Matt – Demand Generation Consulting

What is Demand Generation?

February 7, 2019February 6, 2019MattLeave a Comment

Despite its increasing popularity, I’ve found that demand generation is defined differently depending on whom you ask. Here is how the bastion of all truth, Wikipedia, defines it:

Demand generation is the focus of targeted marketing programs to drive awareness and interest in a company’s products and/or services. Commonly used in business-to-business, business-to-government, or longer business-to-consumer sales cycles, demand generation involves multiple areas of marketing and is really the marriage of marketing programs coupled with a structured sales process.

While Wikipedia’s information can sometimes be suspect, this definition is fairly accurate. But if I had to put it more simply, I’d say demand generation is a strategically planned, persona-focused marketing program. While brochures, collateral, and logos are important parts of a company’s foundation, demand generation marketing is focused on orchestrated campaigns that support the buyer throughout the buying process and (as a result) drive qualified opportunities to the sales team.

Without question, brand is important. In fact there’s an argument to be made for its increasing importance. The problem arises when we use branding as a way to hide from accountability. If you or people on your team would rather hide behind refreshing a brochure that probably doesn’t need it or creating more collateral to gather dust in a storage room instead of figuring out how you can better support your prospects, demand generation might not be for you.

If, however, you like the idea of thoughtfully putting together campaigns built on persona-based insights, launching them, driving real business impact, analyzing the results, and improving from there, welcome aboard!

It might sound risky to make this transition and, to be fair, it is a big change from marketing’s traditional role. But the real risk is in not adapting to a changing marketplace and becoming a relic of the past.

This post was excerpted from Getting Started in Demand Generation. Pick it up today!

Ready to get started with your demand generation program? Check out the persona pack. It includes a framework and one-page worksheet for developing key personas for your business. Click here to download it for free.

And We’re Back

February 4, 2019February 4, 2019MattLeave a Comment

Hello everyone! I’m not sure if any of the blog’s original followers are still getting updates, but I just wanted to publish a quick note to let you know we’re back. I have revamped the blog and designed a new site to accompany it.

This update and venture is a reflection of my experience over the past few years which has been pointedly focused on demand generation. Ironically, in a noisy, always-on world businesses are struggling to connect. It is tougher than ever to break through. Competition is maxed out and so are our attention spans.

In order to stand a chance, companies don’t need gimmicks or one-off random acts of marketing. Instead, they need a relentless focus on the customer and well-planned strategies to help buyers through every step of their professional journey.

Guess what? We’re going to help them do just that. We’ve already got some cool resources to help move the needle including this book, this blog, and free downloads.

Here are some guiding principles for our work.

Have fun and enjoy your work
Activity does not equal results
Failure IS an option (but rarely the case)
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good
Make progress or make excuses

I’m looking forward to connecting and sharing with all of you. Please check back, or better yet, subscribe to our mailing list to stay in the loop.

FYI – Getting Started with Demand Generation is now available for pre-order from Amazon.

On Goals

March 15, 2015September 8, 2018MattLeave a Comment

If you’re alive and not on a yacht in the Mediterranean right now (and even if you are), chances are there are things in your work or personal life that you’d like to change. You pretty much can’t look for productivity advice without hearing or reading some mention of the word goals.

After a while it all sort of blends together and starts to sound the same. So while goals are an important part of progress, at times it can be intimidating to describe them and put together a plan for achieving them. If we put all of the work into goal setting and planning and we fail, then what?

Here’s the good news – goals aren’t just about success. In fact, many companies (Google included) encourage employees to set goals that are nearly impossible to achieve. Why? Because when you set your sights on something audacious and fail, chances are you’ve still moved the needle a long way in the right direction. And let’s say you didn’t move the needle. Let’s say the entire thing blew up in your face, down in flames, on your walk home it’s raining and someone drives by and splashes you; so bad you actually want to listen to that “Had a Bad Day” song. Guess what? As long as you learned something from the experience (even if it’s just the proper distance to stand from the curb on a rainy day), it’s not a failure. Failure is actually very hard to achieve if you’re paying attention. Do your work. Take notes on what happens (good and bad). Move forward.

Don’t be afraid failure.

Taking Advantage of Change

March 6, 2014September 8, 2018MattLeave a Comment

I just moved into a new house, and to say that things have changed is an understatement. It’s amazing how a new location can take all of our old habits and throw them right out the window. Everything is in a new place, nothing is where you thought it was, and time flies right by. But I’m not complaining, not even a little bit. This change has given me the opportunity to break out of old habits, to re-evaluate what I was doing, and to plan what I want to do now.

I probably won’t admit this in public, but it’s kind of fun when your computer crashes. You have to go through the same sort of exercises – figure out what was important to you and bring it back – but you also get to drop a bunch of dead weight.

So do you need to move every week or drop your computer down a flight of stairs to make sure you are focusing on the important? No. But it is a great exercise to step back and say, “If XXXX happened, what would I really miss? What would I be secretly glad was gone? What would I need to get back ASAP?” Really analyze those answers and you’ll begin to find under-appreciated areas (or people) that need more attention/praise and those that need improvement.

The Elusive Smartwatch (Why Every Manufacturer Wants One)

August 16, 2013September 8, 2018MattLeave a Comment

Once again, rumors are rampant that a big manufacturer is just weeks away from introducing a smartwatch. This talk has been around for years but this time it looks like Samsung will be delivering.

So why have so many manufacturers been linked to the smartwatch or wearable device trend? The article linked above states that it’s about creating a new niche in a market that has not seen much innovation. While this is certainly true, it’s also attractive because it’s linked to a more basic marketing principle – social proof.

Social proof essentially states that when faced with an ambiguous situation, people will do what they see their peers doing (BTW if you haven’t read, “Influence” by Robert Cialdini, stop reading this and get it now).

Smartphones recently outsold feature phones for the first time. And it would be hard to argue against their visibility. It’s impossible to sit in a busy public place and not see someone using one. But there’s a big problem with phones. They are in your pocket a large percentage of the time. Not the best trait when trying to spur mass adoption of a device.

In the early days of the MP3 player, you could identify an iPod user by the white earbuds. They stood out and gave consumers a way to show off their purchase. By increasing visibility and identification, Apple was utilizing social proof. People who weren’t sure if they wanted or needed an MP3 player saw these white earbuds everywhere, and (consciously or unconsciously) registered a vote for the iPod each time they were noticed. When they explored purchasing an MP3 player, guess which one they looked at first?

The smartwatch increases the visibility exponentially. Where a smartphone (or MP3 player) is in a pocket, a wristwatch is always visible. If Samsung, or Apple can get early adopters to begin wearing these devices, it’s easy to see them being conversation starters. There are people who use cell phones as status symbols, whipping them out at every opportunity. Just imagine how easy this gets when it’s always visible.

I’m not sure what these devices will look like but I’m betting on one thing; Look for these devices to be quickly identifiable as an Apple or Samsung product. Look for this generation’s white earbuds. In this way, companies can start racking up those social votes, even with people who never considered a smartwatch. The race is on to capture this market and the high-octane fuel is social proof.

Think about how you can leverage this principle with your product or service. Can you give your fans a way to identify as a fan and to show it off even when they aren’t saying a word?

“sent from my iPad” 😉

When You Think You’ve Done Enough…

July 3, 2013September 8, 2018MattLeave a Comment

Do More.

This is a quick motto that I keep in my head for those days when I just want to get that euphoria (I can’t be the only one) that can only be felt by clicking the task as completed in Outlook.

We all have project timelines and it’s important to keep to them. But, the difference between good and great could be that little extra effort that you put in when the competition has already gone home. This is especially true when working with customers. Take the extra time, make the extra effort, and they will reward you by coming back and telling their friends. If you don’t, they will still tell their friends, but you won’t like what they say.

Fighting a Kingdom? Find the Back Door

June 6, 2013October 16, 2018MattLeave a Comment

Many times in marketing we are faced with a similar challenge – dethrone the king and do it on time and under budget. Many of us relish this challenge, and it’s probably why I’m still in marketing today. It’s fun to be the underdog. Nobody expects you to win, so you avoid all the pressure and focus on the task at hand.

While it may be the initial thought, we don’t have to go to feature war on all fronts with competitors. They are simply too massive. Imagine Apple going after Microsoft in the late 90s – it wouldn’t have worked. Microsoft was too firmly entrenched and had too much money to spend.

Instead, upon his return, Steve Jobs focused on the back doors to the Microsoft kingdom of consumers. He went after the surrounding consumer market. Enter the iPod. By creating an all Apple, all new product that was second-to-none and the ecosystem to back it up – Jobs was able to introduce his company to the market at a lower price point than a new computer.

With the iPod, consumers got a taste of the Apple magic both in the hardware and software. When people saw how well it all worked, they wanted more. That means more sales of iPhones, iPads, and yes, eventually Macbooks, and the Mac OS.

It’s a powerful strategy if you can find the right button to push. Google is taking on Facebook in a similar manner. Though they have similar features, Google+ has yet to take off. By incrementally introducing features – Google is trying to slowly ween people ONto its platform. A great example is the automatic picture correction just announced last month at Google IO. Pictures are more “sticky” than comments. People like to go back and revisit them time and again. With mobile devices increasingly being used as primary cameras – Google is hoping to become the place people store and share them.

Other companies, like Path are taking a different approach. By limiting the number of connections a person can have – they seek to avoid the noise that people so often complain of with Facebook.

This strategy can also work with small businesses – highlight something that you are really good at. Lots of people are fitness trainers but you can distinguish yourself by offering services that others neglect. Instead of gym training, offer home training or public park training. Instead of losing weight, focus on scrawny people who want to gain weight. Instead of just focusing on training, offer consultation on nutrition and partner with someone who will supply the food.

There are plenty of opportunities to find your way around a giant – think about your market and go get-em!

Meetings As Contracts

April 30, 2013September 8, 2018MattLeave a Comment

One of the biggest complaints I’ve run into in the past few years is that of the meeting. Done correctly, meetings are an efficient way to share information and make decisions. Done incorrectly, they are a dreadful waste of time and energy.

My advice is to treat meetings as contracts and to treat the people involved as clients. When you request to meet with someone have the end goal in mind. Don’t simply meet because you, “have several things to discuss.” Draw up an agenda for where the meeting will go and important questions that need answered and stick to the time allotted.

You wouldn’t show up late to a meeting with important clients, so don’t do it for your internal clients either. Encourage everyone to be there on time, if one person is 15 minutes late for a meeting with four other people – that’s one hour of productivity lost forever. End on time as well – you never know what other meetings yours is running into.

Some other quick tips: Produce and circulate summary of the decisions made and next steps to help keep everyone on the same page. Only invite those people absolutely necessary to the process, if they can’t make the call, they probably don’t need to be there.

Video Games and Marketing Leadership

April 12, 2013September 8, 2018MattLeave a Comment

So here is where my parents get to feel validated for buying me that first Nintendo way back when. Feel free to keep this argument in your back pocket. Video games used to be considered a waste of time. However, I believe they’ve taught me and countless individuals how to be proactive and curious.

Whenever I first played Super Mario Bros. with my brother and cousin we were so excited to play that we died very quickly. We just wanted to see what it was like. There wasn’t a fear that if we died, we’d never get to play again or (as in the arcade) we’d run out of money.

This is an important concept in leadership and on a career path – don’t be afraid to jump at new opportunities. Be curious. Yes, it can be scary and yes you might fail, but in failing, you learn how to come back the next time and jump that hurdle (or Koopa Troopa or Bullet Bill). Sure, in life we don’t have unlimited time, resets, or funding, so choose wisely – but choose, and get moving! Don’t be paralyzed by a fear of failure – the biggest failure is not trying. Soon using the experience you’ve gained, you’ll be flying through like an expert.