How to Drive Long-Term Growth as a CMO

CMO: While you're slashing top-of-funnel budget, we're building a creator army. Founder: But ROAS is life. CMO: ROAS is a mirage in the desert of sustainable growth. Founder: Can you explain? CMO: We've built a creator community delivering brand awareness at 1/10th the CPM of Meta ads. Founder: No way. CMO: Way. While others chase short-term metrics, we're playing the long game. Founder: But the board wants results now. CMO: Short-term thinking created this mess. We're retargeting the same pool until it's bone dry. Founder: So what's the alternative? CMO: 1,000 creators. Systematic distribution. Performance-based compensation. Founder: Sounds expensive. CMO: Every dollar spent is focused on driving immediate revenue AND long-term awareness. Founder: How's it different from influencer marketing? CMO: This isn't about one-off posts. It's a consistent TOF awareness machine. Founder: And the benefits? CMO: Millions of authentic impressions. Multiple touchpoints pre-purchase. Improved paid channel performance. Founder: Hold up. How does this help paid? CMO: Increased brand awareness makes every ad more effective. Founder: The CFO's gonna ask about ROI. CMO: We're building mental availability. That's the foundation of long-term revenue growth. Founder: But can we measure it? CMO: Absolutely. We track impressions, engagement, and most importantly, the lift in our baseline revenue. Founder: Baseline revenue? CMO: The revenue we'd get if we turned off all paid channels tomorrow. Founder: That's... scary to think about. CMO: Exactly. That's why we need this strategy. Founder: So while everyone else is fighting over the same audience... CMO: We're expanding the pie. Creating new customers instead of just converting existing ones. Founder: This feels like a paradigm shift. CMO: It is. We're not just chasing customers. We're creating fans. Founder: Alright, I'm intrigued. What's our first move? CMO: We identify our ideal creators, build the compensation structure, and start small. Founder: And then? CMO: We scale. Fast. While our competitors are still trying to squeeze juice from the ROAS fruit. Founder: Let's do it. CMO: Welcome to the TOF revival!

Why the Best CMOs Think Like CFOs Here’s the truth: the best CMOs don’t just market, they think like CFOs. That might sound counterintuitive, but if you want a seat at the table, you need to stop leading with campaign metrics and start speaking the language of business outcomes. CEOs and boards care about revenue, profitability, and market share not clicks or impressions. The most effective CMOs connect marketing metrics to financial outcomes, proving that marketing isn’t just a cost centre — it’s a growth engine. Here’s how to start thinking like a CFO: 1. Focus on ROI, Not Activity: Replace “we ran a great campaign” with “our campaign added $3M to the pipeline and reduced CAC by 10%.” It’s not about what marketing did but what it achieved. 2. Tie Metrics to Revenue: Metrics like engagement and lead generation matter internally, but you need to translate them externally into revenue impact. For example: “This lead generation effort contributed $2M in ARR with a 3:1 ROI.” 3. Prove the Financial Impact of Long-Term Investments: Marketing isn’t just about quick wins. Show how brand-building efforts improve CLTV, shorten payback periods, and increase pricing power over time. CEOs don’t just need to see what’s happening this quarter, they need to trust that marketing is driving sustainable growth. 4. Bridge the Gap Between Marketing and Business Strategy: Marketing doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Collaborate with product, sales, and finance to ensure marketing initiatives align with the company’s goals. Whether it’s launching a product, refining pricing, or improving retention, marketing should be the connective tissue that drives alignment. The best CMOs don’t just report on what marketing does, they show how marketing creates value. Thinking like a CFO isn’t about abandoning creativity or strategy, it’s about tying them to outcomes that matter most to the business. Finally. To connect marketing metrics to business outcomes, don’t just report numbers, translate them into a narrative that resonates. Instead of saying, “Our campaign generated 1 million impressions,” frame it as, “This campaign increased unaided awareness by 15%, positioning us ahead of Competitor X in market share for Segment A. This sets the stage to capture an additional $5M in TAM.” It’s about making every metric a stepping stone to the CEO’s growth, profitability, and market leadership priorities. The more you can bridge the gap between what marketing measures and what the business values, the more indispensable marketing, and you, become.

𝗖𝗠𝗢𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗖𝗙𝗢. Not by becoming finance leaders instead of marketers. But by becoming marketers who can connect the magic of brand and storytelling to the math of durable business performance. My top 5 for being a CMO your CFO will love: 𝟭. 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲. Attention alone is not the end game. Storytelling alone is not the win. The real job is showing how the work builds a stronger, more resilient business over time. Talk about how attention drives engagement, how engagement drives behavior, and how that behavior translates into stronger retention, repeat usage, greater customer value, and more durable revenue streams. Great marketing does not just create a moment. It creates momentum that compounds. 𝟮. 𝗙𝘂𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗔𝗖. Yes, include paid media. But do not stop there. Include the real cost of acquiring customers: team headcount, agency support, tools, production, and the full operating cost required to drive growth. 𝟯. 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗟𝗧𝗩 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗱. Understand the early predictive signals that tell you whether an acquired customer is likely to become a high-LTV customer. That helps you cut weak channels faster and double down on the ones that truly create enterprise value. And as ARPAM grows, your LTV view should keep evolving too. 𝟰. 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗱. In months, weeks, quarters, whatever your business model and balance sheet require. This is one of the clearest ways to prove marketing is not just driving growth, but doing it efficiently and profitably. 𝟱. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗮𝘁, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰. As you build credibility on unit economics, talk equally rigorously about brand strength. Great CFOs absolutely want to understand the value of brand, but you have to measure it at a higher bar. Aided awareness alone is not enough. Plenty of brands can generate recognition when prompted. The stronger signal is unaided awareness, top-of-mind awareness, and consideration: do customers think of you first, and are you truly on the shortlist when it matters? That is where brand becomes a durable moat. And it is even more powerful when you benchmark against the best brands outside your category, not just the nearest competitors inside it. The best CMOs know how to do both: Build brand and build business. Tell the story and prove the economics. Champion creativity and command credibility in the numbers. That is where real alignment happens. And honestly, that is where some of the best CEO-CFO-CMO partnerships get built. #MarketingLeadership #BrandStrategy #BusinessStrategy

After coaching and advising several CMOs all year, a few patterns keep showing up - no matter the company size, industry, or stage. 1️⃣ 2026 planning, 2023 budgets. Ambitions are high, resources aren’t. The best leaders are reworking orgs to leverage AI and operate with sharper focus and fewer layers. 2️⃣ Brand is quietly back. After years of performance obsession, the pendulum’s swinging. More investment in narrative, distinctiveness, community, and IRL experiences, less chasing short-term clicks (finally!). 3️⃣ Internal influence > external reach. The strongest CMOs don’t just move markets; they move companies. They invest in their first team and co-author initiatives across the org. 4️⃣ Clarity beats velocity. The leaders thriving right now know when to slow down, reset, and sharpen their “why.” Speed still matters, but not at the cost of direction. 5️⃣ Energy management is the new edge. The next wave of great marketing leadership isn’t about doing more; it’s about showing up clearer, steadier, and more intentional. These are some pretty big shifts, but I am here for it. If you're a CMO or Head of Marketing and feeling a lot of this as you head into 2026 and want some support, reach out - my DMs are open! #advisor #cmo #coaching

A quick clarification on the CMO role (especially for first-time founders and growing companies). A Chief Marketing Officer is an executive leadership role, not a delivery function. At the CMO level, the mandate is to own: • Go-to-market strategy • Positioning and market narrative • Demand architecture and pipeline quality • Revenue alignment with Sales and Finance • Budget allocation and priority sequencing • Cross-functional alignment across Product, Sales, and Finance For this reason, a CMO reports to the CEO. Not as a matter of hierarchy — but because marketing decisions directly affect revenue quality, capital efficiency, and long-term valuation. What the CMO role is not designed for: • Campaign execution • Content production • Tactical channel management Those functions require dedicated operators, and the CMO requires hiring/performance authority and budget ownership over them to be effective. When marketing leadership is placed under operations or staff functions, it often becomes activity-driven rather than outcome-driven. Over time, this shows up as inconsistent demand, misaligned incentives, and slower compounding. This isn’t about titles. It’s about governance. Growth scales best when marketing has clear executive ownership and accountability.

I recently redesigned the marketing operating model for a $350 Millon B2B software company — and it reminded me just how context-specific org design really is. One of the most strategic (and overlooked) decisions a CMO makes is how to design the marketing organization. It’s tempting to replicate what worked in your last company. But in B2B software, there’s no one-size-fits-all. What worked for a $20M PLG business may not suit a $100M enterprise SaaS platform. 1. Design for business outcomes, not headcount. Start with goals: new segments, enterprise expansion, category leadership. Org design should mirror business intent — not legacy structures. 2. Build capabilities before filling roles. Ask: Do we have strong demand gen, lifecycle, product marketing, content, partner marketing, ops, and analytics? Capabilities come first — roles come second. 3. Structure around your go-to-market motion. If your growth lever is partners, embed partner marketing early. If it’s PLG, prioritize lifecycle and in-product activation. For enterprise, double down on ABM, field marketing, and enablement. 4. Where should Product Marketing sit? There’s no single right answer: In product-led orgs, it makes sense to sit within product to shape narrative from the roadmap. In sales-led orgs, it’s more effective aligned to revenue to sharpen messaging and enablement- drive pipeline velocity. What matters more is the evolution toward GTM solution marketing — cross-functional teams that bridge product, sales, and marketing to tell customer-centric value stories. 5. Build for agility, not bureaucracy. Your org should flex across geos, customer types, and growth motions — without needing to reorganize every time strategy shifts. 6. Invest early in Marketing Ops, Data & Analytics. This is your engine room. From attribution modeling and lead routing to campaign performance, experimentation, and forecasting — high-performing orgs are built on strong ops and data infrastructure. Ops is not a support function. It's a strategic growth capability. 7. Culture, collaboration, and clarity are non-negotiables. No structure works without trust across sales, product, and marketing. Shared KPIs, aligned planning, and a performance mindset are critical. Bottom line: Design for outcomes. Build capabilities. Leverage data. Stay context-aware. Your next marketing org shouldn't look like your last one — it should reflect the business you're building. #B2BMarketing #MarketingLeadership #CMOInsights #MarketingOps #MarketingAnalytics #ProductMarketing #GTMStrategy #MarketingOrgDesign #SaaSGrowth #B2BSoftware #GrowthLeadership #ModernMarketing

Preparing for my first board meeting as Gusto's Head of Marketing was painful. I felt lost, scared and self-conscious. I wish I had a playbook for navigating the board. So I put one together. Here's my 3C framework—everything CMOs need to nail the board meeting: The biggest mistakes I made when I first started presenting to the board: - Going too high level or too tactical - Not connecting marketing actions to company impact - Not being able to go deep on the numbers - Not showing innovation and vision In a nutshell your goal is to position marketing as a strategic growth lever. This is hard. Most board members come from finance, product or sales. Meaning few actually understand marketing. The 3C framework—Communication, Content and Context—bridges the gap: COMMUNICATION 1. Speak English, not Marketing. Maintain simple, clear language. No jargon. Marketing is complex. You have to simplify to get through. Limit yourself to ~5 slides. 2. Be consistent & repetitive across meetings Restate your goals every time. Use the same slide format and dashboards. Constantly changing how you talk about marketing is a sign you don't have a handle on things. 3. Elicit their help Board members want to help. You don't need to have all the answers. Think in advance: where do you want their input? What can they help you with? CONTENT 1. Define clear objectives upfront I recommend 3 evergreen ones for CMOs: - Pipeline | To hit current revenue targets - Awareness | To hit next year's revenue targets - Conversion | To drive overall efficiency and faster growth 2. Set metrics/initiatives for each objective - Pipeline | [$XX] in marketing-sourced ARR with self-serve and outbound. - Awareness | Engaged TAM = 25% with content academy. - Conversion | Lower CAC to 12 mo by increasing website conversion 3. Have a highlights and lowlights slide This helps you get credit for your wins and get ahead of problems. Being honest about what's not working gives the board a chance to help. It also shows you're a straight shooter, which builds trust. 4. Know your numbers These are smart people who care about the numbers. Know your program levers. Be prepared to go 3-4 layers deeper. Why is conversion down by 25%? Why can't you grow inbound faster? CONTEXT 1. Meet board members quarterly This helps you get on the same page ahead of the meeting. Share your strategy and educate if needed. But most importantly, ask for feedback! e.g. what do you want to see in the board meeting? What can I do better? 2. Ask your CEO for input The CEO often has a better understanding of the board and what's important to them right now. Align on where you should focus in this meeting. _ The best part of nailing this playbook? It earns you the right to invest in longer term initiatives that are hard to measure. Ahem, brand. By showing that you know how to connect your work to revenue, the board will trust you to take bigger bets with a longer revenue payback.

Focus, priorities, and long-term direction. Urgency is persuasive. In growing businesses, urgency shows up everywhere: • Competitor activity • Quarterly targets • Stakeholder pressure • Market shifts • Internal expectations When everything feels urgent, leadership is tested. Not in grand vision statements. But in daily protection of focus. Experienced CMOs don’t chase every signal. They protect: • Strategic priorities • Organisational capacity • Long-term positioning • Decision coherence When urgency rises, weaker systems expand. Stronger systems are narrow. CMOs understand something critical: Every reactive decision compounds downstream effects. Adding a new initiative impacts: • Team bandwidth • Budget allocation • Internal coordination • Strategic clarity Without discipline, urgency erodes direction. What CMOs truly protect is alignment. They ask: Does this shift move us closer to defined objectives? Or is it relieving temporary pressure? This doesn’t mean ignoring opportunity. It means evaluating opportunity against structure. Strong leadership during urgency looks calm. It may appear slower. But that calm protects momentum. Because urgency-driven systems eventually exhaust themselves. CMOs protect what matters most: Consistency of direction. When priorities remain stable despite pressure, teams trust leadership. Trust reduces friction. Friction reduction accelerates execution. In chaotic environments, discipline is not rigidity. It is stewardship. CMOs are not there to increase activity. They are there to protect coherence. And coherence scales better than urgency ever will.

Growth isn’t just about numbers. It’s about accountability, culture, and connection that win and keep customers. Here’s how marketing can lead the way 👇 ~~~~~~~~ As marketers, we are running fast, generating tons of top-of-funnel volume… …but not looking closely enough at what happened after the sale. Churn was someone else’s problem. And that’s the trap so many growth orgs fall into. For years, marketing has been trained to chase volume, not value. We celebrate pipeline, MQLs, SQLs, and other vanity metrics that look great on dashboards but don’t always reflect real business health. When marketing stops at the funnel, we lose our strategic seat at the table. We become service providers to sales instead of stewards of long-term, sustainable growth. Marketing must meaningfully impact retention. It’s not just about net-new logos. It’s about net-positive relationships. Not how many customers you win, but how many you keep. Not filling the funnel, but fueling the flywheel. Because at the end of the day, revenue really is everyone’s job, but marketing can lead the way by making it personal, accountable, and authentic. When we reorient around Net ARR everything changes. ✅ Retention becomes a shared accountability across marketing, sales, success, and support. ✅ Culture becomes as important as strategy. ✅ Transparency stops being optional. So what does it look like when marketing supports retention? ➡️ Customer Champion Enablement — Help customers justify their choice. Give them proof points to advocate for your product internally. ➡️ Customer Advocacy — Celebrate customer success stories so they become your best ambassadors. ➡️ Voice of the Customer — Own the Customer Advisory Board and bring real feedback into product and brand decisions. ➡️ Retention Campaigns — Create lifecycle campaigns for existing customers: adoption nudges, milestone celebrations, education series. Each of these strengthens connection and loyalty, the true drivers of long-term growth. How is your marketing team helping drive retention? Let’s brainstorm together!

The real challenge for CMOs right now? Navigating the tightrope between short-term performance and long-term brand building - especially in a world where AI is accelerating everything and anxiety is mega high. In the best of times, finding this balance takes discipline, alignment, and a hell of a lot of patience. But in a downturn, disruptive market, or massive market shift? It feels nearly impossible. Suddenly, the pressure piles on: more pipeline, more meetings, better conversions, now! Today. Yesterday, even. And look, I get it. I’ve been there. The sleepless nights. The meetings with finance where every dollar of spend feels like it’s under a microscope. The board decks that scream “impact this quarter.” It’s real. But I’ve also seen what happens when you panic: You lose the narrative. You burn out your team. You sacrifice brand for clicks. And worse, you end up further from your goals, not closer. The truth? In this AI-fueled era, where velocity is up and trust is down, the companies that endure are the ones who build with intention. Who create experiences, not just impressions. Who invest in the brand as a moat, not just a moment. Here’s what I’ve learned over 20+ years (and a few marathons worth of marketing war stories): ✅ Alignment is everything. Sit down with your CEO, CFO, CRO, not once, but regularly. Misalignment breeds misfires. Shared context builds confidence. ✅ Build a dual-track plan. Yes, show how you’ll drive impact now. But also protect space for long-term bets including brand, community, advocacy, innovation. These are the assets that compound over time. ✅ Lead with calm. Especially now. Your team takes its emotional cues from you. If you’re freaking out, they will too. Set the pace. Create clarity. Breathe. I call this leading in the gray, that zone where outcomes aren’t guaranteed, the pressure is high, and the stakes are real. But it’s also where the best leaders, and the best brands, are forged. And if this is your first major storm? Don’t worry. There’ll be more. Just don’t let this one shake you off your foundation. You’ve got this. We’ve got this. #CMO #Brand #Marketing