How to Transform Marketing Into a Revenue Driver

🔖 Three companies: Gong, ClickUp, and Ahrefs — proved that content drives revenue. They shared their playbook, everyone copied (to the T!) and failed 👀. Why? Well… because they copied the content formats, but not the strategy that made them work. They spent months crafting blog posts, whitepapers, and reports—measuring success by traffic, engagement, and downloads. ❌ Only problem is: Pipeline isn’t built on downloads. And in all my years in B2B, I’ve never met a CMO who cared if a blog ranks #1 on Google—if it doesn’t move prospects through the sales funnel. Here’s what they failed to copy though: 🎯 Gong doesn’t create content just to rank—it builds data-backed insights that sales reps actively use in conversations. 🎯 ClickUp doesn’t just push out blogs—it structures content around decision-making moments, making it easier for prospects to self-educate and convert. 🎯 Ahrefs extends their content to teaching on YouTube—not just selling —which has positioned them as experts. The difference here is— their content isn’t just a lead magnet—it’s a sales tool. And that’s where most teams go wrong. Most companies assume that shifting content to drive revenue requires an entirely new strategy. It doesn’t. The easiest way to fix this disconnect is by looking at the content you already have and making it sales-driven instead of SEO-driven. 💡Start with your case studies and write them like sales enablement assets. In this case: ➡️ What problem was the customer struggling with? ➡️ What was stopping them from switching sooner? ➡️ What measurable change did they see, and how did it impact decision-making? This way, when a prospect asks, “Why should I choose you over Competitor X?”, the sales team has a direct, proof-backed story to send them. To be practical, say you’re marketing a customer support platform like Kustomer or Zendesk. A VP of Customer Success is considering a switch but is hesitant: 🫥 “We’re not sure if migrating will be worth the effort.” Instead of another feature comparison blog, create content that removes this exact hesitation. ➡️ Publish a case study titled “How [Company X] Switched From [Competitor] to Us in 30 Days Without Disrupting Support.” ➡️ Create a playbook that outlines the exact migration steps, reducing perceived risk. ➡️ Have a 1-minute video clip where a real customer says: “We thought migration would be painful, but it was seamless.” Now, when your sales team hears "I'm worried about migration", they don’t just say, “It’s easy, trust us.” 😪🫤 They send the case study, the playbook, and the customer testimonial—backed by real examples. This is how content moves from “something nice to have” to a direct revenue driver. 🗣️ It’s not rocket science (for real) — all you have to do is simply create content that fits directly into your sales cycle (and not keywords).

Your sales team is sprinting. Your marketing team is in a planning cycle. And customer success is in post-sale chaos mode. And somehow, you’re supposed to align all three with “Monday meetings”? GTM doesn’t fail because of bad execution. It fails because no one’s marching to the same beat. Here’s what most orgs get wrong: They treat sales, marketing, and CS like adjacent departments When they actually function like dependent systems. If your sales team learns something in the field and it doesn’t make it into your campaign logic, Your marketing is out of touch. If your CS team sees churn red flags, But your sales team keeps closing misfit accounts. Your pipeline is broken from the inside. You can’t “align” that with a slide deck. Here’s a tactical breakdown of what actually works: 1. Unify Goals > Mirror Metrics If your teams don’t share KPIs, they’ll compete instead of collaborate. - Marketing: MQL to Opportunity Ratio - Sales: Opportunity to Closed-Won - CS: Expansion/Churn tied back to original acquisition source Build a shared scorecard that forces accountability across the funnel. 2. Centralize GTM Ops Ownership Someone needs to be accountable for the operating rhythm itself. That’s where Marketing Ops and RevOps step in. Own the cadence Track system health Identify feedback loops Flag GTM friction before it hits revenue 3. Run GTM Like a Product Create a backlog of GTM experiments → Funnel friction → Content gaps → Win/loss insights → Tool bloat or confusion Sprint. Measure. Ship. Repeat. No one gets to "opt out" of the rhythm just because they're customer-facing or campaign-led. Stop aligning through meetings and start aligning through systems. The rhythm is the strategy. If you can't hear it— You're not really in market. #GTMStrategy #MarketingOps #RevOps #Leadership #CustomerExperience #OperationalExcellence

Had a conversation recently with an executive interest in moving from a lead-centric revenue model to an account-based approach. They saw the value but weren’t sure how to make the transition work in practice. I walked them through what actually needs to change: 1. Aligned KPIs The biggest gap in most transitions? The revenue team is still measured on lead volume. - Pipeline and conversion at the account level need to be the focus. - Speed matters, but velocity—how efficiently high-fit accounts move through the funnel—is what actually drives revenue. - Different targets causes friction (more on whether this is intentional is another story...) Without this alignment, marketing, sales, and SDR teams will pull in different directions. 2. Lead-to-Account Matching This surprises a lot of teams. They assume because they’re targeting accounts, their systems are tracking them correctly. But in reality: - Leads still enter as standalone records with no connection to an account. - SDRs work contacts without full context on account-level activity. - Sales misses out on early-stage engagement from the right accounts. Fixing this is table stakes. Without clean lead-to-account matching, the entire system falls apart. 3. Account Scoring & Buying Group Visibility Lead scoring isn’t enough in an account-based motion. The real question is: how engaged is the buying group? - Are multiple stakeholders active, or is it just one person? - Is the account signaling actual buying intent or just casual interest? - Are the right personas engaging? Account scoring should reflect engagement from the full buying team, not just isolated actions. 4. Clean Account Assignments, SLAs & Ownership This is where teams get stuck. In a lead-centric model, ownership is clear—SDRs work leads, AEs work opportunities. In an account-based model, it’s more nuanced: - Who owns an account when a new lead comes in? - What if it's an existing customer who could buy more (or buy something else)? - How do SDRs prioritize outreach when multiple personas engage? - What happens when marketing engagement overlaps with sales activity? And most importantly—what are SLAs to ensure high-intent accounts actually get worked (and, let's be honest - what qualifies as "worked)? If you don’t define this upfront, leads and accounts sit in limbo and pipeline suffers. 5. Account Planning & Cross-Functional Execution An account-based approach only works if everyone is operating from the same playbook. That means: - Marketing, SDRs, sales, and customer success align on which accounts matter most now and in the long term. - There’s a shared plan for prioritization, outreach, engagement, and activation. - Everyone has the same north star on focus and impact measurement (those pesky KPIs). When teams aren’t aligned, accounts fall through the cracks. Not all that great for an account-focused go-to-market model. TL;DR – I probably should’ve just said “Talk to Terry Flaherty at Forrester.” 😅

Every great CMO knows their success hinges on one thing: whether sales views them as indispensable. We surveyed 500 sales and marketing leaders to discover the true unlock for collaboration. Here are 3 key insights: 1️⃣ 📈 Alignment = revenue I expected to see slightly better business results from companies where sales and marketing work well together. But I didn’t expect the extent of it: -> Data: Aligned sales and marketing teams are 2.3X more likely to significantly exceed their revenue numbers. Misaligned teams are 2x more likely to miss their targets all together. -> Action: You now have a business case for alignment. Make it a 2025 OKR for you and your sales counterpart. 2️⃣ 🎯 Shared goals is NOT the issue For years I've heard that sales/marketing friction is caused by "misaligned goals." Our survey debunks this oversimplification and sheds light on the root cause. -> Data: Despite 70% of teams reporting high-level goal alignment, 81% fantasize about replacing their counterparts. Turns out most companies have figured out how to align the high level goals for sales and marketing. The culprit is the execution layer —the systems and processes that facilitate day-to-day execution and collaboration, such as: - Not working off the same data set and customer knowledge - Bad lead handoffs—sales complains about lead quality, marketing complains about lead follow-up - No unified approach to target accounts -> Action: After setting shared OKRs (revenue, pipeline), sit down with your sales and marketing leadership team to design an operating cadence for recurring events like releasing sales enablement, lead qualification and handoff, big campaign launches, ABM. 3️⃣ 🐳 Start by nailing target accounts One of sales' biggest issues in the survey was not getting enough support from marketing on target accounts. IMO this is the lowest hanging fruit for CMOs to fix and become indispensable to sales. Your board will also love seeing your clear plan for winning bigger customers. -> Data: While 82% of sellers view enterprise accounts as a top priority, only 15% rate marketing as highly effective at generating target account opportunities. -> Action: Make this a 2025 OKR: enterprise pipeline goal and 10 enterprise AEs/BDRs viewing marketing as indispensable. Once you agree on target accounts, work with AEs to research accounts and personalize the buying experience. If you want credibility with sales, use fewer actual win stories where marketing action preceded opportunity creation; avoid blackbox funnels that claim attribution for every win. Of course, Mutiny can help you do this in a scalable way with AI. 😉 *** Thanks to those who engaged in this topic already. Details in comments and a link to the report. Leave a comment with “enterprise VP retreat” if you're a marketing VP that wants to join our exclusive enterprise VP retreat focused on sales collaboration and breaking into target accounts. I'll DM you if your company qualifies.