Jane Serra’s Post

Transcript

Hey, Soph! How you doing? Your friend Jane here from VP. Let's take that part out. Hey Soph! Your friend Jane here, VP of Growth Marketing at Daxtra. You had a great question that you shared with friends of Noble about how to get started with demand gen programs. So I'm gonna cheat a little bit here and say it depends - the typical marketing start to an answer, right? I'm not going to give benchmarks and specific numbers on what budget you should expect because that always depends what kind of funding does the company have, what budget, what revenue are they bringing in, if any yet. But in general, without context as to who the specific company is, my advice would be to always be my advice would be to always start scrappy. And to do that, it's really my advice would be. I'm going to start over again guys. Cut take 3. Hopefully it won't be 3000. Hey Soph! Your friend Jane here, VP of Growth Marketing at Daxtra. You had a great question for Noble that was all about. How to get started with demand gen for newer SaaS companies getting out there, What budget to expect, which route to go, if they're hiring, if they should hire an agency, a contractor in house. So first thing, I would always recommend the first hire be in house. So not using an agency, not going with the contractor, although you can always test somebody out before you bring them out in, bring them in house. So that's fine. But I would bring somebody in house who is in the middle ground, right? Not, Junior, they have some experience, not super senior, somebody who is willing to roll up their sleeves and get in there and and execute. So somebody who's super scrappy and passionate and excited to learn and test. You want somebody hungry and that has fun with marketing because they can bring the energy you need for a new company and the ideas and testing mentality. So I would definitely suggest hiring somebody, but I'm going to cheat on the budget side of your question and say it really depends. Everyone's favorite answer, right? The asterisk. It depends, but it really does. It depends on how much funding the company has, what revenue is coming in, if any. But without knowing any of that information, my general advice would be to start scrappy, right? So with that person that you hire, have them start out with building content, getting to know your audience, right? Ideally, you hire somebody who already knows your audience. Even more ideally, you hire somebody who has an audience that is your audience, right? Has a following that resonates with your audience and includes your ICP. That would be ideal. We can't always get that if, if the person is a marketer in a particular space. So if not, then you want them to start getting to know your audience, interviews, etc., and building content, really interesting content that adds value. That way there's no additional cost, right? They are writing, they are filming, they are creating content in different channels. Testing out different channels. The most important thing though is distribution of that content, right? Where is your audience? So again, coming back to testing to having surveying your audience, surveying your existing customers or your prospects and finding out where they are. Those are the channels you want to distribute your content on. So here, the cost is going to be very minimal. You can do a lot of organic distribution, social posts, etc. wherever they are ready if it's Reddit or if it's LinkedIn or Instagram or TikTok. Wherever they are and spending their time, make sure you're there. The second thing I would do is to bring in partners also typically free, right? You're expanding your audience, you're getting in front of more people just by bringing in other tech partners or even service partners that have the same audience. And you can help each other expand each other's audiences and get in front of more people and even test different things, right? Maybe they have budget, you have expertise or vice versa. And you can test some ads together too. But really I would say. Start scrappy with hiring in house, having that person be really, really passionate about what they're doing and demand gen: create content, start those conversations, bring in partners to expand the reach and the audience and really learn together as well. There's so many, so much value in bringing the partnerships inside. And then third, I would start dabbling with ads. So wherever your audience is, test out different ads. Small budget to start and then scale. The most important thing here across the board is testing. So whoever you hire, make sure they have a big testing mindset, strong testing mindset, and is just tight with the brand. So it's having somebody in house. This is where it's key because things change at a small company or a startup, right? Things change fast. So having to constantly update and be like, Oh yeah, I didn't tell you we're now doing this to a contractor and agency, It can be really difficult to make sure they're up to date. If you have somebody in house, they're typically abreast of everything that's going on. So being able to move fast and and test different channels and then scale from there. Best way to go. I hope that helps. Thanks everyone.