Marketing isn't broken. Our perception of it is.
?? Chris Rushe
VP Marketing at Future PLC | Building High-Impact Brands, Scaling Subscriptions & Delivering Customer-Led Growth | Advisor & Mentor | Ex. Natures Menu, Kry Livi, Disney, Tandem
What if the "growth vs. marketing" debate is entirely missing the point?
At a recent CMO event, the room overwhelmingly chose "marketing" over "growth." But here's what's fascinating—we're treating them as separate entities, as if marketing has somehow lost its way.
Think about it.
When did marketing become just another word for customer acquisition? When did we decide that chasing metrics was more important than solving real customer problems?
Here's what we've overlooked:
Marketing isn't your growth team. It's your commercial compass.
While we've been obsessing over funnel optimisation, we've forgotten something crucial: marketing's power was never about just filling the top of the funnel. It was about understanding customers so deeply that products sell themselves.
Consider this:
The most successful brands aren't just growing—they're reshaping entire categories. And they're doing it by letting customer insights drive every decision, not just marketing ones.
Marketing isn't meant to be your growth department. It's meant to be your customer's voice in every room where decisions are made.
Here's the real question: What could your organisation achieve if marketing stopped chasing metrics and started shaping your entire commercial strategy?
What would you do differently if you truly put customer understanding at the heart of every decision?
What's your take on marketing's role today?
CRO I VP of Sales I GTM Executive I Former CEO I B2B SaaS Martech Leader
4 个月I ?? per cent agree with you ?? Chris Rushe. Marketing are best placed to drive product market fit and customer experience in startups and scale-ups and that in turn drives sales efficiency / powers growth. ??
Innovating agile go-to-market | Anchored in marketing fundamentals | Supercharged Marketing Sprints = rigour + rapid execution | Fractional and interim CMO for B2B tech
4 个月I think we’re all in a process of sensemaking what in the world happened to marketing. It feels like the last number of years have been a slow motion car crash where marketing has been reduced and downgraded. Whereas the marketers I know are passionate and dedicated to building business. Seems strange to have to fight so hard to push in the same direction.
Helping Enterprise-to-Local brands maximise ROI from SEO, paid media & performance marketing.
4 个月??????
FCIM, Dip M, Fractional Brand, Marketing & CX Strategy | Certified AI Practitioner | Power, Petcare and Placemaking | Dog Lover & Mirror Ball Enthusiast ????
4 个月This. ???? And beware of those conflating BI with CI. As a customer led brand integrated convicted marketer - assuming brand built from a triangulation of CI, internal DNA and market opp or space) - I’m convicted to the powers of this approach as the commercial filter that determines the should from the could. And seen the commercial evidence. I’ve been around since growth was a commercial strategy to which marketing wholly aligned (not the only strategy of course) and for me it’s become misunderstood since the term growth hacker was coined by early digital only marketers. A curious dynamic prevails where digitally native businesses are now reverse engineering to what it used to be. It’s a beautiful renaissance.
Great comment from Latane at 6sense was it should be Chief Market Officer vs Marketing as we have the indepth knowledge about our customers and our market.