Revenue Marketing 101

Welcome to Revenue Marketing 101

My intro guide to revenue for marketersContents

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WELCOME TO REVENUE MARKETING 101

A practical guide for marketers to bridge the gap between creativity and commercial success.

From Creative Laurels → Commercial Leader

Marketing is now one of the most complex functions in the business. And while the job has evolved, the expectations exploded.

We’re meant to be creative, strategic, intuitive, brand-led, data-fluent, and revenue-driving - all at once.

Being a revenue marketer today means leaning into that complexity. Not by giving up on creativity - but by grounding it in the reality of business.

Here are 5 big themes that have helped me on that path.

Pillar	What to understand	Resource
Business strategy	The problem the company solves, the guiding principles and action plan to solve it	Good strategy, bad strategy - Richard Rumelt
Market Sizing	Where growth can come from (TAM, SAM, SOM).	HBS TAM/SAM/SOM framework
Category landscape & differentiation	Where you're meaningfully different - not just louder.	Christopher lochead - Play Bigger, April Dunford – Obviously Awesome
Value Proposition & Messaging	What you solve, for whom, and why you’re better.	Value Prop Framework from PMA
Go-to-Market Strategy	How your sales, partnerships, and marketing motions intersect.	Winning by Design – GTM Playbook
Revenue acceleration	How to create repeatable, scalable revenue and profit growth	Scaling the revenue engine - Tom Mohr

Before you build a campaign plan, build the context.

That means asking: What does the business actually need from marketing right now?

Here are my go-to resources:

understand the business you're in

#1: The foundation

Know how your business grows

We deliver value to customers when we help them make progress in a particular situation.¹

Competing Against Luck: The Story Of Innovation And Customer Choice

#2: The growth model

Your growth model is the guide to
prioritizing impact.
“A growth model is a flow chart that maps out how your business finds, acquires and delights new customers.” (Growth Levers: Matt Lerner).

It'll help you discover where to invest for maximum impact and which levers you can pull to drive the most pipeline and revenue for your business.

know your go to market motions

The best marketers understand the levers that actually drive commercial results.

You don't need to know them all - but you need to know what drives growth for your business.

Concept pair	How they differ
Inbound vs outbound	Inbound attracts demand. Outbound initiates it.
Demand gen vs lead gen	DG creates interest. LG converts it.
ABM vs ABX	ABM targets the right accounts. ABX builds meaningful experiences.
PLG vs SLG	PLG leans on product usage. SLG leads with people.

#3: The motions

know what progress looks like

Marketers don’t always get credit because we don’t always report in the language others use. Here’s where to focus:

#4: The metrics

Metric	Why It Matters
Brand Recall	The foundation for category leadership and long-term growth.
Site Traffic	A proxy for awareness, but only meaningful in context.
Engagement Time	A signal that content is resonating - not just being clicked.
Funnel Velocity	Reveals where leads slow down. Tells you where to focus.
Content Consumption	Shows where buyer attention actually is.

Metric	Why It Matters
Pipeline Influence	The broader story of how marketing contributes - not just sources.
Win Rate	Measures sales effectiveness - marketing plays a role here too.
Opp-to-Close Time	Speed = efficiency. Can be a function of message clarity.
Sales Efficiency	How much revenue your go-to-market engine creates per dollar in.
Pipeline Influence	The broader story of how marketing contributes - not just sources.

Learn the lingo of the financier

You don’t need an MBA
- just a shared vocabulary.

Term	Why It Matters
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)	Helps model spend, growth, and margin targets.
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)	Important for paid media, but should be contextualized.
LTV:CAC Ratio	A healthy ratio means your growth is sustainable.
Attribution (Sourced vs Influenced)	Shows the range of marketing’s impact - not just the origin.
P&L Literacy	Understand margin, cost of revenue, and how marketing gets scrutinized.

(Read Financial Intelligence - it's so great!)

#5: The money

A message of hope

Creativity is still the heartbeat of great marketing.

But today, it needs to live and breathe inside a commercial frame.

That’s how we earn trust, build influence, and protect our teams from becoming line items in the next budget cut.

This is about learning the balance between creativity and credibility.

And being the revenue driving force we were always meant to be.