Hey, Toni from Growblocks here! Welcome to another Revenue Letter!
This weekly email is my way to share knowledge and build a community of people who love to learn more about growing revenue in a data-driven and scientific way.
Anything in particular you want to hear my thoughts on? Drop me an email, and I might use it in my next article.
For all you CROs reading this, I want you to put yourself into the shoes of your CMO.
With the push to curb spend and increase ROI, they are under immense pressure to act.
To keep it simple, that’s usually a ¼ split between Paid, Martech, salaries and agencies.
And what they’re really asking themselves is, what can we cut without killing our marketing engine?
It’s no wonder so many CMOs I speak to are salivating at the idea of generative AI in lieu of headcount. But for now, this seems very much like a daydream.
The way I see it, CMOs (and marketing in general) are stuck in a trap here.
All of these expenses and initiatives are always viewed from the lens of cost management.
“We need to cut X while still putting up Y opportunities a month.”
But how do you get to the outcome here?
Just saying “we will get 100 more MQLs” won't get you the budget you asked for.
You need to show $$$.
Present everything in terms of revenue
For most organizations, this means a lot of work to get here.
This means a deep dive into the data, understanding not just the cost of each marketing action, but its revenue impact too.
And closely tracking the customer journey and recognizing which marketing touchpoints influence conversions.
For example, let’s take a look at your opportunity creation.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s say your team produces 100 MQLs a month.
It’s not enough just to say Sales convert 30% so you’ll end up with 30 customers.
Because we all know that no opportunity is the same.
Getting granular with the data, you can see that 50 come from demo requests, 30 come from trials, and 20 come from webinars.
Then you might need to break them down into different regions. Because DACH buys differently than the US.
But the big problem then is: When.
Each of those streams go at different speeds.
If you estimate the timeline wrong, your work might get canceled before it even has the chance to prove itself.
Making the budget ask
The bad news is that budget constraints will always be a reality.
Growth at all costs is dead and buried.
But with a data-driven approach like this, marketing can become more than a cost center.
By framing every action in terms of revenue impact, you show its role as a growth engine.
You’ll have a better chance to argue for a better budget.
And at the very least, maybe improve your CMO’s tenure.
P.S. If constantly calculating revenue impact sounds complicated, it’s because it kinda is. But the good news is that we’ve built a tool to do that for you at Growblocks. Check it out and let me know your thoughts, or book a spot in our next live demo.