Know-How Exchange : Career/Training

It depends. What do you mean by "both are different titles"? What are the two titles? What are the two job descriptions? Do you both report to the same person, a Marketing VP or CEO?

All things marketing intertwine at the strategy and goal setting level usually within a written marketing plan. Do you have a written marketing plan?

"Demand generation" seems to be a strange title and function. I'm not sure anyone can really "generate" demand. Demand OCCURS when consumers discover you have a product or service offering that satisfies an important need, is available at a convenient point of purchase, and at a price commensurate with the value they perceive it will deliver. That sounds a lot like the role of marketing.

So I'm not sure what the role of the "demand generation specialist" would be, or how it would be much different from that of the marketing director. Maybe you can interview both individuals and see what they have to say. It's possible the "demand generation specialist" is a euphemism for sales person.

I saw this last night when it appeared. I was a little puzzled then, and thought that Mr Goodman would be the one to lay down the law.

However my feelings were proved correct by the things he says. Because you don't have a marketing problem as such - you have one that stems from arbitrary decision-making. Someone has made a decision based on their lack of knowledge about marketing and expects everyone to see things his way.

So let's try to untangle a few things. What is your senior directorship seeing in marketing that leads them to form this distinction - **this is the key to the problem**. Because it is a decision made by people who see things differently to the way a marketer sees things. After all, most large businesses have a "sales" department and a "marketing" department - and the problems this causes are legion. Yet it is still accepted as being normal! Businesses have thrived despite this split between two ends of the same stick. The point is that your senior directors have made what to most of us is an irrational decision - however your senior directors see it as perfectly rational. That is the square you need to circle. As I say, seeing things from their perspective is the key to the solution, and key to making the situation work for all of you.

Now: What are the directors going to expect from the director of marketing, and the demand generation director? Seen from this point of view, you may be able to put out some markers to define the boundaries of your roles. My suggestion is to get both of you to sit down together and with a piece of paper simply divide up tasks. You do one thing, he does another. From that some clear directions will begin to form that you can both do something useful. You both must unfocus from the details and work with pliable generalities and draw the details out of that seeming mess. It's going to be hard work, and it's going to take some real hard imagining. That's not going to be easy. My guess is that you'll be tempted to start at the bottom and work up. Don't! You need global thinking here, and you are the guys on the spot.

I'm presuming that each being a director will have their own departments. (Is this a French farce? Shades of Clochemerle https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clochemerle). What a nuisance at a time you could be getting in more leads ...

Now: your senior directors have a concept - "demand generation". How does this differ from the usual practices in your experience? It's important that you form these concepts in your mind, you'll find it much easier to express them. That is to say, draw your ideas from your own personal experience.

Having waffled on for long enough there is a distinction forming in my own mind. Marketing can be the more strategic end and Demand Generation the implementation end - and Sales the receiving end. In point of fact you could have the marketing director's work as liaising between Leads and Sales and acting as the feedback medium that is so desperately lacking in many businesses. The problem is would the Sales Director be happy with this perceived encroachment on his territory? I dread to think what he might say to you.

What are your thoughts on all this?

Marketing is a very broad field which has several parts like advertising, sales, etc,.

In the same way, Demand Generation is a part of marketing department which concentrates on those particular tasks which stimulate and increase demand for a product.

Marketing department may have few additional tasks like product design, sales, CRM, etc. But, Demand generation will only concentrate only on tasks like stimulate / increase demand for products through advertising, designing special offers etc.