When I transitioned from engineering to leading global marketing for a B2B software company in 2001, I carried with me a perspective that many in traditional marketing roles didn’t share. My engineering background shaped the way I approached problems—with an emphasis on optimization, repeatability, and measurable outcomes. These principles became the foundation of my philosophy for managing marketing investments, and over the years, I’ve refined this approach into what is now recognized as a RevOps discipline.
Marketing as an Optimization Equation
As an engineer, I was trained to think in terms of systems and equations. When I stepped into a marketing leadership role, I asked myself: How can we use every dollar of marketing investment to produce the largest number of revenue dollars?
This wasn’t about cutting corners; it was about understanding the inputs and outputs of the marketing engine. Marketing dollars are often viewed as a cost center, but when approached strategically, they can drive exponential growth. My focus became building a marketing function that was not just creative but also accountable—a function that could model and optimize every aspect of its activities.
The Art and Science of Marketing
Marketing is both an art and a science. While creativity fuels differentiation, it’s the science—data, metrics, and repeatable processes—that ensures scalability and predictability. I’ve taken this optimization mindset into dozens of B2B software companies, where I’ve helped accelerate growth while simultaneously improving marketing’s contribution to bookings and ROI.
What I’ve found is that most companies don’t run their marketing function this way. Instead, they rely on intuition, historical budgets, or benchmarks that may not apply to their unique situation. This lack of strategic rigor often leads to inefficiencies, wasted dollars, and slower growth.
The Shift to RevOps
What I used to call “Revenue Engineering” is now widely known as Revenue Operations (RevOps). RevOps is about aligning sales, marketing, and customer success to optimize revenue growth. For marketing, this means understanding and influencing the entire revenue funnel—from acquiring new customers to expanding and retaining existing ones.
The traditional view of marketing often stops at generating leads, but that’s only the beginning. The real value comes from examining the full-funnel impact of marketing activities. When companies adopt a RevOps mindset, they focus on metrics that matter: marketing-sourced revenue, conversion rates at every stage, customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV), and marketing ROI. These metrics provide clarity, enabling executives to make informed decisions about where to invest their resources.
Why This Approach Matters
There’s an old adage: “I know that half of my marketing budget is working; I just don’t know which half.” This sentiment reflects a lack of visibility and accountability that no longer needs to exist in today’s data-rich environment.
With the right architecture and metrics in place, B2B companies can:
- Maximize Growth Efficiency: Grow faster and more economically by leveraging marketing investments rather than solely expanding sales teams.
- Align Teams for Revenue Impact: Break down silos between sales and marketing to ensure both are working toward shared goals.
- Measure What Matters: Focus on the entire customer lifecycle, from new logo acquisition to customer expansion and renewals.
Building a Revenue Engine
The ultimate goal of B2B marketing is to grow the business faster and more profitably. But this requires a strategic approach—one that treats marketing as an integral part of the revenue engine rather than a separate function. By adopting RevOps principles, executives can:
- Ensure that every marketing dollar is driving measurable impact.
- Build a repeatable and scalable system for revenue generation.
- Make data-driven decisions that balance growth with profitability.
A Call to Action for Executives
If you’re a B2B executive, I challenge you to ask these questions about your marketing function:
- Are we strategically investing in marketing to accelerate growth and improve margins?
- Do we have visibility into how marketing activities impact the full revenue funnel?
- Are we using data to optimize our marketing spend and align it with sales and customer success goals?
In today’s competitive landscape, businesses can’t afford to manage marketing by gut instinct or outdated practices. It’s time to embrace the discipline of RevOps and turn marketing into a powerful driver of growth and efficiency.
This approach to B2B marketing isn’t just theoretical for me—it’s how I’ve driven results for decades. The companies that succeed in today’s market are those that treat marketing as a strategic asset, leveraging it to not only meet but exceed their revenue goals. Let’s move beyond guesswork and make marketing the growth engine it was always meant to be.
We’d love to chat with you about where you are on your journey. Schedule some time with us! Schedule a complimentary consultation.
