Marketing efforts succeed or fail based on alignment or lack thereof, with the market, the CEO, the CRO, and the available resources.
As a CMO, you’re not the top marketing executor. You’re a go-to-market leader. It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day of managing the function, but it’s your job to have a broader view of the business including market trends, competitors, partners, and metrics. This is the only way to keep a seat at the table.
Know your numbers. Not the “little” numbers associated with every program or channel (though that’s good too. But focus on the big numbers that matter: Sales & Marketing efficiency, pipeline coverage, marketing contribution to pipeline.
You don’t own the whole funnel, but you better understand it, including conversion rate trends so you can identify bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement. Partner wih Sales Ops or do it yourself, but ensure the entire G2M leadership team has access to dashboards showing the entire funnel. CRO
It’s better to have a team that’s slightly too small than too big. This forces prioritization.
Sometimes, the answer is to do more, but mostly it’s to do less but do it better.
There’s a ton of marketing technology out there. Virtually all of it is useless without a program to operationalize it and a specific person to own it.
It all starts with product marketing -- the ICP, your target personas, the specific problems you solve, and your competitive differentiation. More marketing program dollars have been wasted with a poor articulation of the fundamentals than any other cause.
It doesn’t matter how good your marketing program is if you don’t have timely lead follow-up with clear, concise, pointed messaging.
Marketing’s job is to generate sales-qualified opportunities. The SQL should be your north star because it’s a shared metric with sales and can’t be fudged with marketing mumbo jumbo. CRO.
The health of your full funnel is the lifeblood of your business. The G2M leadership team -- Marketing and Sales -- should meet and take the pulse every single week. No sacred cows, just a common understanding of metrics and processes. Even with long sales cycles in enterprise businesses, the discipline of working together to understand the funnel each week helps identify gaps and bring teams closer together.
Your business model may be SaaS, but your customers determine whether it’s a subscription. They choose whether to renew or not. The renewal process starts the day they sign and marketing needs to support this.
Most CEOs don’t understand what marketing does. This leads to frustration on both sides. It’s the marketing leaders job to drive alignment and understanding. CEO
Build and maintain a ‘reverse waterfall’ with realistic assumptions about your lead generation, funnel conversion rates at every stage, ASP, and sales cycle length. There is no better tool to ground discussions around efficiency, effectiveness, and projections.
Aggregate funnel analysis is important, but to diagnose problems, cut by key dimensions such as territory and product line. This is where the real insights and actions can be surfaced.
In enterprise businesses, attribution battles are a waste of time. No one wins and it doesn’t help the business grow. Agree on your attribution rules and make sure the system measures it accurately, but don’t over-rotate. At best attribution gives directional guidance.
Control the controllables. A lot the things that impact your business are beyond your direct control -- it’s your job to understand the situation as best you can and then take action on the most important things that are within your control. No use worrying about things you can’t control.
The foundation of demand generation is marketing ops. To be efficient, marketing must be technology-leveraged and analytically driven. Your head of demand must be ops-focused. Hire a strong head of marketing ops early.