How to Drive Effective Growth with Demand Generation: A Conversation with Carilu Dietrich

Betting on demand generation to keep your business afloat?

Rising inflation and slowing advertising caused a stir in the B2B market. In its light, many companies have laid off hundreds of employees and drastically reduced their existing working capital.

While this sounds harsh, it happens because marketers focus too much on the promotional aspect of the product rather than investing in demand generation.

On December 1 at Reach 2022, we had the pleasure of welcoming Carilu Dietrich, former head of corporate marketing at Atlassian and former senior director of global advertising at Oracle, and Amanda Malko, CMO at G2. The panel focused on how demand generation is evolving the customer experience and driving effective revenue growth.

Today, Carilu Dietrich is CEO and CMO advisor to hypergrowth technology companies. She also co-founded Pledge 1%, a nonprofit encouraging entrepreneurs to focus on business growth and giving.

Malko kicked off the session by asking Carilu to describe his role as a marketing manager.

Dietrich's journey in sales and marketing

Dietrich began her career in enterprise sales in the early 2000s. She worked in inside sales and field sales for Internet infrastructure companies. His clientele included Yahoo, Intuit and other big tech names. Since Dietrich has a sales background, she understands the do's and don'ts of the sales industry very well.

Dietrich changed his career from sales to marketing and started working for Plumtree as a public relations analyst. This began his prolific 20-year marketing career.

She did a service stint for two years to learn how each department in her company works. She has worked in departments such as public relations, demand generation, field marketing and mergers and acquisitions.

Her assignments have helped her become an experienced professional. She has written advertising articles for The Wall Street Journal and The Economist and led exciting marketing projects at Oracle.

She has also led several brand awareness and demand generation campaigns. She was part of an NBC television commercial for the America's Cup. She flew to Los Angeles to read movie scripts for Oracle's Iron Man integration.

Dietrich was good friends with former VP Jay Simons and Atlassian CRO Cameron Deatsch, who encouraged her to take on a new responsibility at Atlassian. While leading the corporate marketing arm of Atlassian, the company had a very successful IPO.

What is demand generation?

Demand generation is a strategy that establishes omnichannel communication with your prospects through different branded channels like a landing page, emails, advertisements, and PR campaigns. This creates buzz for your brand and puts you in the consumer spotlight.

You can use demand generation to promote your minimum viable products (MVPs), resources, webinars, and eBooks. People who find your content engaging may return to your website or sign up as a lead.

It gives voice to your company's mission in the online community, helps someone resonate with your product or service, and improves your reputation.

Top Demand Generation Challenges Oracle Faced in 2008

As software competition increased, Oracle faced several setbacks. In 2008, Oracle had to cut its operating revenue by 25% by laying off its social media marketing team. This decision has increased the workload of existing employees expected to achieve the same goals as the earlier layoffs.

Dietrich also lost a few family members, which made the adjustment quite difficult. At the same time, her company's most senior employee quit. Times were tough, but she didn't give up.

Malko and Dietrich reflect on the tough decisions they've had to make throughout their careers. Decisions were mostly related to cost cutting, hiring and firing, which were not easy to make. Previously, they monitored net income, budget, gross margins and other company financial details to make marketing investments.

When Oracle suffered a loss, Dietrich kept it cool and worked closely with the CEO and CFO to determine the next step. It is essential to remain calm even knowing that the company is at stake; a hasty mind can never make good financial decisions.

Fortunately, cool heads prevailed, leading to big bets for Oracle...