3 Keys to Ensure Alignment in Go-To-Market Measurement

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Measuring the success of go-to-market activities should be fairly straightforward. Collectively, we all are in agreement that measuring the success of sales, marketing, and customer service falls into two realms: revenue and customer satisfaction.

But the devil is in the details. Most CMOs still struggle with understanding and delivering marketing performance measurement. Additionally, Most CROs struggle with pricing excellence and the predictability of revenue delivery. But this doesn’t have to be the case. With the right frameworks in place for GTM measurement excellence and understanding the contributions of each component toward delivering to the top and bottom lines of an income statement is achievable.

Key #1: Alignment on Business Goals

An initial challenge I see at many B2B brands in the C-suite isn’t the lack of understanding of what the financial goals of a company are, but rather the lack of knowing what it takes to achieve those goals. In particular understanding the cross-departmental implications of changing budgets, headcount, priorities, etc. that will ripple down into missed revenue, new logo acquisition, customer satisfaction, etc. that drives a growing B2B brand forward.

This is particularly worrisome for mid-market brands and larger ones that have complex motions on all three fronts - sales, marketing, and customer service. Understanding the ripple effects of change can not only stress the various systems but also create a challenge for team members to achieve their goals - which in turn means the business misses its goals & objectives. At the C-suite, I like to use the old stereo equalizer as my analogy. Turn up the base, and not only do we over-hear the base, but we also no longer can hear the treble. And this is a challenge.

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So what is the fix? it’s really education both within the C-suite and across the entire GTM organization. That begins with identifying the business and operational goals and then sharing them across the entire organization. But to do this effectively, those cross-department implications must be understood and documented.

Key #2: Mapping Contributions of Effort

I’ve discussed G.O.T. mapping as a methodology to align goals, objectives, and tactics with measures before (see the chart above). But the real key is for all the GTM teams to do this with the same set of goals and objectives. This is important because, with this understanding, each team learns how its efforts contribute to those goals. Usually, efforts aren’t a linear match, they are a complex web of interdependencies. Additionally, every effort contributes to multiple business outcomes (goals + objectives).

Now at the C-suite, we can better understand the trade-offs made by changes in team headcount, investment in programs, shift in priorities, etc. In the ideal state, this is not only a framework for discussion, but an informed dashboard that has the data (both financial and go-to-market tactical), visualization (e.g., Business Intelligence Reporting), and what-if-scenario modeling tools to quantify those inter-dependencies and truly manage a business with data-driven decision-making.

But without the homework, the tools will misinform you.

Key #3: Using the Right Tools for Measurement

I cringe when I see a tactical marketing report in the C-Suite. It means one of two things. Either the CMO isn’t on the hook for business outcomes, or the CEO is micro-managing their go-to-market efforts. Both situations are a result of a lack of go-to-market performance measurement excellence. Both strategically and operationally.

From the strategic perspective, the C-suite and thus the company hasn’t done the homework to understand and implement a culture of performance excellence. This means not only agreeing to company goals and objectives but instituting a center of excellence to manage the complexity of performance management. This isn’t an HR function, it’s a C-suite-led program. Full stop. That needs a C-level champion to own manage and deliver back to all the firm’s stakeholders and shareholders. All too often this element is missing. Performance Measurement Excellence is a journey.

From the operational perspective, not only must the C-suite share these concepts with the entire firm, but also invest in systems, people, technology, data, and time to get this done properly. This is an ongoing program whose tactics grow and evolve as a company matures and improves its operations toward excellence.

And this is why selecting the right tool for performance measurement is so important. The best practice here is using a comprehensive Business Intelligence stack that can: assemble and assimilate data from various and disparate sources, provide a reporting infrastructure that can deliver both tactical reporting and strategic dashboards, and a feature set that can build what-if scenarios for all levels of the business. It’s a complex tool we need to solve a complex problem.

This gets me back to why I cringe when I see a tactical marketing report in a C-suite business review meeting. It really means that we are making strategic decisions with tactical insight. And that’s the real problem.

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