Yes, you read that headline
correctly. Thrill your CEO. In order
to meet that expectation, you will first have to understand what kinds of
things get your C-Suite excited. Those are called executive strategic drivers.
Some examples of those drivers are Growth Strategy, Competitive Pressures,
Regulatory Changes, Risk Management, Shareholder Value, Profitability and
Technological Market Disruptions.
Let’s look at what was not
in that list of strategic drivers. Unaided Brand Awareness, Total Impressions, Number
of Leads, Funnel Metrics… that tactical list of things you are probably
reporting on right now. I am not at all saying your current reports are not
important. In fact, they are critical to building and maintaining a revenue
pipeline. They just don’t address strategic challenges from an executive
perspective. And you can change that!
Putting Some Perspective on
Reporting
If we simply change perspective from Demand Gen Success to
Organizational Success, it is very straightforward to realign your reporting.
We’ve already established that tying your Demand Gen metrics to revenue is
critical to determining success. That never goes away. You are in a business
and that business has a key objective (if not the key objective) of generating
revenue, which provides livelihoods for employees and products and services for
customers. Your executives are charged with not only keeping, but building that
revenue stream and the profits it generates. Your owners (or shareholders) want
to see a positive return on their investment and your company is but one of a
myriad of investment options. How does Demand Gen contribute to success from
that perspective? Let’s just look at Demand Gen performance from the
perspective of three of the executive drivers:
- Growth Strategy
- Profitability
- Risk Management
Growth Strategy
First, let’s look at the strategy options for growth, which fall
into three broad categories: organic growth, partnerships and acquisition.
Demand Gen falls into the organic growth category, which means growing the
organization by driving increased revenue. This is pretty straightforward, as
demand gen is the primary driver of revenue growth. We don’t need to spend a
lot of time expounding on the advantages of revenue growth, but we’ll come back
to this issue.
Your reporting should reflect both retrospective performance and
predictive future performance (for internal consumption only, of course). Your
executives want to know how well you performed, but also what to expect in the
future. The entire purpose of building a demand gen machine (we’ve often called
it a “Marketing Factory”) is to drive efficient, predictable and scalable
revenue generation. That includes growth. And growth thrills your CEO.
Profitability
Part of the equation for effective demand generation is how
efficiently you can do it. Looking at this graph, we want the best possible
combination of demand and the cost required to obtain those results, creating
an Effective and Efficient demand
gen machine.
As the graph indicates, you can spend more to generate more leads,
or you can spend less and generate fewer leads, but neither is an ideal state. You
are seeking the best combination of generating demand and reducing the cost of
acquiring leads, thereby reducing overall customer acquisition costs.
Creating reports that show your trend over time – and the
resultant reduction in cost for acquiring more leads for less cost per lead
indicates increased profits. Profit thrills your CEO.
Risk
Management
Since we’ve pared down our set of executive drivers, let’s now
look at the associated risks. At the highest level, your CEO must balance the
risks associated with growth: grow too fast and it is difficult to maintain the
organizational infrastructure required to manage the additional business. How
will manufacturing produce enough product to satisfy demand? How will the
additional burden on staff affect customer satisfaction? Can our supply chain
keep up with demand? Can we deliver the additional product through our
distribution channels?
On the other hand, if growth is too slow the organization may be
too big to maintain its margins and keep up with competition. Will we need to
downsize the organization to keep costs in line with revenue? How will the
market react to slow growth and potential layoffs? What will we need to do to
correct the revenue outlook?
From the profitability standpoint, many of these same questions
apply, with some additional flavor. Where can we cut costs with the least
impact on product quality and delivery? Where can we consolidate functions or
increase efficiencies? Where can we benefit from economies of scale?
To manage risk in each of these categories, your CEO really needs
to see the roadmap because changing course before something bad happens is
always preferable to changing course afterwards. Fortunately, you are on a
course to build a predictable and scalable Demand Gen machine that will help
your CEO chart the correct course. By providing your executives with a
predictable course, you are helping them avoid risks associated with proceeding
blindly on a course into the future. Your predictability reduces risk. Reduced
risk thrills your CEO.
Change the conversation.
Your reporting needs to combine retrospective performance with a
predictable performance forecast. Looking backwards and projecting forward
provides your executives with the information needed to make smart course
corrections. Your CEO wants to ramp production, supply chain and distribution that
same 15% you have predicted an increase in demand. With that understanding,
your reporting becomes a critical information source for business decisions
with weighty consequences. Reporting with that perspective makes your Demand
Gen team an extremely important part of your organizational success. And you
CEO will be thrilled!
Notes:
Align your reports with executive
strategic drivers.
Don’t just look backwards, look
forward.
Be Predictable.
Thank You!
I want to
thank the thousands of demand gen professionals who have spent the past 40
weeks on this journey with me. I am often surprised at what Google tells me about
the number of readers of this humble blog post. We’ve traveled together down a
long road to learn about building, organizing and managing our Demand Gen teams
and I hope you’ve learned something that will make you a better marketer.
What’s next?
I’m going to
take some time off from posting through the holiday season and the remainder of
the year to regroup and refuel. I will be taking the fundamental ideas from
this post and organize and compile them into an e-book that I will publish
early next year. I hope you will be as excited to read it as I am to publish it.
I’ll also be looking for new and exciting topics to cover in next year’s blog
posts. In the meantime, I wish you much success and ever-increasing demand!
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