Mark Donnigan

Mark Donnigan constructs disruptive ingenious startups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market strategies and marketing motions that drive genuine company results for technical and product-centric creators. Mark's growth and market advancement experience spans 20 years as a transformative B2B marketing and organization leader, driving demand, brand development, and method 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 innovation technology companies to help them establish, bootstrap, and scale their marketing and go-to-market actions.

DISCOVER MORE: https://growthstage.marketing

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

As a start-up marketing consultant, Mark Donnigan's inbound and outbound marketing experience consist of structure and mentoring high-performance groups that carry out as needed generation, brand and item marketing, PR, digital, and occasions where he establishes and implements high-impact programs that drive income, produce ROI, activate the market, and delivers service results.

Mark Donnigan believes that the finest marketing consultants and marketing leaders are doers. Mark's marketing experience includes all elements of requirement generation, ABM, SEO, e-mail marketing, paid marketing, events, PR (internal & agency), and item marketing.

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

Mark has found that building a category must be the leading objective for each marketing leader and it is the foundation of his approach and method. Mark Donnigan has extensive B2B marketing experience that includes structure and mentoring high-performance teams.

Mark Donnigan is a systems thinker, and he places a high value on team effort. Mark has extensive experience working alongside sales, item, operations, and financing to guarantee that the service and profits goals of the business are constantly exceeded.

Growth Phase Marketing exists to supply entrepreneurs and creators services for:

Architecting the marketplace classification that is best fit to the distinct value proposition of your innovation.
High effect marketing support so that you can reach your income objectives and scale sustainably.
Achieving go-to-market positioning across the sales and marketing companies.
Extracting the greatest value from every marketing dollar.
Expert understanding and insights about the B2B buying journey and how to navigate an increasingly fragmented consumer choice hierarchy.
Operationalizing marketing, from system and process advancement to making the 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 the organization, you are not alone. A study finished by the marketing consultancy Fournaise discovered that 80% of President are not happy with the work their leading Marketing leader is doing. Evaluating what today business fact implies for marketing leaders, I kept in mind the principle of a Peacetime leader and a Wartime leader from Ben Horowitz's book "The Hard Aspect Of Hard Things."

Horowitz explained the principle in a post where he composed that the Peacetime CEO "focuses on the huge image and empowers her individuals to make comprehensive choices." The Wartime CEO, on the other hand, "appreciates a speck of dust on a gnat's ass if it interrupted the prime instruction."

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

Peacetime in company 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 organization focuses on widening the marketplace and enhancing the business's strengths. For CMO's, Peacetime is when we are totally free to be imaginative with our trademark name building by going to each exhibit with an even larger cubicle than last year's and investing exorbitantly on sponsorships, all under the guise of constructing the brand.

Wartime is a various thing totally because, in Wartime, the life and death of our business might be on the line.
As I compose this post, the entire world is combating an invisible opponent called COVID-19, which has actually let loose a frustrating dose of organization uncertainty worldwide. 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 an area with the light on, and suddenly you discover yourself in pitch-black darkness, so you stroll tepidly, continuing in the same guidelines knowing that you were heading toward the door prior to the lights got shut off. No, not simply has the pandemic turned the lights out, its blown an enormous crater in our course that was not there prior to, and devoid of light in the room, can not be seen. However we ought to prevent at all costs falling under the crater.

No one wish for war, but a Wartime leader does not avoid the fight, instead, they acknowledge that Wartime is the single finest chance to leapfrog sidetracked rivals and take ground away. What follows is a set of tips and concepts to help you find your "Wartime CMO fight strategy."

How to function as a Wartime CMO.

Throughout Wartime, everyone is in uncharted waters, however this is where the possibility is for many companies who previously had a tough time to complete against larger rivals 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 opportunity to specify your future.

In an international decline like what COVID-19 has actually set off, absolutely nothing makes good sense. And yet, a few of your rivals will continue to perform their usual "tried and real" marketing playback, assuming that constructing the brand name with business interactions messages from the CEO is going to add to their service goals. Now is the ideal chance for the Wartime CMO to take ground in the market.

Take strong action.

Imaginative marketing is needed in Wartime more than ever. Now is the time to inspect your important assumptions. As the worldwide organization environment has changed, and the stability of the core business cast doubt on, CMO's should be prepared to reassess their preliminary plan.
Think of that less customers will equate to lowered need. And minimized requirement implies markets will not react 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 educated about:

Financial investment bank Cowen and Business examined the last 6 economic declines considered that 1950 and discovered that spending on direct marketing grew during the previous economic slumps. Significance, you will want to consider your mix of brand name marketing carefully compared to sales activation marketing. It's not time to stop marketing. Remember, there will be deals throughout the board as media outlets see companies cut their marketing and advertising invests. Press marketing and branding drops in a slowdown, but sales activation marketing always 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 better than broad mass-market tasks. Downturns accelerate the decrease of interruption-based mass marketing. In its place will be an increased concentrate on measurable and relationship-based strategies.

Declines create an opportunity for companies that are more efficient at turning marketing financial investments into profits. In the middle of a decrease when advertisers are cutting their spending is a fun time to gain from low CPMs and Certified public accountants.

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising completed a research study in 2008 that found, "Following a budget plan cut, a brand will continue to gain from the marketing financial investment made over the previous few years. This will reduce any short-term organization impacts, and will result in a dangerously misleading boost in short-term success. The longer-term business harm will be more substantial, however will not be discovered in the beginning."

Millward Brown reported in their research study "Marketing Throughout Economic Decline: To Invest or Not to Invest?" that 60% of trademark name that went 'dark' during a financial recession by cutting their TV 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 rivals were at an even higher threat of share loss.
There are an extraordinary variety of marketing studies that confirm in a decrease, brand that continue marketing and marketing efforts recover much faster. It takes strong action to invest when the information suggests that ROI is not possible. A Wartime CMO battles to preserve the budget needed to continue marketing.

Make the most of the worth of each lead produced.

In a slowdown, risk-averse buyers take even longer to research purchases, and this uses equally to B2B and B2C buyers. When you initially 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 should make sure not to move a prospect through the funnel too rapidly. Remember, the possibility's expert life has actually been switched on its head. What was a concern just a number of weeks or months back, is likely not top of mind today.

It's appealing in a slow down to tighten your grip on leads given that the reasoning is that now more than ever, all leads are vital. Here is where lead scoring can be an important tool to acknowledge highly engaged potential customers from those who are not most likely to become your clients. Now is the time for Marketers to hang on to MQL's for an extended period 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 possibility tracking system throughout your digital channels, as lots of as 9 out of ten MQL's who are not yet sales-ready might be lost. They will purchase, simply not now. You do not wish to miss 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 need to do everything possible to optimize the worth of your MQL's.

CMO's that do a better job of managing leads and developing early-stage potential customers into sales-ready leads will stay in the finest position to win during the crisis and most definitely once it has actually passed.

Concentrate on your present clients.

It's cheaper to grow incomes with your existing consumers. Think of whether now is the time to scale back your mass list building programs and focus on building deeper relationships with those who already understand your business. This does not indicate to stop your need gen efforts, however it does imply that you might want to check out with product and sales how you can sell more to your existing customers.

In Peacetime, marketing groups are running on autopilot in pursuit of driving MQL's to please sales reps. For a business that has actually obtained traction on their method to becoming a classification king or queen, this method, though expensive feels good given that of the exceptional volume of activity that is being produced. However, without cautious 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 producing massive contamination, i.e. extremely high CAC, greater than typical churn for the category, low CLTV, and so on.

Marketing should line up with sales.

A brand-focused Marketing leader concerns the organization with an exceptional education and pedigree, having actually held considerable titles with huge companies. There was a time when the marketing group may handle all business and product details and messaging with the marketplace. If a buyer desired to discover out about a brand-new item or check out whether a service might meet their requirement, they had no alternative but to call business.

Reactions to issues such as, Who's genuine 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 buyer.

We understand that online marketers are no longer in control of the buyer's journey. It is necessary to specify a funnel that lays out evictions a possibility ought to hand down the way to doing service with the company. Purchasers can get in touch with us on the platform of their picking. As the purchasing group has actually broadened to as many as two lots people, the concept that they will follow our procedure as we have in fact prescribed is rarely 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 companies being physical item designers or service business, to digital innovation companies where the product is distributed as software application or software application as a service through the Web, has actually reduced the function of marketing. And is the factor a revenue-focused CMO who is a value designer is what all start-ups and disruptive development companies need today.

Today, marketing needs higher levels of technical ability as a result of the surge of digital media and the marketing innovations that are related to online marketing. This improvement has actually been highlighted by Forrester, mentioning 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 designer, revenue-driven Online online marketer, must be a story maker and not just a storyteller.

The CMO today must be a professional at producing and leading imaginative engagement and company technique to establish a category for the service to dominate.

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

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

A revenue-focused CMO produces content targeted at each stage of the buyer's journey. Consider the purchaser's journey as a set of gates where the content reacts to the primary concerns a buyer has at each action so that they can complete the buying journey.
The new generation CMO will gather engagement metrics for each gate while examining the success of the end-to-end marketing cycle to deliver the most timely 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 finding from and fine-tuning the procedure so that they can enhance the amount and quality of leads that included to the pipeline and closed service.
Profits attribution and marketing ROI styles will show real outcomes, not theorized or "presumed" requirements. This details is essential for the revenue-focused CMO to solve since they care about marketing's impact on organization.

A revenue-focused CMO will concentrate on how their marketing efforts map to closed/won deals that drive the revenue and organization 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 dynamic state of organization today, dealing with an effective CMO is among the most challenging things to do. Every market, service, and market area is various. Even where you can recognize prospects from the exact same service community or environment, it's insufficient to merely have a look at years of experience or education. You need to examine the inspirations and believed patterns of the person. Ask:
Is the CMO an issue solver?

The most substantial risk today is on the marketplace side and not development. A marketing leader who isn't a concern solver will have a hard time to manage the fast-changing nature of the marketplace and community building.

Are they a doer?
In numerous marketing groups, there will be particular specialists who can operate at the greatest level throughout the series of abilities required. It's incumbent for a marketing leader to command consider as a doer. The CMO, who can show practical capability in the core areas that the group operates, will be more trusted than a supervisor simply.

Has the CMO held cross-functional positions?

The finest way to ensure that you attract a CMO who is revenue and not brand-driven is to employ somebody who has actually come up through product, sales, and business technique. Having direct exposure to the inner operations of product and sales is particularly helpful as business technique is becoming a more substantial part of the CMO's series of commitments.

Do they think in systems or approach company in a structured manner?

As digital has actually exploded the variety of marketing interface points, making it possible for purchasers to disaggregate business from the purchasing journey, a CMO needs to have the capability to think about systems and structures rather of firmly defined marketing lanes. It is no longer appropriate to prepare in concerns to the social task, material marketing task, occasions, and PR, all as different activities. The effective CMO will start with organization objective they are serving and be all set to question whatever.

Can they communicate outside the walls of business to the marketplace?

To wind up being a story-maker, you must be worthy of listening to. A CMO is 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 service.
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 classification needs conversation, settlement, and the capability to look for and reach an arrangement.

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

A CMO who attempts to lead with supreme authority will struggle to achieve organization goals of business. Marketing groups today should work as engineering groups operate in an agile style. Instead of nicely organized 90-day job cadences, an agile marketing group carries out a consistent flow of efforts while keeping the versatility to change as the market or organization needs figure out.

Does the CMO comprehend category style?

I have really composed about classification style and why every organization needs to own a classification to accomplish its optimum potential. There is a structure for performing classification style. Still, whether a Marketer follows the summary or methods classification style another way, a CMO should be putting regular idea and preparation into how they define the category they imply to control. Without input from the CEO and other members of the executive group, there is no other way to complete a correct category style.

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 income contribution.
In a decrease, marketing needs to move the understanding of being a cost center to an income driver. Reporting beyond the variety of marketing certified leads produced to include the overall chance worth for each lead source is an exceptional way to represent the function marketing is playing to drive the economic objectives of organization.

Studies have actually exposed that a properly designed landing page can double your conversion rate over sending traffic to your house page, which tends to do not have the correct call to action that matches the ad. Because of this, checking landing pages can increase conversions as much as 50% or more. Together, these techniques can offer a 2.5 X boost for every single single dollar you buy 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" method. Rather, numerous small things carried out well. The CMO, who can not understand the interaction of copy, messaging, creative design, and innovation, will have a hard time to discover and recognize quickly where small adjustments can provide better conversions.

This content method worked, for a season, sort-of. Nevertheless with the increase of Google RankBrain, the method has actually 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 should count, the manner in which we do content marketing needs to be upgraded.

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

Stop producing assembly line material that is just suggested to develop the brand name or present the item. Rather, content needs to target specific personalities to deal with any holdups avoiding the possibility from carrying on. This content will take longer to produce and need a greater community and product understanding level.

CMO's in Wartime should have an outstanding understanding of the purchaser psyche and their psychological needs so that they can produce content that eliminates fear and addresses the genuine concerns they have.

CMO's in Wartime double down on Classification Design so that their organization will come out as the leader, making them the dominant option, putting them in the excellent position to take as much as 76% of the economics from the entire classification.

Check out more about Classification Design.

The B2B sales process today is fragmented and complicated, with great deals of stakeholders requiring to verify a purchase choice. This renders basic marketing ROI and attribution techniques less beneficial for anything besides academic research study.

The marketing function today breaks down into 3 practical pillars comprising Growth Stage Marketing Consultant Item, Need Generation, and Category Design. Because numerous marketing leaders have in fact not completely welcomed classification style, it's a remarkably simple method to beat an incumbent during a crisis. As quickly as the sector starts to talk about the classification as you have in fact defined it, your service will wind up being the category and the apparent option.

To do Category Style needs a different working cadence. Wartime is the ideal time to embark on Classification Style provided that definitely nothing is "typical" during a crisis.
To deal with the difficulty of building a Classification King organization requires a lots of grit, determination, and a steadfast drive to win. For the Wartime CMO, who takes on the challenge, there can be no bigger pot-o-gold if successful.

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