Chris Walker’s Post

How B2B companies measure the success of their Marketing by design creates misalignment. Here’s why:   1. Wrong Marketing Goals    Companies continue to score their Marketing team on “leads”, MQLs, MQAs, SQLs - all metrics that do not align with Sales outcomes or actual business results. The first step to fixing this is CHANGE THE GOAL.  When you change the goal from “leads” to HIRO PIPELINE (pipeline that Sales wins at > 25%) and REVENUE, immediately the mindset needs to change.    Because all the things Marketing does to hit their fluffy “lead” or MQL or SQL target, no longer get them to their goal.    The way companies measure the success of the Marketing and Sales by design creates misalignment. This is a problem at the executive level and that’s it - there’s nothing else to say - it's up to the C-Level to solve this once and for all.   2. Not respecting the difference between CREATING DEMAND and CAPTURING DEMAND   When you look at these two core parts of a revenue-generating system independently, what you’ll realize is that B2B companies build their entire strategy and attribution system around capturing demand.    Then, when you consider that Sales and SDRs are capture demand functions, companies will realize that > 95% of their commercial (marketing + sales) budget is spent on capturing demand.    Their entire revenue-generating strategy is grossly overweight to capturing demand simply because of how they measure success.    Smart companies are realizing they need to measure CAPTURING DEMAND and CREATING DEMAND separately.    3. No attribution strategy to effectively measure CREATING DEMAND   Companies try to innovate on new revenue-generating programs like a podcast, posting content on LinkedIn, evangelism/advocacy or engaging inside communities with their prospective customers, but all of these programs look like they’re failing because companies don’t measure them effectively.    They bring all their demand capture mindset, metrics and tactics into demand creation programs, which is why they never work.    The only way to solve this is to enhance your attribution system to also effectively measure demand creation. Smart companies are recognizing this *measurement gap* and building the appropriate infrastructure to measure demand creation to put their Marketing team in a position to succeed and deliver for the business.    ---   You get what you measure. Your entire revenue strategy gets built around how you measure success.    Change your mindset -> change your metrics -> get better results. #marketing #b2b #demand #sales p.s. this video is the most clearly I've ever explained this measurement gap and how B2B companies could easily solve it. More context in the comments.