Beyond the numbers: A CMO’s perspective on Sales demands and real Growth Metrics

It’s an all-too-familiar scenario for any CMO: You’re halfway through your coffee when the sales team comes knocking, armed with spreadsheets and a bone to pick. “Your last campaign just didn’t cut it,” they argue, pointing to open rates that didn’t reach the stratosphere. It seems like, in their eyes, the success of any marketing initiative is distilled into how many opens and clicks it can generate as if that’s the magic wand for sales success.

But here’s where we need to flip the script.

As much as I appreciate the sales team’s relentless pursuit of goals, it’s high time we talk about the metrics that genuinely move the needle:

?? Meeting show rates: An RSVP is useless if the chair stays empty.

?? Deal close rates: This is where the rubber meets the road.

?? Retention and LTV (Life Time Value) from those deals: Because what’s the value of a win if it’s fleeting?

?? Percentage of burned leads in your TAM (Total Addressable Market): A reminder that there’s a finite sea to fish in.

These are the metrics that matter.

Not open rates, not connect rates, and certainly not just meetings booked. We’re no longer in the Wild West of growth at any cost; we’re in the era of intelligent, sustainable expansion.

Let’s face it, emails are sometimes “opened” by accident or by overly eager filters, and that local area code trick on calls? It might get them to pick up, but it won’t build trust. Plus, the spectacle of meetings booked that go nowhere is a tale as old as time.

The narrative often peddled by “proven strategies” is half-baked at best. They showcase glittering fronts without the substance of real, hard-won results. So, to my peers feeling the heat from sales to meet nebulous goals based on superficial metrics, stand your ground. ??

Dive deep into the data that speaks to true growth and sustainability.

Encourage critical analysis and foster an environment where sales and marketing aren’t just aligned but are deeply integrated, sharing insights, challenges, and triumphs.

Learn from the sea of strategies out there, but anchor your actions in the context of your market, your ideal customer profile (ICP), and the tangible goals that spell real success. Use the ?shared wisdom? as a springboard, not a straitjacket.

From this CMO’s desk, the call to arms is clear: It’s time we graduate from the kindergarten of vanity metrics and step into the major league of metrics that truly matter. Let’s shift the conversation from blame to collaboration, focusing on strategies that deliver not just growth, but growth that’s both sustainable and meaningful.

Together, we can transcend the usual squabbles and truly drive our companies forward.

A real-life example from the trenches

Upon joining a startup devoid of any strategic marketing head, one of the co-founders simply said to me, “Let’s just resume the Meta campaigns as they were because we were getting dozens of leads per day.” Following orders, I rebooted the campaigns which, indeed, continued to deliver multiple leads daily. However, after letting a month pass, I checked in with the Sales team: “How are you doing with these leads? Have any contracts been signed?” Out of 100 leads generated by Meta: 0 contracts. We were essentially burning money for… nothing.

That was a wake-up call. I took the initiative to redefine our Meta strategy, honing in on more qualitative targeting, revamping campaigns visually and textually to focus on pain points shared by Sales from their experiences, segmenting our campaigns, and conducting A/B testing.

Yet again, it’s about teaming up closely with sales, which involves being willing to tweak our strategies, hear out and welcome feedback that challenges our first thoughts, reflect on our approaches, and so on.

Today, we’re generating 15 leads per week, with 55% advancing to a meeting and receiving a commercial offer, and 12% culminating in signed contracts.

The Crux of Marketing and Sales Alignment

This journey underscores a critical truth: the indispensable need for Marketing and Sales to work hand in hand.

It’s not just about collaboration; it’s about aligning the data we measure to truly gauge the impact of our efforts. Vanity metrics might look good on a report, but they don’t pay the bills. Real success comes from deep integration, where both departments share insights, challenges, and victories, and focus on metrics that reflect true growth and sustainability.

So, we teamed up to overhaul our strategy, set up new KPIs, and now we go through ALL the leads every week to see if our new approach is hitting the mark or not. We’ve put together a fresh sequence of touchpoints, packed with new content. Each message in this sequence is crafted by Marketing, then tweaked and given the green light by Sales (after all, it’s their names and last names on the line with every message sent!)

In conclusion, the synergy between Marketing and Sales isn’t just beneficial; it’s essential. By aligning on the metrics that matter and focusing on strategies that deliver sustainable growth, we can move beyond blame, transcend traditional departmental divides, and drive our companies forward in a meaningful way. This alignment is not just about working together; it’s about thinking, planning, and executing as a unified force, measuring our impact with precision and purpose to ensure that we’re not just busy, but genuinely productive and successful.