Bill De Groot

Does your CEO really want to know how many MQLs and SQLs your marketing produced this month? Probably not. Today's marketing playbook vastly differs from the one that worked so well two years ago, including what gets reported internally. I was recently invited to speak to the Arizona Innovation Marketing Association, and I chose to discuss how my marketing playbook has changed. In my talk, which I titled, "The Rebellion of ROI: Why It's Time to Throw Out Traditional Marketing Playbooks," I shared five game-changing shifts forcing a complete rethink of the playbooks we used two, even five years ago. And the first big shift is to admit your CEO doesn't care about MQL's or SQL's. I call it a shift because they used to care about them. Not that long ago, marketing teams were being told Sales needs more "top of funnel LEADS." So Marketers created a bunch of gated assets and threw a gazillion "Marketing-Qualified Leads" over the wall to Sales. Except they quickly learned that someone downloading an eBook is almost never ready to book a sales demo. And in the end, while Marketing could claim success by generating thousands of leads, CEO's and CFO's were focused on driving revenue, not leads. This led to questions like "so how many leads do we need to produce $X in revenue?" In Q2 of last year, I stopped reporting lead numbers. The traditional "MQL" was simply too disconnected from revenue. At the same time, we also took the radical step of ungating all of our assets, which naturally caused our lead count to plunge. Instead, I shifted to reporting inbound pipeline and outbound pipeline produced through marketing outreach efforts (our SDR sits in Marketing, not Sales). The only leading indicator we report is inbound demo requests. Guess what? I've not been asked for MQL or SQL counts in more than a year. The reality is investors are no longer funding growth without profitability, so aligning our marketing efforts to revenue helped prove that our modest marketing investments are producing pipeline. Reporting on pipeline also enables us to report Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) tied to pipeline and revenue (10X and 29X respectively for last year). How has your marketing reporting changed in the last two years?

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I recently talked with someone much smarter than me. He shared insights about what moves the needle for big direct-to-consumer brands like Gartner Supply, King Arthur Baking, and Husqvarna. Creating products customers love isn’t about guessing what they need—it’s about listening to them. User-centric product development is the key. It’s all about focusing on: • Customer needs • Preferences • Continuous feedback loops By integrating customer insights into the development process, we can continuously refine and improve. A perfect example? The “bake mode” feature on King Arthur’s website. Simple, user-friendly, and it significantly  enhances the customer experience. Take Husqvarna. They target “prosumer” clients with premium content tailored to intermediate and advanced users. They know their audience isn’t made up of beginners, so they craft content that speaks directly to more experienced users. This approach builds trust and loyalty, making Husqvarna the go-to brand when these customers are ready to upgrade their equipment. Another personal example: we recently bought a bed from Thuma. The assembly was straightforward, with clear instructions on the box. This ease of use reinforced our positive perception of the brand. When you prioritize user-centric design, magic happens: • Products resonate with the audience • Loyalty is fostered • Engagement is driven It’s not just about building products. It’s about building relationships and solutions that truly matter. How do you ensure your products meet customer needs? #UserExperience #CustomerCentric #ProductDevelopment

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🌟Behind every data point lies a captivating narrative waiting to be unveiled. To make an impact we must dive into the numbers, decode trends, and transform insights into impactful strategies. 📈 Diving into the data trenches is the secret weapon for uncovering growth opportunities! Whether it’s A/B testing, cohort analysis, or funnel optimization 🧐 🌟 But here’s the twist: Numbers alone won’t cut it. We need to blend analytical prowess with creative storytelling. 🎨 Infuse campaigns with creativity, turning data points into compelling narratives that captivate your audience. #GrowthMarketing #DataDriven #Storytelling #Leadership #anagocleaning

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There are many great trios out there: Harry, Ron and Hermione; Jordan, Pippin and Rodman; and the newcomers, McKinney, Wagner and Bremhorst... no really! On this episode of Digital Transformation Success, recorded LIVE at Greenbook's IIEX Conference in Austin, TX, join Point 600's Ryan Wagner, Meltwater's Henry Bremhorst and me, the Momma Bird of Little Bird Marketing, as we discuss AI's integration into business, and the consequences of what they call, "data ignorance." LINK TO SHOW IN FIRST COMMENT. #littlebirdmarketing #podcast #digitalinnovation #digitalintegrationandautomation

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“Marketing done at its worst is manipulation, but marketing at its best is inspiration - and helps connect people with the solutions to the problems they have.” Hear more on the Traceability podcast with Tracie Edwards 🎙️: https://lnkd.in/gCdYhy5H Timestamps: 0:15 Introduction 1:53 What was it that attracted you to marketing, and what was your first marketing role? 6:50 How do we differentiate between the marketing noise and make our marketing more authentic and worth engaging with? 12:39 How have you been able to sustain your career, especially over these last few years?  24:00 Did you take a lateral role where you went from one thing and then went to philanthropy?  27:52 What are some tips for becoming more strategic - looking up and looking ahead?  33:25 Do you have any tips for engaging with executives?  39:44 What is “fractional”? And why have you chosen to pursue that?  47:09 How have you learned to pivot and not be fearful of changes that are coming?

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Anybody want some good news? It’s blowing in, my friends. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index reached 102 in May, a level not seen since the early 2000s. (A reading above 100 indicates a strong and optimistic consumer outlook, making this surge a promising sign for brands and the agencies that serve them. As the kids say: LFG!) Consumer spending remains robust, as evidenced by the recent successes of companies like Dick's Sporting Goods (5.3% increase in comparable sales, largely driven by my relentless purchasing of pickleball supplies) and Abercrombie & Fitch (22% year-over-year jump in sales for the first quarter for a company that's finally turning the corner). These examples perhaps demonstrate that consumers are willing to spend when presented with compelling value (perceived worth relative to price). Rising consumer confidence and lower prices are like wind and sails for a ship – together, they can propel a brand forward with incredible speed and efficiency. Brands that effectively combine the appeal of value with the growing optimism among consumers will find themselves well-positioned to outsail their competitors. To harness this powerful combination, brands should consider emphasizing the long-term value and benefits of their products or services. By positioning their offerings as smart investments that will pay off over time, brands can tap into the confident and optimistic mindset of consumers. For example, a technology company could highlight how their latest smartphone model is built to last, with features that will keep it relevant and valuable for years to come. A home appliance brand could emphasize the energy efficiency and cost savings their products offer, appealing to consumers' desire for both value and long-term benefits. This combination has been witnessed before, notably during the 1990s economic boom when consumer confidence soared and value-driven brands experienced unprecedented growth. I remember it like it was yesterday! Grunge and flannel and free-spending, oh my! Sure, caution is also in the wind. As economist John Kenneth Galbraith once said, "The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable." While the future is uncertain, the current alignment of rising confidence and value-driven messaging presents an opportunity brands cannot afford to ignore. Ambitious brands and their stewards must stay attuned to the evolving consumer landscape and pivot their approaches to harness the wind of rising confidence and the appeal of value. Those who effectively navigate these waters will find themselves sailing towards a brighter future. #ConsumerConfidence #BrandStrategy #ValueMessaging #NavigatingChange

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Originally when I read this post from Stacy Edgar, I responded with the importance of customer-first mindset. However, as I delved deeper, I realized this post is really about so much more than just strategic execution and recognizing the value of collaboration in enhancing customer support. What truly resonated with me was the remarkable impact of women supporting women. Sara Roberts, who assisted one of my female-founded clients in an executive search, perfectly exemplified this - three women coming together to further the success of another woman's startup vision. Stacy's post itself is a testament to the strength and success that emerge from such collaborative efforts. The synergy among women in business isn't just felt; it's quantifiable! According to a 2020 McKinsey report, companies with women in top management roles see an average increase of 10% in profitability and innovation. Moreover, teams led by women tend to be more cohesive and supportive, which translates to higher job satisfaction and retention rates. Malala Yousafzai eloquently said, "We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back." This captures the essential nature of why female collaboration is not just beneficial but vital. Let's continue to champion one another, forge new paths, and break barriers together. When women support each other, incredible things indeed happen. #WomenInLeadership #Collaboration #Innovation #Empowerment

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Listen to the #1 advice Conrad Snover gives to CEOs to ensure their supply chain and profits are healthy. 🍎

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Cookieless Marketing Data Systems are the future. However, there is a huge paradox. Even though cookieless systems are "must-haves," they are complex & costly, but have no equity value because they are commodities. I help my clients solve this problem by showing them how to license & integrate enterprise cookieless tech. This way, they can focus on value creation through AI analytics instead of inefficient 3rd party Frankenstacks or costly, in-house cookieless infrastructure. As someone who predicted the demise of cookies and has been advising on identity & data tech ever since, I can help you with your data strategy. Let's take advantage of the future of marketing data systems together. #Ciminote #Cookieless

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Kathleen Lucente gets right to the point in this article about Fractional CMOs… “The idea behind a fractional CMO is aiming for a natural exit date and leaving the company in better shape than when they started. It allows companies to have senior expertise when they need it most, without having to commit to a full-time employee at this level or suffer from having an inexperienced substitute steering the ship.” Situations when a company might consider hiring a fractional CMO or a fractional CMO service: ☑️ Limited Budget: with CMO salaries starting at the $200k point depending on the industry, a Fractional CMO can be a viable alternative for many growing companies. ☑️ Short Term Project: Once the project is complete, their involvement can be scaled down or discontinued. ☑️ Interim leadership: When a company’s CMO position is vacant, a fractional CMO can step in as an interim leader.  ☑️ Strategic guidance: Some companies may have an internal marketing team but lack strategic direction.  ☑️ Augmenting existing team: In situations where the internal marketing team lacks certain skills or experience, a fractional CMO can complement the team by filling in the gaps.  ☑️ Scalability and flexibility: Fractional CMOs can be engaged on a part-time basis, allowing companies to adjust their marketing leadership based on changing needs.

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Last week, I had a meeting with a new client that blew me away. Too often, the educational curves on good Amazon strategy and/or organizational misalignment are the first barriers to success with large enterprise brands. But this client kickoff was a breath of fresh air—they already knew how to ride the "Amazon Wave." Here are the five strategic areas where they had full alignment from company ownership down to day-to-day management: 1. Willingness to invest for the long term: They are willing to invest upfront to build product rank or search term rank even when the payback window may extend beyond the normal boundaries of business calendars (weeks, months, quarters). But they also have the controls in place to balance these investments. 2. Strategic thinking around NPI and Variation strategy: They are constantly looking for ways to appeal to consumers with new products and new variants that are aligned with trends and their overall portfolio strategy. 3. Intelligent Catalog Segmentation: They segment all products based on 1) margin and 2) maturity on the platform and have different promotional and advertising treatments for each segment. 4. Profit Maximization vs. Budget Maximization: They don’t budget performance marketing. They set TACOS constraints and spend as much as they can, profitably. 5. Price is Actually Used as a Lever: They actively experiment with pricing to determine what is profit-optimal for all products. For a data-driven firm like Momentum Commerce, this level of client sophistication is exhilarating. We can bypass the usual education phase and dive straight into building systems and experiments to drive performance through stronger tactical execution.

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Is a Full-Time CMO Too Expensive for Your $10M Business? Building a strong marketing function is crucial for growth, but a full-time CMO can be a significant cost burden for mid-sized businesses. Explore the benefits of a fractional CMO: cost-effective expertise that scales with your needs. Learn more about how a fractional CMO can help you achieve your marketing goals. elitecmo.com #fractionalCMO #marketingstrategy #growth

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Private Equity Marketing Quote of the Week: “Your Brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” --Jeff Bezos; Founder, Amazon.com   Your brand, in Private Equity and elsewhere, is not what YOU think it is. It’s what your LPs, intermediaries, and company owners think it is. Sure, you believe you know what your brand represents and what you WANT it to be, but you can’t be sure unless you hear directly from your target markets. I have previously posted about the need for 3rd party marketing research in PE at the fund level, something very few firms do. It is impossible to build a differentiated marketing, messaging, and connection strategy without unbiased feedback from your target markets. ❌And very few humans will give you direct negative feedback—unless you have really done something wrong. When was the last time a prospective LP told you they were not going to invest in your new fund because your Managing Partner was too arrogant and they did not want to work with them—especially if you were the Managing Partner they were talking about? ❌You will not get unbiased feedback by sending out an email survey through one of the obvious providers. ✅You will fare much better with a 3rd party firm interacting with your contacts 1-on-1. Answers to questions beget more specific “rabbit hole” questions. For LPs, talk to the following groups: ✅Those who invested in you for the first time. ✅Those who have invested in you multiple times. ✅Those who did not invest. ✅Those who did not reup from your last fund. ✅Those in your target market but who have never invested in your funds. ✅Those you never marketed to at all but who do invest in your asset class. For intermediaries, talk to the following groups: ✅Those who represented a deal you closed. ✅Those who represented a deal you lost. ✅Those who consistently send you deals. ✅Those who used to send you deals regularly but have stopped. ✅Those in your target market who have never sent you a deal. ✅Those to whom you have never awarded sell-side business. 💡The idea is to understand the truth from your target markets. Once you understand the truth, only then can you begin to craft a truly honest and differentiated marketing strategy. Oh, and the results of your 3rd party research will also identify parts of your business that need to be fixed—hopefully before your next fund raise. 💡Trust me. You should STRIVE to hear about the negatives the market believes about you, if you genuinely want to become a Best-in-Class Private Equity firm. Pats on the back build the ego, but not much that is valuable. 🔥Research before marketing strategy, or you are just shooting in the dark. Message me here on LinkedIn or send me an email at PhilC@AlineaGrowth.com to discuss any marketing issues impacting PE and the rest of the middle market M&A ecosystem.  #PrivateEquity #PrivateEquityMarketing #PrivateEquityBusinessDevelopment #MiddleMarket #B2BMarketing #FinancialServicesMarketing

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I like this new term that Forrester coined "Frontline Marketing Leader." It's about unifying the frontline marketing teams; demand, account-based, field, and customer marketing and breaking down the silos that live within the marketing organization. I believe in this idea wholeheartedly, let's get aligned as a marketing team so we can better align with the rest of the organization. What do you think? Link in comments 👇

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Saw a meme that said millennials skipped the midlife crisis and went straight to granny hobbies. 🌱🌸 Guilty! I spent the holiday weekend in my garden, weeding, pruning, and adding more plants that —let’s be honest— I probably don’t need. There’s something about being outside, surrounded by nature, that brings me peace. It’s also where I often come up with my most creative ideas. Many parts of my job are pretty cut and dry. Budgets. Data analysis. Vendor management. But creativity? That’s much harder to do on demand. I find when I let my mind wander while I’m in nature, ideas start to bloom just like my garden. It’s in those moments of quiet reflection, hands in the dirt, that some of my best ideas take root. (I'm a sucker for a pun 😉) I’m sure I’ll start tomorrow morning with a new idea that I nurtured this weekend. How do you fuel your creativity? Or what's in your garden? I'm just as curious about that. #Creativity #GardeningAndGrowth #CMO #customerexperience #BPO

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When we talk about our favorite brands, most of the time we reflect on a flashy or meaningful campaign that likely took significant time and investment to pull off. If you're working with fewer resources, this is your reminder that consistency and intentionality can be just as impactful for your brand. Yesterday we sent an email out to customers notifying them of some upcoming changes to our Terms of Service. Like most companies, notification is at our discretion and we don't technically have to give customers a heads up. But we don't operate in technicalities-- we think of what's best for the customer. So, I drafted an email to send to all users two weeks in advance that summarized the changes in layman's terms. Would you believe that people actually responded to this email? They appreciated a summary. They thought it reflected our brand well. A few wanted the full text in advanced-- we obliged. They said thank you. A brand is built through a collection of moments, don't miss out on the smallest ones.

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“If you're not listening to your customers, you're not doing your job.” 🙌 Marcy Ullom, CEO of VitaGlide, reveals how helping people starts with meeting them where they are. 👇 On this episode of the Let’s Talk Limbic Sparks podcast – “Meeting People Where They Are” – Marcy shares details about VitaGlide, the exercise and rehab machine for people with limited lower body movement. We discuss: ⚡️ The benefits of listening to customers, understanding to their goals, and embracing their ideas. ⚡️ Why you need to listen for the emotional undertone, which is even more telling about what they are striving to achieve. ⚡️ Why it’s a good idea to de-prioritize features, and lead with emotional benefits in marketing. Marcy also shares: “You've gotta talk to people. You've gotta talk, talk, talk, talk, talk to people... to try to pick their brain to find out what it is that drives them.” Hear it all at: LimbicSparks(dot)com  or  Search “Let’s Talk Limbic Sparks”  On Spotify, Apple or anywhere you listen to podcasts Thank you, Marcy, so much for joining me on Let’s Talk Limbic Sparks.

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This is a photo taken with one of my favorite clients, Wade Osborne, who I always try to see when I visit Seattle. He has introduced Program 11 across his organization, and thanks to him, we've gone from working with only his team to supporting multiple teams in multiple states. Not all clients are like Wade. Several lifetimes (and agencies) ago, we had a client (I’ll call him Fred) who was possessive of our team. He considered us “his” agency and disliked the idea of our agency having other clients. Fred continually inquired about our other projects, who else we were working with, and how much time we were spending on them vs. him. Now that I think about it, it felt like a jealous lover scenario, replete with an “if I can’t have 100% of you, I want none of you” break-up at the end. Like, WTF. This “me and only me” mindset was so backward. The beauty of having an agency with multiple clients is our ability to take great learnings from other campaigns and apply them to your brand. We transfer knowledge from one vertical to another, flexing our creative muscles across industries. We leverage insights about niche audiences to support clients talking to similar segments. We don’t fall into ruts, because with each new challenge, we push ourselves to learn and innovate. It’s a total win-win. 🎯 Fortunately, Fred is an anomaly. Our clients happily share us. They readily refer us when someone asks them to recommend an agency that can do audience research, messaging, strategy, and creative.  Here’s where I’m having a thought bubble. Our clients today only think to refer us when they're asked for someone with our skillset. I bet our clients would *proactively* refer us if we asked. But…is that okay? 🤔 [Here comes the question…you knew it was coming.] LinkedIn peeps, do YOU ask your clients to refer you? If so, how do you go about it? One buddy recommended we send a satisfaction survey with the postscript, “Would you recommend us to a colleague?” Another told us to ask clients to name three friends in similar industries that they think could use our services, then we’d do the outreach with the subject line, “So and so suggested we reach out to you…” Neither feels natural, so I’m seeking your collective wisdom. 🧠What would be cool to say or ask, if anything? #BusinessGrowth #ClientRelationships #Referrals #MarketingStrategy #Program11 #BrandPositioning #ContentStrategy #MarketingTips #BusinessDevelopment

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