I can’t speak for marketing managers in general, but I can tell you what the questions are that I’m trying to answer. Context: I’m in charge of marketing for a B2B SaaS product.
- How do I get our product in front of more eyeballs?
We aren’t the biggest in our space and we’re bootstrapped (which means we chose not to raise money). That means I have a limited budget available to buy ads, etc. Which means I am constantly thinking of cost-effective ways to increase awareness of our brand – we’ve noticed that once people do talk to us, they often like what they see and hear. - What’s the best use of my budget?
Heavily related to question 1. While my marketing budget grows as the company grows, my life is one of making choices. Do I spend more on ads? Do I buy sponsorships at events? How do I decide? Well, at the end of the day, I decide on ROI as much as I can. I look at how much I spent on an effort and how many qualified leads we got from it.
Now, unfortunately, it’s not always possible to measure the direct outcome of an effort. In which cases I will make an educated guess. - What should we be working on right now?
Bootstrapped also means I don’t have the funds to hire unlimited personnel. We have to purposeful in what we do. Many of our peeps are multi-talented. Most important of all is that we always keep sight of our goals and our roadmap. As a team leader, I set the priorities and make sure we stay on track. As long as we keep executing our strategy, we will continue to see success.
