Bad Marketing is the CEO's Fault
If you’re a CEO and your marketing is lackluster, it’s your fault.
I sell to and work directly with adtech CEOs, so this position might surprise you. Why would I blame CEOs for bad marketing? Why not blame it on the marketing team and position myself against them?
Because, if you’re a CEO, you know what I know (even as an agency owner): The buck stops with you. You or your team hired the marketing team. You or your team signed off on the marketing strategy. If it’s not performing, it’s your fault.
You might say, “This is obvious and applies to everything in a business.” Yes. But marketing is different — because, in my experience, B2B CEOs view marketing as the least important discipline. An afterthought, a cost center, something they vaguely feel like they have to do but don’t really want to spend real time or money on. “Branding” (they’ll say with bemusement). What does it really mean?
I own a P&L (albeit a small one), and marketing contributes massively to the success of my business. If, like some of my clients, you are the CEO of a billion-dollar public company, your business is no different.
Marketing is the discipline of building your reputation so that more people want to do business with you, they are willing to pay a higher price, and they stay longer when they become a customer because they’re deeply aligned with your strengths and philosophy before they sign the contract. Marketing has a direct and massive impact on sales, customer LTV, and profitability. It’s paramount to the success of your organization and your success as a CEO.
What, then, should you do differently as a CEO if you believe in the importance of marketing? You need to do three things:
Develop a distinct philosophy on how to do marketing, and hire people who align with that philosophy (or, ideally, will drive that philosophy and work with you to iterate on it until it turns into an effective strategy). If you’re hiring people who spout clichés like “It’s about the value of the product, not product features,” you need to look for someone with a more specific and contrarian take. Your marketing philosophy shouldn’t boil down to wisdom that someone could learn from hanging out on LinkedIn for a month. It also shouldn’t be so complex that it’s difficult to explain. It should, like your business’ positioning, be crisp but controversial. “Most people do it this way. That’s wrong for xyz reasons. This is how we do it and how it’ll position us to succeed.” Hence why my site says, “Throw out the 2005 adtech marketing playbook.”
Hire marketers who actually understand your business and your industry. If you want to hire the best, you do not want to hire a generalist. Sorry. I’m not saying generalists can’t be great. In fact, I’d rather have a superb generalist than an above average specialist. But what I’d really want if I were hiring a marketer for my adtech company is … a superb specialist. Someone who demonstrates extraordinary analytical skills and writing chops (as a great generalist might) but who also knows all the players in my industry, has ideas on how to differentiate my company on the first call, and can tell me what does and doesn’t work for businesses like mine. If you really want to hire the best, don’t settle for someone who has to learn your industry on the job.
Get involved personally and frequently as a CEO in building the reputation of your company (to achieve all the aforementioned benefits: more sales, higher LTV, greater profitability). I meet weekly with CEOs of public companies and venture-backed startups that are on their way to exiting for nine figures. These CEOs understand that great marketing isn’t an afterthought; it requires their personal involvement. This has never been truer than it is today. Because great marketing today isn’t just about deciding on a story and distributing it through marketing manager-level tactics. It’s about leveraging the CEO’s voice as a chief evangelist to speak directly to a company’s customers, partners, employees, and investors. That’s why Brian O’Kelley, Chris Vanderhook, Scott Howe, Jason Fairchild, Michael Rubenstein, Doug Huntington, Seth Hittman, and Matt Newcomb are posting on LinkedIn. If you want to leverage marketing to grow your business, you should be doing the same.
CEOs are extraordinarily successful and driven individuals. They know that the buck stops with them. Marketing is no different. Step up to the plate, adtech CEOs. Your team needs you to bat clean-up.
