I have spent the last 15+ years of my career in Marketing with a deep focus on Demand Generation, including Marketing Operations, and Sales Enablement. When I started out in Marketing, I was thrown into it. The CEO I worked for asked me if I wanted to go into Sales or Marketing. He thought I would be very successful at sales based on my great interpersonal skills, but I remember thinking,
“I don’t love the idea of having a number over my head.”
That seemed to me, at the time, like too much stress.
It so happened that the company I was at was one of the first customers of Eloqua, a pioneer in Marketing Automation, and we were paying a lot of money for the software at the time. The person running the Eloqua system had left the company and my CEO asked me to take it over and with it, learn BtoB Marketing. I eagerly accepted. Little did I know the stresses that have come along with a career in Demand Generation. Ha! I thought I was clever trying to run from a number, when really I was getting closer and closer to owning, not just one, but the entire number.
Early on in my career everything I learned about Demand Generation, I learned from the early teams at Eloqua. I attended many of their 2-3 day classes, which they called their “Marketing Effectiveness Summits”. Unbelievably, I still have the training manuals to this day (see pic below.) I began looking through them again recently and could not believe the same exact concepts they were teaching about Demand Generation and Marketing Effectiveness all those years ago, are still relevant today.
Here is a list of some of the agenda items:
- Database – Building, Segmenting, and Targeting
- The Sales & Marketing Relationship (Alignment the dreaded overused word)
- Sales & Marketing Process (the lead hand off)
- Increasing Website Conversion (your website is your lead gen engine)
- Email Effectiveness
- Lead Generation
- Lead Nurturing
- Lead Scoring
- Search Marketing
- The Importance of Customer Referrals
- Metrics, Measuring ROI,
Do all of these still resonate with Demand Generators today? 💯 Yes, they totally do. Over the years many things have changed: 1,000’s of new technologies have been launched, there are new rules around how we talk to our buyers, stricter laws surrounding data privacy, and new channels have surfaced. But, at the end of the day the concepts are still the same and we are all trying to solve for one common denominator, growth.
I went on to spend the next 15 years helping young companies grow and scale. I experienced the many challenges that come with Demand Gen and Lead Generation including: endless hours spent testing messaging, channels, and programs, scrubbing leads, creating BDR scripts, building emails, building landing pages, building templates, building email nurture streams, implementing process, training sales teams, building BDR teams, tracking budgets, educating Sales Leadership, Executive teams and Boards of Directors, pivoting, coaching and leading teams, building out hundreds of spreadsheets to track metrics and ROI, moving fast, creating a sense of urgency, getting graphics built for digital channels, implementing lead scoring…I could go on and on but you get the picture.
Throughout those years I always thought, “there has to be a better way for Demand Generation teams to have all of the tools they need to be successful in one platform”. Even better, add to it the sophistication of concepts and coaching that only years of trial and error could bring.
Josh and I have been noodling and discussing how we would try to ease the pains of early start-ups and give them a road map on how to do demand generation. We created 4AM Demand and are so excited to begin sharing the platform and consulting services that we offer. We can’t wait to get it in the hands of Marketing and Demand Generation teams. The platform is coming soon, but we are actively working with many early stage Marketing teams now.
Why We Started 4AM
4AM exists to impart knowledge obtained by years of trial and error to help people and companies maximize their potential quickly. Innovation is all around us and being able to access the learnings of seasoned demand generation practitioners, with all of the tools you need at your fingertips, is the key to growth, both personally and professionally.
Get in touch with us to get started on your growth journey.
We at 4AM Demand also strongly believe that the Demand Generation teams at any stage company are the problem solvers at the company. Not only do you need to understand all of the concepts above, there are many other things a Demand Generator needs to know. But, I knew early on that having the skill set of problem solving is a key trait of any Demand Generation Team.
4AM is an all encompassing intelligent demand generation platform that delivers an end-to-end demand generation framework for B2B companies. Through a consultative approach and an integrated SaaS solution created by industry veterans, 4AM Demand provides marketers with the education, planning, collaboration, organization and accountability to proactively lead growth. Business executives and marketing professionals at startups of all sizes use 4AM Demand to unify finance, sales and marketing, demystify budgeting, simplify reporting, organize and execute plans to scale customer adoption and revenue. Become a better, bolder marketer at www.4AMDemand.com.
Doesn’t it feel great to talk to other Demand Generation Growth Marketers? We all speak the same language and we all feel each other’s pain. We recently were showing the 4AM platform to a seasoned Demand Generation professional and she immediately connected with what we were showing her. She worked for a very large public company, but the pains of demand generation are the same no matter what size company you work for. Everything we showed her in the product roadmap she was currently struggling with and using multiple spreadsheets to try to solve the problems.
We look forward to sharing the same experience with you.
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