There is a shift coming and happening in B2B marketing which will be driven by the CMOs and marketing leaders of the future. The ones who see marketing not as a tool for fulfilling marketing objectives but one that is crucial to the entire commercial success of the company.  These businesses will forget about meaningless metrics such as CPCs or CPMs or CPLs. They will look to the future by aligning themselves to the metrics that a CFO and CEO care about. Net operating profit. OPEX and CAPEX. Pricing and Discounting. Risk Protection. Shareholder value. Why? Because these are what matter to a company’s success. These are what drives a company into the future. As boring as it sounds or may be, this is the reality. 

In a sense, marketing needs to grow up. It needs to mature and become part of the strategic and business conversations happening in all aspects of the commercial org. Even more crucially, it needs to become part of the financial conversations.

Marketing experienced execs are hugely under represented at board level with only 2.6% having experience in marketing. Only 20% of board members surveyed recently said that they believed marketing is important to growth. This is a problem and a challenge. 

To address this, marketers need to begin learning the language of the CFO/CEO. Marketing not only contributes to all of the above financial points but it is vital to them. A strong brand protects against future discounting. A marketing team delivering consistent, high value and measurable pipeline to the sales org directly affects net operating profit. 

The benefits of this approach are not just crucial to the success of the overall business but they contribute to the health and longevity of the marketing team. If marketing positions itself as a net contributor to bottom line figures, the conversations around budget become a lot easier. Point to that positive ROI and the generated cash flow and there is really no reason the budget for next year shouldn’t be doubled.

We are lucky that we get to spend a lot of time with businesses on all points of the spectrum. Some businesses who have successfully made this leap and some who are far behind in their ambitions. 

Alignment is the key here and also the biggest operating challenge when trying to implement the above. InVizible works in organisations in a highly customised, client centric approach to identify, create and execute the necessary actions to bring about the desired alignment. Reach out for more information.