Q&A with Mark Emond, Founder, President at Demand Spring

Content is at the heart of great marketing today. It needs to educate, inspire, and convert. It must be tied to the unique rational and emotional needs of each target persona

MEDIA 7: What was your inspiration behind starting Demand Spring?
MARK EMOND: In the early days of my career, I worked in marketing for several larger organizations, including IBM, Cognos, and Corel. But throughout that time, I always had an entrepreneurial drive and a belief that I could create a firm focused on the demand side of marketing. While there are many brand agencies, I always struggled to find a great demand-focused one when I was on the client-side. I thought I could help address that gap and help marketers operate from a more strategic position in their organization. And so, 9 years ago, I took the leap and founded Demand Spring.


M7: How does Demand Spring’s Leap Advisory help your clients strengthen their marketing teams?
ME: We studied the market deeply for about a year to really understand that there is a pragmatic advisory gap that exists between CMOs and their executive teams today. Leap addresses that by enabling our clients with access to over 25 CMOs, thought leaders, authors, and subject matter experts across all marketing disciplines. Our Leap customers engage with these advisors as a sounding board, to drive education throughout their teams, for custom strategy sessions, and for external-facing presentations to help connect with their stakeholders.

The key is to use data and technology to serve up highly targeted content across channels, tuned to the stage of the buyer journey a prospect is in, and what their behavior shows they are most apt to engage in.

M7: What marketing channels do you use and which ones do you see as the most promising, given your target customers?
ME: We are big believers in an integrated multi-channel model— in both, our own marketing and the work we do with our clients. In today’s long B2B buying journey, buyers are in control and they are interacting across multiple channels. The key is to use data and technology to serve up highly targeted content across channels, tuned to the stage of the buyer journey a prospect is in, and what their behavior shows they are most apt to engage in.


M7: How does Demand Spring’s integrated revenue marketing services help marketing organizations outperform?
ME: Our team delivers advanced yet pragmatic marketing strategy and activation services to our clients. Most of our consultants have spent much of their careers on the client-side, so we understand the need for quick wins and long-term transformation. We use a methodology called the Revenue Marketing System that has five dimensions that marketers should seek to optimize in order to drive great client experiences and revenue. They need to deeply understand their buyer personas and the buyer journey. They need to align marketing and sales and break down silos within marketing. They need to develop their talent and their business practices and processes. They need to deliver exceptional and highly personalized engagement through content and digital practices. And they need to do it at scale by automating and analyzing it with technology. We deliver services that line up with all five of these dimensions.

Great content engenders a two-way dialogue. It’s about telling stories but also sparking conversations with your prospects and customers.

M7: What role does content marketing play for product marketers? Which content format performs best for your product?
ME: Content is at the heart of great marketing today. It needs to educate, inspire, and convert. It must be tied to the unique rational and emotional needs of each target persona. Great content engenders a two-way dialogue. It’s about telling stories but also sparking conversations with your prospects and customers. The format really depends on the persona and the stage of the buyer journey they are in. That is why it’s essential that a great content strategy goes hand in hand with a deep buyer persona and buyer journey research.


M7: When you are not working, what are you seen doing? Would you like to share your hobbies with us?
ME: Our family is really active. Our typical day involves an early morning dog walk, swimming in our pool, and usually going to a sport, such as soccer or horseback riding for my daughter. I have a huge passion for coaching youth basketball. In addition to being a competitive basketball coach, I serve as the Director of Player and Coach Development for my local youth basketball association. So, I spend lots of time at the gym and love developing young people and basketball players.