with an efficient CMO is amongst the most difficult things to do. Every market, company, and market section is numerous. Even where you can acknowledge potential customers from the same service neighborhood or environment, it's not adequate to simply take a look at years of experience or education. You need to examine the inspirations and thought patterns of the individual. Ask:
Is the CMO a problem 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 handle the fast-changing nature of the market and community building.

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

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest method to make sure that you bring in a CMO who is revenue and not brand-driven is to hire somebody who has turned up through product, sales, and business method. Having direct exposure to the inner workings of product and sales is especially useful as company approach is becoming a more substantial part of the CMO's series of responsibilities.

Do they believe in systems or technique company in a structured way?

As digital has exploded the number of marketing user interface points, making it possible for purchasers to disaggregate the company from the purchasing journey, a CMO must have the ability to think about systems and structures rather of securely defined marketing lanes. It is no longer sufficient to prepare in concerns to the social task, content marketing task, events, and PR, all as different activities. The successful CMO will begin with service goal they are serving and be all set to question everything.

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

To wind up being a story-maker, you should be worthy of listening to. A CMO is in the perfect position to presume the evangelistic function for the business. The most effective CMO's in any market are highly visible spokespeople for their organization.
Are they a motivator?

As the CMO will require to work cross-functionally to guarantee that they have placing with item and sales, the marketing head must be a motivator. To develop a classification needs conversation, settlement, and the capability to try to find and reach an agreement.

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

A CMO who tries to lead with supreme authority will have a hard time to accomplish service objectives of the business. Marketing groups today must work as engineering groups operate in a nimble fashion. Instead of well arranged 90-day task cadences, an agile marketing group performs a consistent circulation of initiatives while preserving the adaptability to alter as the market or company requirements figure out.

Does the CMO comprehend category style?

I have actually made up about category design and why every business needs to own a category to accomplish its ideal capacity. There is a structure for carrying out category design. Still, whether a Marketer follows the summary or methods category design another method, a CMO must be putting regular thought and preparation into how they specify the classification they imply to dominate. Without input from the CEO and other members of the executive group, there is no chance to complete a right classification style.

The Wartime CMO will need to increase the accountability of marketing by showing the effect of each marketing activity on the pipeline as determined by revenue contribution.
In a decrease, marketing needs to move the understanding of being an expenditure center to an earnings vehicle driver. Reporting beyond the variety of marketing qualified leads produced to consist of the overall chance worth for each lead source is an outstanding way to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the financial objectives of service.

Research studies have really revealed 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 appropriate call to action that matches the ad. Due to the fact that of this, examining landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these techniques can provide a 2.5 X increase for each single dollar you purchase marketing. Yes, conversion rate optimization makes a difference.

Throughout Wartime, every marketing dollar is valuable, and a Wartime CMO comprehends that winning will not come down to a single technique or "silver bullet" approach. Rather, many little things performed well. The CMO, who can not comprehend the interaction of copy, messaging, imaginative design, and innovation, will have a hard time to find and recognize rapidly where small adjustments can offer much better conversions.

This content approach worked, for a season, sort-of. However with the boost of Google RankBrain, the approach has not worked for several years. Without being in the middle of a crisis, you require to stop this inefficient activity. Now as spending plans are under pressure and every marketing activity must count, the way that we do content marketing needs to be updated.

Now, the content that we create requirements to interest someone looking for our solution, and it should include purchaser intent triggers like keywords and expressions that a purchaser more info would use as they get near purchasing choice. A Havas Group research study exposed that 84% of people expect brand name names to produce content, yet 60% of the content produced is of bad quality or unimportant, stopping working to fulfill the needs of info the audience. No matter a 71% correlation in between content effectiveness and a brand name's influence on personal health, simply 40% of the world's leading 1,500 brand name names produce content that fulfills this requirement. Brand name's are failing to produce considerable material.

Stop producing assembly line material that is just implied to establish the trademark name or present the item. Instead, content should target particular personalities to resolve any holdups preventing the prospect from carrying on. This material will take longer to produce and need a higher community and item knowledge level.

CMO's in Wartime ought to have an excellent understanding of the purchaser psyche and their psychological needs so that they can produce content that eases worry and addresses the genuine issues 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 choice, putting them in the enviable position to take as much as 76% of the economics from the entire classification.

Read more about Classification Design.

The B2B sales procedure today is fragmented and intricate, with great deals of stakeholders needing to confirm a purchase choice. This renders basic marketing ROI and attribution methods less useful for anything besides academic research study.

The marketing function today breaks down into three functional pillars making up Product, Requirement Generation, and Category Style. Since many marketing leaders have actually not completely welcomed category style, it's a surprisingly simple method to beat an incumbent throughout a crisis. As quickly as the sector starts to go over the category as you have really specified it, your business will wind up being the category and the obvious option.

To do Category Style needs a various working cadence. Wartime is the best time to embark on Category Design considered that absolutely nothing is "regular" during a crisis.
To handle the obstacle of building a Category King organization requires a lots of grit, determination, and an unfaltering drive to win. For the Wartime CMO, who handles the challenge, there can be no larger pot-o-gold if successful.

Read the book Play Larger to find out everything about category design.