Notes from a workshop conducted on 16th Feb 2020 for Entrepreneurs and early hires at B2B SaaS startups on how they should go about building their Marketing function from scratch. [Note - will revise this periodically] The content focused on principles one could use to think about various things from who you should hire and what campaigns you should run to what metrics you should focus on and how marketing should align with Sales. The purpose of the slides themselves was to seed conversations and provoke questions from the audience (the session extended beyond 2hrs!) and so you might need some additional explanation on a few of the slides. Please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, Twitter or Email - happy to help in any way possible.

1. How to Scale a B2B
Marketing Function
Generating your first 1000 leads – lessons learned from building the
Marketing function at Vymo
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 1

2. What we will learn today
• B2B Marketing Principles: dealing with variables
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 2
• B2B Marketing Frameworks: laying the landscape
• Long-term thinking: strategic, not tactical

3. Before we begin...
• YMMV: marketing is contextual
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 3
• Filter: by relevance, by priority
• 2-way: keep things conversational

4. “They think that intelligence is about
noticing things are relevant
(detecting patterns); in a complex
world, intelligence consists in
ignoring things that are irrelevant
(avoiding false patterns)”
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 4

5. Why me, why now?
• Zero to One: (product, marketing) x n
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 5
• Entrepreneur: optimize for impact
• First Principles: experiment, learn, iterate

6. B2B Marketing - how is it different? 1/3
• More alike than not: marketing to people
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 6
• Differences matter: from a process perspective
• Optimize for impact: rest is semantics

7. B2B Marketing - how is it different? 2/3
• Multiple stakeholders: differing priorities, driving consensus
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 7
• Consultative: educate buyers, sales/customer-success
• Building credibility: beyond functional utility

8. How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 8

9. B2B Marketing - how is it different? 3/3
• Low ACV, High Volume: Slack, Mailchimp / SMB
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 9
• High ACV, Low Volume: Salesforce, Vymo / Enterprise
• Somewhere in between: Hubspot, Outreach / Mid-market

10. How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 10

11. “You do not want to win an argument. You
want to win.”
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 11

12. How to think about journey
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 12
MOMENTUM EFFICIENCY SCALE
1 2 3

13. How to think about team
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 13
EFFICIENCY
Functional
=
Prod-Mktg
Content
Digital
Field
PR
etc.
SCALE
Vertical
=
Product
Solution
Industry
Region
Usecase
etc.
MOMENTUM
General
=
Growth
Meetings
Traffic
Demos
Reach
etc.

14. How to think about team
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 14
Time 
ACV
Product
Marketer
Digital
Marketer
Field
Marketer
Content
Marketer
Brand
Marketer
PR/Social
Marketer
Community / Influencer
Marketer
Marketing Ops /
Automation

15. How to think about campaigns
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 15
MOMENTUM
Top of funnel
=
Finding product
market fit
EFFICIENCY
Middle of funnel
=
Streamlining demand
generation
SCALE
Bottom of funnel
=
Generating
revenue
Demand Gen Sales Acceleration?

16. Countless channels –
how do you decide?
16How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa

17. Identify your customer – pick
what’s relevant for her.
17How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa

18. Sandra
CMO, Big Corp
18How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa
• What does she care about: brand engagement
• Where does she exist: LinkedIn, Events, Webinars
• How should I reach her: effective, economical, integrated

19. “Never ask people what they want, watch
what they do.”
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 19

20. KNOW
MORE
about your customer
about your business
about your market
FOMO
about channels
about campaigns
about competition
20How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa

21. How to think about metrics
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 21
MOMENTUM
#leads
#meetings
#campaigns
EFFICIENCY
% MQL->SQL
% SQL->Opportunity
% Opportunity->Closure
SCALE
$$ Opportunity
$$ Cost
% Growth

22. How to think about metrics
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 22
• Proxy for revenue: no vanity metrics
• Keep it relevant: revise if redundant
• Report regularly: share all numbers

23. How to think about brand
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 23
MOMENTUM
experiment
EFFICIENCY
choose category
SCALE
create category
Marketing
Automation
Conversational
Marketing

24. How to think about sales
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 24
MOMENTUM
learn
EFFICIENCY
pace
SCALE
lead
• Establish cadence: optimize sourcing and engagement
• Practice alignment: (try to) stay on the same page / outbound
• Invest in enablement: training and resources

25. How to think about sales
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 25
Demand Generation Revenue
Marketing Inside Sales
Call + Email + Chat
(engagement)
Campaigns
Interest
# MQL
Action
# SQL
Sales + Partnerships
Demos + Meetings
Go to Market / Sales & Mktg enablement (use cases, solutions, orchestration)
Accountability
$$ Revenue$$ Opportunity
Closure
$$
Cold / for drip nurture
Warm / for acceleration
Dead / for awareness

26. *Expectation

27. How to think about competition
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 27
Ignorance ObsessionSafe space
• Talk to competitors: learn and share
• Partnership opportunities: competition may not be competition
• Focus on customers instead: will matter way more

28. Marketing @ Vymo
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 28
MOMENTUM EFFICIENCY SCALE
• What’s worked for us: Top of the funnel, sales enablement
• Complexity: Wide spread of geos, long – complex sales cycles
• HIRING: Growth Marketing Lead / 4+ yrs’ experience / B2B SaaS (link*)
* https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cariappack_hiring-marketing-b2b-activity-6632840704018219008-ynLT

29. If you could only follow 3 (other) people
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 29
Jason Lemkin
SaaS
Dave Gerhadt
Marketing
Brian G Burns
Sales

30. How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 30
“They will envy you for your
success, your wealth, for your
intelligence, for your looks, for
your status - but rarely for your
wisdom.”

31. Thank you
How to Scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan Cariappa 31
Roshan Cariappa
ckcariappa@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/cariappack
twitter.com/carygottheblues