Why Your Marketing Strategy (Still) Sucks!

As we near the end of this fiscal year, you are undoubtedly already planning for next year. You need to carefully assess your overall go-to-market strategy.

Are you still reliant on traditional field-led, marketing, and sales-led models? If so, your strategy and growth will likely be an uphill slog with low conversion and a high CAC.

Now is the time to think about ways to shorten your sales cycle, and reduce the friction and the CAC limiting your growth.

According to research conducted by OpenView Partners, 98% of MQL’s never even convert. As a go-to-market advisor for Investors and CEOs, I have the chance to meet many companies whose leadership teams pour hard-earned venture capital into sales and marketing efforts — such as outbound calling, paid traffic, and lead generation programs — resulting in poor unit economics and sub-par growth prospects.

What is wrong with a sales-led growth model?

First, let’s talk about cost. It’s not uncommon for companies to spend 15% of their total revenue on marketing. Very few early-stage companies have a strong product-market fit, which means most don’t have the right messaging, positioning, and potentially also, pricing. Given these limitations, low conversion and retention will likely lead to an unfortunate outcome of high burn with limited growth. Furthermore, sales-led approaches focus on acquisition, rather than activation and retention. Lastly, many campaigns focus…