The first 100 days: what I learned as a new Head of Marketing

This article is part of a series where I will be sharing all my learnings and insights on my journey as a marketing leader in a fast growing SaaS scale-up. Pop over to my profile and click “Connect” to get the latest.

The first days in a new job are always daunting, but especially so if you’re making that step up to a leadership role. I joined Cognism as its Head of Marketing in May 2019; it was clear from the get-go that the business was dynamic and fast-paced, and required someone to come in and overhaul the marketing operation, fast.

For this article, I’m taking a look back at my first 100 days as Cognism’s Head of Marketing. I’ve identified 10 steps which helped me to build a formidable marketing function at Cognism, which has earned the company’s place as one of LinkedIn’s Top Startups in 2019 and 2020.

Here’s how I transformed a scattergun marketing approach into a data driven marketing one - keep reading to see my tips!

1 - Get to know stakeholders

This is almost a given, but it’s no less important. As soon as you get your feet under the desk, take some time to get to know your stakeholders - that’s your immediate team, the other teams you’ll be dealing with and, crucially, your customers. 

Find out what makes your customers tick. What do they want from your company? Where are they based? What types of content do they regularly engage with? When you’ve worked out who your customers are, you can use that profile to inform your marketing decisions going forward.

2 - Take a deep dive into the data

I’m very firmly of the belief that successful marketing is dependent on data. It should underpin every major decision you make.

When you start as a marketing leader, ask yourself the following:

• What metrics are currently being tracked? 
• How/where are they being tracked? 
• What does the picture look like? Good/bad/room for improvement? 
• Are there any missing gaps? 

After conducting this B2B data audit, I recommend checking that these basic elements are in place:

• UTM parameters - is the team using UTM parameters in their links and in their campaigns, if so, how?  
• Tracking pixels for any third-party advertising/activity you are doing - these are vital if you are going to be able to build out retargeting audiences and track conversions correctly.
• Hidden fields on forms - these work hand in hand with the UTMs and allow you to fully track what sources and content are bringing in those all-important form submissions!

These are going to be really important later on, when your content is live and you’ve got some paid ads running.

3 - Build a strategy for content

In the B2B space, content marketing is king. Unlike B2C, where individual buyers make on-the-spot decisions, in B2B you’re often marketing products to teams of people, who all have an influence over the purchase. You have to educate those people, speak to the challenges they face every day, and offer solutions.

To achieve this, you need a robust content strategy. Here’s how I implemented this at Cognism:

Educate the business

Most people outside of marketing aren’t aware that content can be a revenue driver in its own right. So you have to educate them. Show them the difference that content can make to the bottom line.

For example, if you’ve got a page ranking at the top spot on Google, then that will contribute x% (depending on the volume and intent of the specific keyword) to the number of organic leads you bring in per month - which also means higher conversions and ultimately more sales! It’s all linked.

Audit the current content

Study your published blogs and gated content. What’s worked well and what hasn’t? What should you be doing more of? Look for patterns in the data.

Conduct thorough keyword research

Take a full day to do this. Uncover relevant keywords that have a high search volume, high intent but relatively low keyword difficulty. These are the ones to build your strategy around.

Research your competitors

What do they do well that you aren’t doing? Are there any gaps in their strategy that you can fill? 

Stay focused on your ICP

Attend sales demos and customer onboardings. Discover what matters to your prospects and customers. What questions are they asking? What do they care about? Your content can provide answers to these.

Create a content calendar

Build the next quarter's content plan around everything you’ve learned from the previous steps. Ensure you build it around key pillars, mapped back to your SEO research, and with content formats that can be used in your lead generation tactics later.

For example, write a blog series based around a target keyword, that you can then repurpose as an eBook.

Develop an activation strategy

What good is great content if its lifespan is only 1 social post? Alongside your content calendar, create a social media calendar. Get into the habit of sharing your content regularly, with different messaging and at varying times of the day.

Again, review your engagement data and work out which times are the best times to post.

Start small

Don’t be too ambitious at the start when it comes to content. Kick off with some blog posts and low-resource content. Track the success of the content and see if there’s any traction. 

If there is, carry on with the strategy. If not, pivot to something else. Be agile and get into a cycle of making frequent small adjustments.

4 - Make marketing revenue-driven

One thing I quickly highlighted in my first 100 days was that marketing at Cognism was then just a sales and business enablement function. The department was being told what to do by other areas of the business, it held no revenue targets of its own, and had no overarching strategy or plan.

The best way to overcome this? Take ownership of a revenue target. This helped me to take back control of the marketing function. A marketing team should have its own targets and numbers to hit. It’s not there to solely serve the other business units (this is however an important part of what marketing can do, but we needed to double down on growth for the stage we were at).

5 - Become a product specialist

It’s vital that marketers are also product experts. If you don’t know what your product does or how it works, how can you promote it to others? 

Spend some time with your sales team. Sit in on their cold calls and product demos. Cognism runs “cold calling days”, where the marketing team gets involved with cold calling prospects! 

Marketers may shudder at the thought, but in truth, it was a very useful exercise! You gain immediate feedback from potential buyers and learn a lot more about their pain points.

6 - Get systematic with paid

Along with content, paid is another area that demands constant experimentation and adjustments. In my first 100 days, the main objective for me was to start testing and gathering data.

Prior to my arrival, the strategy at Cognism was driven by events, supplemented by paid activity on Google with little tracking in place. The results were inevitably quite poor. So on Day 1, I stopped all Google spend. This is a good lesson - don’t be afraid to switch things off in order to get started. I needed, and wanted, to earn the right to spend again.

The key here was to run small, low-budget experiments. My mantra was: prove the value and ramp spend gradually. Here’s how this worked in practice:

• Start with just one channel; we chose Google Ads.
• Create a framework for experimenting and optimising. Follow a data-led path: set up some initial ads, track the results and learn from them. Use the insights to improve your next ones.
• Don’t stop there! Keep monitoring, reviewing and iterating on your paid ads. PPC is not a “set and forget” game.
• Final tip - keep it all in house if you can, you will see the rewards.

7 - Set targets for your team

Once you’ve created the model you want, then it’s time to carry your team with you. Work with them on setting targets and KPIs, linked to the revenue goals from Step 4.

Not sure which metrics to track? I compiled an infographic of my must-track B2B marketing KPIs on the Cognism blog.

8 - Review your tech stack

What marketing tech has your company invested in already? Is it providing value? Is there anything missing? 

My advice: don’t implement technology just for the sake of it. The first question you should ask is, “is this solving a problem for me or my team?” If the answer’s no, then don’t buy it.

9 - Establish nurture streams

In the beginning, when thinking about lead nurturing, you should work through every lead stage. Map out personalised email and ad nurture streams; the intention must be to move leads further through the funnel.

Here’s a practical example. For leads that visit your website but don't request a demo, you should have a specific nurture in place to help convert those leads. This could take several forms. It could be an email sharing a case study, alongside targeted carousel ads on LinkedIn, followed by a bottom of the funnel webinar.

With lead nurturing, the key is to ensure you aren't solely focused on the conversion itself, but on all those touchpoints in between.

10 - Get things done!

My final point is a simple one - do as much as you can, get as much stuff live as possible - then worry about the bigger picture and overall processes afterwards! Until you find out what works, you can’t scale it.

This is Cognism Marketing’s mission statement: done is better than perfect. Build a process, get things out there, study your results and optimise. In B2B SaaS marketing, being nimble and agile will always win over big plans that take too long to implement.

Final thoughts

So there you have it: my key takeaways from my first 100 days, heading up marketing at one of the UK’s fastest-growing startups.

If you’d like more B2B marketing insights, please do visit my profile and click “Connect”! Every week, I’m sharing my top tips for B2B SaaS marketers. I look forward to seeing you there!