Communicating Your Marketing Impact

As marketing leaders, transparency isn’t optional - it’s essential. Regular reporting is how we build trust, keep momentum and prove value. Over the years, I’ve learned a few things that make all the difference:

1. Get ahead of the ask. Don’t wait until someone chases you for an update — especially if things aren’t going to plan. Proactively share progress at a consistent cadence (weekly, monthly, quarterly).

2. Lead with KPIs, not activity. At Adobe I learned this early: optics matter. If you want to be seen as a revenue marketer, start with the numbers. Activities are the “how,” but KPIs are the “impact.”

3. Put the “TA-DA!” first. Too many reports bury the results at the end of a long story. Flip it. Open with the key outcomes. Then show the context. It’s like a sales pitch: tell them what you’ll show, show it, then remind them what they saw.

4. Always start with an exec summary. At Microsoft, Adobe, VMware every 20-page QBR lived or died on its front page. Assume most leaders won’t read past the summary, so make it count.

And don’t just wait for big reviews. A short, weekly update makes a huge difference. I’ve used everything from quick “selfie'“ video snippets to a one-pager in email, Slack, or WhatsApp.

Here’s a framework I’ve found works:

𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆

  • 🎯 2–3 board-level targets + MTD progress

  • 🎯 Key highlights for the week

  • 💡Think about what the HIPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion) cares about

𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀

  • 🎯 2–3 next-level down targets + MTD progress

  • 💡 Think engaged web traffic and branded search.

𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝗰𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 & 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

  • 🎯 6–10 targets along the buyers journey + MTD progress

  • 💡 Think pipeline and closed revenue rather than MQLs and downloads.

𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘀

  • 🎯 Activity updates across awareness, acquisition, conversion, retention

  • 💡 This is where you can celebrate well attended events and campaigns going live.

It’s not rocket science, but it works. And it will hopefully make your job a lot easier.

The Seven Marketing Pitfalls To Be Wary of With Investors

When investors look at your business, they don’t just scan the numbers, they scrutinise your marketing. Why? Because marketing is where customer insight, storytelling and revenue growth collide.

A strong marketing strategy builds confidence. A weak one raises red flags that can sink your chances. Here are seven marketing pitfalls investors notice instantly - and how to avoid them.

1. POOR Market Understanding

If your marketing can’t clearly define the customer, investors assume you’re winging it. “We target everyone” isn’t a strategy.
✅ Fix it: Nail your ICP. Show you understand your buyers’ pain points, motivations and buying journey.

2. Unrealistic Growth Targets

Forecasts built on hope rather than evidence scream inexperience. Saying you’ll “10x pipeline in a quarter” without backing is a credibility killer.
✅ Fix it: Ground your projections in historical data, benchmarks and realistic conversion rates.

3. Weak Storytelling

If you can’t explain your value in simple, compelling terms, investors will worry customers won’t get it either. Jargon-heavy decks and feature-first messaging are big red flags.
✅ Fix it: Lead with the problem you solve. Make your brand story human, clear and memorable.

4. No Clear Go-To-Market Model

Saying you’ll just “do social media” or “go viral” isn’t a plan. Investors want to see the mechanics of demand creation and conversion.
✅ Fix it: Map out your funnel. Show how marketing drives leads, opportunities and revenue.

5. Overhyping Channels

Obsessing over TikTok, ABM tools or AI without linking back to outcomes makes marketing look like a shiny-object chase.
✅ Fix it: Connect every activity to pipeline, revenue and brand impact. Tools are tactics, not strategy.

6. Lack of Proof of Traction

No case studies, no testimonials, no signs of demand? Investors see that as empty marketing.
✅ Fix it: Showcase momentum - even small wins like beta waitlists, customer quotes or pilot results prove your engine works.

7. RanDOM Marketing Spend ASks

“We just need more marketing budget” without specifics is a giant red flag. Investors want to know where money goes and what it returns.
✅ Fix it: Be explicit. Detail how spend turns into leads, customers, and revenue. No amount of budget will fix a poor strategy.

Wrapping Up

Investors know great marketing isn’t about pretty slides or big promises - it’s about clarity, traction and execution. If your marketing story is vague, overhyped or disconnected from business outcomes, the red flags go up instantly.

Get specific, stay customer-focused and show how marketing fuels growth - and you’ll replace those red flags with investor green lights.

Everyone Thinks Everyone Else Is Doing AI Better. They’re Not.

Just wrapped up a few AI workshops. Not another set of "10 prompts to revolutionise your marketing" sessions. I shared my own experiences and learnings.

Every single team I talk to thinks they are behind. Its FOMO on an Artificial Industrial scale.

MDs worry their competitors have cracked the code. Content teams assume everyone else is pumping out AI-powered brilliance. Creatives fear they were the only ones struggling.

Truth is, we're all making it up as we go.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀:

𝗗𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵𝘀. The AI tools I demoed last month? Already outdated. What was the best in June isn’t the best in September. Win the race by being curious. And at a pace never seen before.

𝗣𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗚𝗣𝗧 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝘁. I see teams trying to master ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Copilot simultaneously. It's like learning four languages at once. Pick one. Get good. You don’t have the time to train all of them. They're all converging anyway.

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸. I've sat through several "AI mastery" courses. They're all cobbled together from what practitioners discovered last week. Don’t worry if you’re learning from blogs, posts, newsletters or Reddit. That’s how the best are doing it.

The teams that win aren't the ones with the perfect AI strategy. They're the ones willing to experiment, fail and share what they learned over coffee.

That's the secret. Not theory. Application.

Stop waiting for the definitive guide. Start experimenting. Share what breaks. Learn from each other.

Because while you're worrying everyone else has it figured out, they're worrying about you.

Who owns product pricing?

Had an interesting discussion with a SaaS CEO on who should own pricing. He leaned toward the product organisation with the belief pricing is a feature.

I argued that pricing isn’t a feature. It’s your strategy made visible.

I've watched pricing bounce between departments like a hot potato for 20+ years. Product says it's about features. We, Marketing, claim it's about positioning. Finance insists it's about margins. We're all wrong. And yet we're all right.

At Adobe, pricing lived with Product. Made sense - they understood the value stack. But they missed market dynamics.

At VMware, Finance owned it. Great for protecting margins. Terrible for competitive agility.

At a scale-up, Marketing ran pricing. We could move fast, test boldly. But sometimes forgot the unit economics.

That’s why in each company we learned: the best pricing doesn't live in any one department. It lives at the intersection. Pricing is a three-legged stool:

  • Product knows what it costs to build and deliver

  • Marketing understands what customers will pay

  • Finance ensures you don't go broke being clever

Kill any leg, the whole thing collapses.

The companies that win? They create pricing councils. Cross-functional teams that meet weekly. Equal voices. Shared accountability. Because here's the thing: Your pricing IS your strategy. It signals who you serve, what you value, where you're headed.

Slack didn't win on features. They won on pricing that made sense - pay for active users only. That wasn't a Product decision or a Finance mandate. That was strategic thinking.

So stop asking where pricing should sit. Start asking who's at the pricing table. Of course, the challenge for marketing right now is it’s not even being considered for a seat (a topic for another day!)

And no, pricing isn't a feature. It's the most honest expression of your company's confidence in its own value. Get it wrong, and no amount of great marketing or product innovation will save you.

GPT-5 Is a Stand-Up Comedian Now? Is This Really What We Want?

I asked GPT-5 what an SRE is. Simple question, right?

Instead of a straight answer, you get jokes about "obsessing over uptime, performance, and not getting paged at 3am."

Cute. But not helpful when you actually need to know what a Site Reliability Engineer does.

This isn't isolated. GPT-5 seems determined to be your witty friend rather than your reliable assistant. Every query comes with a side of snark, every definition wrapped in attempted humour.

Here’s another, factual request:

Remember when we just wanted AI to be accurate? Now it's trying to make us laugh.

I get it. OpenAI wants AI to feel more human. Less robotic. More engaging.

But when I'm researching for a client presentation or trying to understand a technical concept, I don't need a comedy routine. I need clarity.

The irony? We spent years teaching AI to stop hallucinating facts. Now we're teaching it to hallucinate personality.

Give me the AI that respects my time. That knows when to be straightforward. That understands professional context.

What do you think - is AI getting too clever (or funny) for its own good?



From 120-person scale-up to $4bn division: The marketing shifts that actually mattered

In 2008, I was CMO of a 120-person SaaS company, desperately looking for growth.

Trying, testing, learning on how to do it.

Today, having led marketing with revenue responsibility from $4m to $4bn, I can tell you exactly which shifts moved the needle.

𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 #𝟭: 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀

2008: Generate leads. Gate everything. Hammer the database.

That worked when Marketo was revolutionary (I was in their beta program - it blew my mind).

But buyers changed. They stopped trusting vendors. Started trusting peers.

At Adobe, we shifted our budget from lead gen to community building. Created spaces where customers helped each other. Built advocacy programs that turned users into evangelists.

Result? Pipeline quality jumped 3x. CAC dropped 40%.

Communities scale. Lead lists don't.

𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 #𝟮: 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀-𝗢𝗻

Stop thinking quarters. Start thinking compounds.

The biggest mistake I see? Marketing in bursts. Big campaign. Big push. Then silence.

Over the years, we’ve rebuilt everything around always-on:

  • Content that answers real questions in forums like Reddit (not just promotes features)

  • SEO (and now GEO) that builds authority over years (not just keywords)

  • Social that engages daily (not just during launches)

Your best marketing asset isn't your next campaign. It's what you built last year that's still working.

𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 #𝟯: 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗣𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗩𝗶𝗲𝘄

I know, I know. I tell people to stop saying "brand."

But here's what actually matters: Having a teachable point of view.

When everyone's feature list looks identical, your perspective is your differentiator.

At every successful company I worked out, we had a clear POV:

  • “CRM should be more than a database - it should be the engine of customer growth.” (not just "we have CRM")

  • “Security is freedom - it lets businesses innovate without fear.” (not just "we do security")

  • "AI should amplify humans." (not just "we have AI")

Your POV becomes your strategy. Your strategy becomes your story. Your story becomes your valuation.

Three shifts. That's it.

Not massive frameworks. Not revolutionary tech. Not massive budgets.

Just fundamental changes in how we think about growth.

These shifts are harder than they sound because they require patience in a world demanding quarterly results.

But if you want to go from startup to exit, you need to play the long game.

Are B2B Marketers Finally Getting The Memo: “Boring Doesn’t Sell”?

Marketing Week just dropped a stat that made me smile: 55.7% of B2B marketers say their focus on creativity has increased.

About time.

For 20+ years, I've watched B2B marketing default to the same playbook: Feature lists. Stock photos of handshakes. Jargon that would make a lawyer blush.

But something's shifting.

Take Workbooks. Tiny CRM company. Crowded market. Their research found customers felt "sold a dream, supplied a nightmare."

Their response? "No BS CRM."

They literally showed a guy getting splattered with, errmm, manure. On billboards.

Result? 140% uplift in pipeline.

Or Addleshaw Goddard - a law firm - running poetry campaigns about Santa's GDPR violations. They won Marketing Week's Marketing Team of the Year. That's like me winning a bodybuilding contest.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘄?

Simple. When 30 companies say & offer the same thing, creativity isn't optional. It's survival.

But here's another stat: B2C brands are 2x more likely to measure creative effectiveness than B2B.

We're getting creative but flying blind.

Of course, B2B sales cycles are brutal and long. And attributing that 2025 billboard to a deal in 2032 is “challenging” to say the least.

But Workbooks' Dan Roche nailed it: "The billboard stuff is inherently unmeasurable... but we trusted."

Sometimes you have to trust that being human beats being boring.

Perfect attribution is a myth anyway

𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗮𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 "𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲?" Start asking "is it too boring?"

𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻. Brand searches. Pipeline. (My fave) engaged web visits.

𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗯𝘂𝘆 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘀. Not from feature lists.

And remember, the best B2B campaign of 2024 featured someone getting covered in manure.

I’ve Led Marketing Teams of 100 And I Still Get My Hands Dirty.

In a recent podcast I referred to "Forgetting the ivory tower CMO".

I meant it.

Long gone are the days when a marketing leader could be "hands off" - both day-to-day operationally and, more importantly, practically when it comes to the tools of the trade.

Early on in my career I saw marketing leaders becoming dinosaurs, disconnected from the “frontline”. Ever since I committed to staying ahead of the game, even setting up an (IRL) industry networking group.

In 2008, I was in the Marketo beta program. Not my team. Me. Personally testing every workflow, breaking things, learning what worked.

At Adobe, while managing a team 40+, I was still diving into campaign analytics. Not because I had to. Because I wanted to understand.

At VMware, I was hands-on with AI. Not just sponsoring my team to up-skill. Actually participating. Getting my hands on the tools. Failing fast. Learning faster.

The best CMOs I know can still:

  • Edit marketing content from the customer’s viewpoint

  • Spot a broken funnel in seconds

  • Jump on a customer call without prep

  • Prompt AI better than their team

  • Engage on social

If you think you’re too senior to get your hands dirty, you’re missing the point.

Leadership isn’t about distance - it’s about presence.

When teams are shrinking (I regularly hear of 6 marketers running $100M ARR), you can't lead from a spreadsheet. You need to know how the tools work. How the customer thinks. How the message lands.

In an era where AI handles the grunt work, being hands-on isn't about doing everything. It's about understanding everything.

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝘁. 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘁.

It's exam results season!

𝗔𝘂𝗴𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗱𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗺.

Then it hit me. First year without exam results hanging over our heads!

So firstly, GOOD LUCK to everyone getting A-level results tomorrow and GCSE results next week.

I remember the stomach-churning wait. The life-or-death feeling of it all.

But here's the thing (and don't tell my sons I said this): in many respects, it doesn't really matter. There are so many ways to build a life/career.

Let me tell you about my father.

He grew up in a Yorkshire mining village and left school at 16, without doing any A-levels. Higher education wasn’t for him. His only goal was to not go down the mines and he got a job as an apprentice in a technical drawing office.

One of his supervisors obviously saw something in him and suggested he apply to go to University. Which my father did, getting a place on a Mechanical Engineering degree. But with the proviso that he had to sit A-levels in his first year. He struggled a bit, and actually failed one, but passed on a re-sit.

He completed his Undergraduate degree.

He went on to get a PhD.

And, after a brief stint in industry, he went into academia, becoming a researcher & lecturer in Fluid Dynamics.

He travelled the world, published many books and became a renowned expert.

That 16-year old who opted out of higher-education? Retired as a Professor.

You see your exam results this month are not your destiny. They're just today's weather.