Dear SaaStr: How do I Convince My CEO that Marketing is Important?
A lot of CEOs these days do seem to be late to truly invest in SaaS marketing, and most especially, to hiring a true VP of Marketing. I’m just shocked how many CEOs hack it to $5m, $8m, $10m+ in ARR without a true VP of Demand Gen / Marketing on board. Yes, you can get there with hustle, founder-led sales, and chutzpah. But … what if you could have done even better?
Especially first-time SaaS CEOs often don’t see it, because they’ve never worked with a great VP of Marketing, or they’ve only hired junior folks that can’t own a number. Hire someone too junior, you just get a lot of energy, but often, no more leads. Not really.
So convince your CEO — by doing a little math with them.
Go through this exercise:
- What if we had 50% more leads?
- What if 50% more people showed up to our events? To our webinars?
- What if the leads our sales team receives were 50% more qualified?
- What if our content marketing was twice as good?
- What if we had 50% more sign-ups?
- What if everyone knew about us?
- What if we were talking to another 50% more folks, just like our existing customers?
- What if we were in more of the deals that our competitor wins today?
That’s what you get from a strong head of marketing. One that’s done it before, at your ACV, and at a senior enough level to have held a commit. More on that here:
(an updated Classic SaaStr answer)
