To achieve success, marketing executives need expertise in every business department, not just marketing. And success is determined by how well Marketing drives revenue and company growth.

Don't miss a MarketingProfs podcast, subscribe to our free newsletter!

While serving as chief marketing officer at CallRail, Mary Pat Donnellon emphasized Marketing and Sales alignment. Her efforts increased revenue; and, ultimately, her commitment to driving revenue through Marketing brought about a title change for her.

I invited Mary Pat to Marketing Smarts to talk about how the role of the CMO has evolved and why your company needs a chief revenue officer to align Marketing and Sales.

I also wanted to discuss why smart businesses pay attention to their customers' post-purchase experience.

Here are just a few highlights from my conversation with Mary Pat.

"Chief Revenue Officer" is a new role, but marketing leadership has always required a focus on revenue (06:24) "I've always been of the marketing mindset that a successful marketer does drive revenue. So I've always had a revenue mindset in my leadership in marketing. It wasn't as huge of a stretch as you might think, because to be effective in driving revenue you have to think about how you're engaging with the marketing through typical marketing activities.

"But then you also have to be really aware of what happens to the interest that you're driving, and how is it converting, and how are we talking to people that are interested in our solution. And how do we actually get them to be comfortable and confident purchasing that solution and then using it and growing with it."

Whatever your job title, marketing executives should understand the buyer journey (08:37) "There are different ways to look at the data and your results. As a CMO, which is part of my job, I need to be cognizant of our brand presence and how CallRail is perceived and our reputation in the marketplace, and then all the activity of people who may be interested in our solution who have come into our funnel as marketing-qualified leads, etc.

"Some marketing organizations and some marketing leaders may see their job mainly around brand and 'top of the funnel' type metrics. I've always seen the job [as] going all the way down to closing the customer and then that growth of the customer after purchase. It behooves all marketers, whether they directly own sales or not, to care about that conversion from a qualified opportunity into a customer. That will make them more effective, drive more business for their company, and make Marketing more relevant."

To get your marketing team on board with sales-oriented goals, recruit a couple of early adopters who can prove that the new approach will work (15:12) "You have to, as with any organizational change you're trying to drive, find a couple of champions that can model what you're trying to do and prove out that success to make it really attractive to others. We tried this in a couple of areas where I happen to have people who are very results-oriented, data-driven naturally, to take the lead and model what this could look like. And when they got different results and were able to share why, it motivated the rest of the people to try it.

"The other piece that's critical to this is having good data. If you don't have one source of truth and everyone's got their own numbers, that gets really complicated. So making sure that there's a common source of truth and people are able to work together is really, really important."

To learn more, visit CallRail.com. You can also follow Mary Pat on Twitter at @mpdonnellon.

Mary Pat and I talked about much more, so be sure to listen to the entire show, which you can do above, or download the mp3 and listen at your convenience. Of course, you can also subscribe to the Marketing Smarts podcast in iTunes or via RSS and never miss an episode!

This episode brought to you by Ahrefs.

Ahrefs is an all-in-one SEO toolset to grow your search traffic, research your competitors and monitor your niche. It helps you learn why your competitors rank so high and what you need to do to outrank them. Start a 7-day trial for $7 at ahrefs.com. 

"Marketing Smarts" theme music composed by Juanito Pascual of Signature Tones.

...sign up for free to continue reading

Don't miss a MarketingProfs podcast, subscribe to our free newsletter!

Published on January 23, 2020