When it comes to leads, most people assume more is better. That’s not always true. Sometimes you have more than your sales team can actually handle, in which case your leads go cold. The flip side—when you have more sales capacity than lead flow—is equally bad. This is why it’s so important to balance demand generation with sales capacity. Let’s take a closer look. Establishing Your Quarterly Demand Goals First off, you need to establish your desired lead flow. I like to model mine to be even … [Read more...]
Content Marketing Economics – Part II: Consumption and Profitability
In the first part of this post, we discussed the production and distribution of content. Here, we’ll going to dig into how people consume your content, the desired outcomes of that consumption, and whether what it costs you is generating a profitable return. How does consumption relate to production and distribution? It can be represented by this simple equation: Consumption = Production * Distribution The better the quality of the content – the production – multiplied by a larger or more … [Read more...]
Content Marketing Economics – Part I: Production and Distribution
English majors certainly have a leg up in the content marketing world, what with their trove of literary references and practiced writing flow. But what about Econ majors? It struck me recently that there’s an important contribution that knowledge of economics could make to help your content marketing execution. Economics is the study of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Content marketing fits neatly into this context. It’s not about amassing a stockpile of … [Read more...]
Burn Pixels, Marketing Math, Classic Texts: Most Popular Posts of 2016
I've covered quite a bit of ground these past twelve months. Here are five of my most popular posts -- durable lessons on marketing math, spending your budget wisely, building an LDR/SDR team, email marketing, and a little marketing lingo. Enjoy. Three Math Tricks Every SaaS CMO Should Know Time was when you just needed to be an idea guy to be a great CMO. When it came to academic strong suits, English was desirable, and maybe Art if you were really good. But marketing has changed. Numbers … [Read more...]
Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks: How to Transform into a SaaS Marketer
Can marketers change? Are we nonmillennials doomed to fade from the scene, our old ways weighing us down like a boat anchor? While it may be true that a leopard can’t change its spots, I don’t think it’s true that old-hand marketers are immutable. Old salts, perhaps, but not old dogs. Anyone can change course and become a successful SaaS marketer. I know this, because I made the switch. After a good ten years of marketing enterprise software, I had to change my stripes. I was happily … [Read more...]
How to Prioritize Marketing Investments Using the Demand Maturity Matrix
Explaining how you are spending your marketing dollars is a challenge that all heads of marketing face. Cynics in your company are always happy to point out a failed program, which tars all your demand efforts with the same brush. What to do? Counterintuitive as it may seem, start by pointing out your failures. Here’s how. Many marketing teams make the mistake of lumping all of their demand generation programs together. So all people hear about is the total number of leads delivered to sales. … [Read more...]
Four Mistakes (Bad) Presenters Make
I was at a conference in San Francisco last week. It was at the of-the-moment MidMa event space known as The Village. A massive video screen – hundreds of feet wide and nearly floor to ceiling – covers the entire back wall, adding to the feel of electricity. The setting demands dramatic presentations. Then came the first presenter. And the second. And the third. In the span of just two hours, I saw three smart people make all four of the mistakes I’m going to cover below. And the gaffes just … [Read more...]
Market Like You Are an Investor – Why Changing Your Mindset Will Rocket Your Career
A CMO can get stuck in their own marketing world. As a head of marketing myself, I have occasionally fallen into what I call marketing tunnel vision. The condition has three symptoms: it complicates communications with other executives, especially your CEO; it distracts CMOs from the bigger picture of the business; and it perpetuates the stereotype that marketers are lightweight business people. It doesn’t have to be this way. I have the cure, and it’s as simple as changing your mindset – to … [Read more...]
How De-positioning Works: Dissecting a Shane Co. Radio Ad
Positioning – how your product is perceived in the mind of your buyer – is critical for any marketing organization. Creating a positioning statement is an essential skill for marketers to master. In crowded markets, where the capacity of a buyer’s mind is already filled with competitors, another key concept is critical – de-positioning. I came across a great example recently, which I’m going to dissect to illustrate the concept. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, as I do, you know Tom … [Read more...]
Three Math Tricks Every SaaS CMO Should Know
Time was when you just needed to be an idea guy to be a great CMO. When it came to academic strong suits, English was desirable, and maybe Art if you were really good. But marketing has changed. Numbers are much more important than words or pictures. To be a great CMO, you need to be great at math, too. This shift to numbers is even more pronounced when it comes to running marketing at subscription businesses like SaaS. That may be a tall order for some. You can’t just decide to become a … [Read more...]
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