There’s no doubt that we are in an era of intensifying scrutiny on budgets and measurable outcomes, marketing leaders face a conundrum: the need to justify their expenditures in the short term while crafting a compelling vision for long-term impact.
The Gartner CMO Value Playbook provides a great blueprint for navigating this duality, emphasising marketing’s enduring contribution to enterprise value. However winning the trust of a diverse range of stakeholders in any organisation can be challenging. Marketing must transition from pure transactional metrics to demonstrating holistic impact. And its not that easy to achieve. In Gartners 2024 Marketing Analytics and Technology survey the results shine a light on the ongoing need for marketing to prove their value and receive credit for the business outcomes achieve. And quite often proving value isn’t enough – there still remains scepticism and traditional beliefs about what is marketing’s true value.
Its likely that you will have experienced marketing within your organisations, both big and smal at varying degrees, from a large team, to one person, outsourced agencies or something that sits withing the sales team. Marketing is the essential nourishment that businesses need to grow and be successful – fact.
Most CEO’s and MD’s believe marketing is essential (source: Gartner), but as this diagram shows, demonstrating holistic value is somewhat elusive.
Beyond ROI: reframing success
Traditionally, marketing’s success has been assessed through quantifiable metrics—return on investment (ROI), click-through rates, and sales conversions. While these indicators serve as vital signals of immediate effectiveness, they often fail to capture the broader value that marketing delivers. A myopic focus on short-term metrics risks overshadowing marketing’s role in building brand equity, nurturing customer loyalty, increasing brand visibility, enabling sales teams and fostering innovation.
Marketing leaders must better articulate the narrative that integrates operational performance with businesses strategic objectives. For example, marketing’s influence on customer lifetime value (CLV) or its ability to uncover new markets are indicators of its long-term contribution (moving beyond the short-term transactional deliverables mentioned earlier). To resonate with stakeholders, this framing must align marketing’s goals with the overarching business objectives—whether that’s entering new geographies, enhancing shareholder value, or supporting sustainability initiatives. This can often be achieved in larger organisation using the balanced scorecard approach originally devised by Havard. A diluted version can also work very well for smaller organisations too.
Stakeholder-centric value communication
Marketing’s value narrative must go beyond the confines of the C-suite to encompass all stakeholders: employees, customers, and investors.Each of these groups interacts with marketing in their own unique way and also derives distinct benefits from its efforts.By understanding and addressing these diverse needs, marketing can better communicate its contribution to organisational success.
For example:
- Employees gain alignment and motivation from a well-communicated brand purpose that informs organisational culture.
- Customers experience enriched relationships through personalised engagements and value-driven propositions.
- Investors are assured of long-term growth potential when marketing demonstrates its role in fostering innovation and market adaptability.
- Society benefits from marketing’s ability to champion sustainable practices and inclusivity, thus enhancing corporate reputation.
To achieve this inclusivity, CMOs must craft value stories that are both evidence-based and emotionally resonant. These stories should weave data-driven insights with compelling narratives that showcase marketing’s tangible and intangible contributions. By integrating narratives of social impact alongside commercial success, marketing enhances its credibility as a force for good and a critical enabler of enterprise value.
Leveraging the Balanced Scorecard framework
Tools such as the Balanced Scorecard framework. Originally developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the Balanced Scorecard provides a structured approach to aligning marketing initiatives with strategic business objectives. By integrating financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth perspectives, this framework enables marketing teams to demonstrate how their efforts contribute to both immediate and long-term organisational success. Using the Balanced Scorecard ensures that marketing’s contributions are quantifiable, balanced, and directly tied to enterprise goals.
Embracing a holistic Vision
For marketing to be perceived as a driver of enterprise value, it must redefine its narrative. This shift entails moving from a tactical lens to a strategic, enterprise-wide perspective. CMOs must position marketing not merely as a cost centre but as a growth engine that cultivates resilience and adaptability in an ever-evolving market landscape.
By focusing on its long-term, holistic impact, marketing can elevate its stature from an operational function to a strategic partner. Such a repositioning not only secures marketing’s place at the executive table but also ensures its contributions are acknowledged, valued, and invested in for years to come.
As stakeholders increasingly demand transparency and accountability, marketing’s ability to tell its own story becomes paramount. The question is not just what marketing delivers today, but how it seeds value for the future.
