“Logo guidelines and messaging documents take priority over commercial outcomes for the first stages of any CMO’s contract.”

Yeah! That was a trainer who is there helping CMOs grow their business. And what she told me on a webinar this week… well, she didn’t actually just direct it to me, but to the whole webinar audience. She went on to say that “marketing exists to look good and to be attractive to the audience. Sales generate the money, and the success for marketing should be talked about in terms of sentiment and perception.”

Wow. What planet is she operating from? I thought every piece of marketing has a commercial purpose. The brand still matters, but it works for the business rather than existing as a separate project. If an activity doesn’t connect to growth, it should be questioned.

Every piece of marketing content should connect directly to a commercial outcome.

* Your content on social media should get people to raise their hand in interest.

* Your emails should start the conversations.

* And your website should convert visitors ready to buy into buyers.

If you add in a human contact or connection wherever possible, that’s when your marketing wins. All of your marketing should be working together for purpose, in my opinion.

When this shift happens, you stop measuring how many people saw your content, how many people liked it, how many subscribers you’ve got, and you start measuring it on how many people acted on it. Your brand will become the reason prospects chose you over competitors, not because of the clever tagline, but because every touchpoint demonstrated real expertise and value.

The businesses I work with that make this shift typically see their cost per lead drop significantly within the first 90 days, not because they spend less on marketing, but because every dollar starts with a proper job. That’s the job of the CMO, in my opinion: to keep all of this in check.

As a fractional CMO, I’m working with business owners who have probably reached the million revenue threshold and are looking to scale to their next 5 or 10 million in their business. We focus on the work that connects marketing activity to revenue. We put away the crayons until we need to. We assess the brand, make sure there’s full alignment across values, across the value proposition, and the transformation message that needs to get out there.

But fundamentally, taking a contract with a client, my first job is not “let’s redesign the website, let’s have a new logo, let’s get all pink and fluffy, let’s look at value lists.” All of that matters. But when somebody approaches me to help them from a fractional CMO perspective, 9 times out of 10, the first job is to connect the marketing activity to revenue and ultimately to profit.

I want to get the CFO onside as an ally in that business, because I will want more money plowed into the marketing budget. If I can demonstrate that marketing is actually generating the revenue it needs to, and that it’s producing a positive ROI, then I’m going to get more money to put into marketing and grow that business.

It’s not just about making things look good and sound good. That’s the job of the brand, and it should be part of the mix. But it’s not, like this trainer said, the thing to focus on in the first stages of any CMO’s contract.

If you want to talk to me, if you want to get in touch about how I can help you as a fractional CMO or interim marketing director, then head over to www.anthodges.com or email me directly at cmo@anthodges.com.

Subscribe to the podcast wherever you’re listening to it, and please share this with your marketing department or anybody else asking these key questions. Let’s get revenue connecting to our marketing activity more than the pink and fluffy stuff.