Revenue First: Marketing Strategies CEOs Actually Value
This article is the first in our series expanding on "Marketing Solutions That Drive Growth: What CEOs Really Want." In upcoming installments, we'll explore the remaining four key challenges: market share expansion, competitive advantage, brand reputation, and unified messaging.
The CEO's Most Urgent Marketing Challenge
In our recent article, "Marketing Solutions That Drive Growth: What CEOs Really Want," we explored the 5 critical challenges executives expect marketing to solve. Topping that list, cited by 52% of CEOs, was revenue generation. For building products and home finishes executives, the message is clear: marketing must evolve beyond brand awareness and lead generation to become a direct, measurable contributor to the company's bottom line.
This transformation isn't simply about implementing better tracking systems, though measurement certainly plays a role. It's about fundamentally reimagining marketing's position within your organization, shifting from a cost center mindset to a revenue-driving function that directly impacts business growth.
Let's explore how forward-thinking building products companies are turning their marketing departments into powerful revenue engines.
Beyond Measurement: Strategic Approaches to Revenue-Generating Marketing
1. Align Marketing Activities with the Revenue Cycle
Traditional marketing often focuses on the top of the funnel, generating awareness and interest before handing leads to sales. Revenue-driven marketing, however, spans the entire customer journey.
Strategic Implementation:
Map your customer's buying journey from initial awareness through purchase, installation, and beyond
Identify critical decision points where targeted marketing interventions can accelerate purchase decisions
Deploy specific content and campaigns designed for each stage, from educational content for early research to technical specifications and ROI calculators for evaluation stages
Extend marketing's reach into customer success, creating programs that drive upsells, cross-sells, and referrals from existing customers
Real-World Impact: A leading building materials manufacturer restructured their marketing team around revenue stages rather than channels, assigning specialists to early, middle, and late-stage revenue activities. This approach increased conversion rates between stages by 32% and reduced the overall sales cycle by nearly three months. (Source: McKinsey & Company, "The Revenue Acceleration Playbook," 2023)
2. Develop Channel Partner Enablement Programs
For building products companies selling through distribution, indirect revenue generation is just as important as direct sales. Your dealers, contractors, and distributors are your revenue multipliers.
Strategic Implementation:
Create co-branded marketing materials that partners can easily customize and deploy in their local markets
Develop dealer locator systems with lead routing capabilities that deliver qualified prospects directly to channel partners
Implement partner marketing portals with ready-to-use campaigns, social media content, and digital assets
Design spiff programs and incentives that reward partners for featuring your products prominently
Provide partners with training on selling value over price to maintain margins
Real-World Impact: One building products manufacturer created a comprehensive dealer enablement program with customizable marketing materials and lead sharing. Partners participating in the program grew their revenue by 47% compared to non-participating dealers, while the manufacturer saw a 28% increase in orders from those same dealers. (Source: Forrester Research, "Channel Partner Enablement: Best Practices in Building Materials," 2022)
3. Embrace Account-Based Marketing for High-Value Targets
Mass marketing has its place, but precision targeting of high-value accounts delivers superior revenue results, especially for premium building product lines.
Strategic Implementation:
Identify your ideal customer profile and create a targeted list of high-value accounts
Develop personalized content addressing the specific challenges these accounts face
Coordinate multi-channel outreach combining digital advertising, personalized emails, direct mail, and sales outreach
Create custom landing pages and experiences tailored to specific companies or projects
Organize invitation-only events and demonstrations for key decision-makers
Real-World Impact: A commercial building products company implemented an account-based marketing approach targeting architectural firms working on large commercial projects. The strategy resulted in a 215% increase in specifications from target accounts and a $3.2 million revenue increase within 12 months. (Source: ITSMA, "ABM Benchmark Study: Building Materials Sector," 2023)
4. Integrate Marketing Automation with Sales Processes
Marketing technology is most powerful when it works in concert with your sales process, creating a seamless experience for prospects while providing valuable intelligence to sales teams.
Strategic Implementation:
Implement lead scoring based on behavior, demographics, and buying signals
Create triggered alerts notifying sales representatives when prospects take high-intent actions
Develop automated nurture campaigns that maintain engagement between sales touches
Deploy interactive tools like ROI calculators and product configurators that capture buyer preferences
Use retargeting to continue marketing to prospects actively engaged with sales
Real-World Impact: By implementing advanced lead scoring and sales alerts, one building products company saw a 67% increase in sales follow-up effectiveness and a 41% increase in conversion rates from qualified lead to opportunity. (Source: Gartner, "MarTech Integration Study: Home and Building Products," 2023)
5. Create Customer-Centric Product Launch Strategies
Product launches represent critical revenue opportunities. Customer-centric launches focused on solving real problems (rather than simply highlighting features) consistently outperform traditional approaches.
Strategic Implementation:
Conduct voice-of-customer research to understand pain points your new product addresses
Develop messaging that focuses on outcomes and solutions rather than specifications
Create application-specific marketing campaigns targeting different use cases
Organize early access programs with influential contractors, designers, or architects
Build comprehensive launch packages with everything channel partners need to successfully sell new products
Real-World Impact: A building products manufacturer shifted from traditional feature-focused launches to solution-oriented campaigns based on extensive contractor research. Their new approach generated 73% more revenue in the critical first six months post-launch compared to previous product introductions. (Source: Harvard Business Review, "Solution Selling in Construction Materials," 2022)
Measuring Success: The Revenue Marketing Scorecard
While transforming marketing into a revenue engine requires strategic changes, measurement remains crucial. High-performing building products companies track these key metrics to assess marketing's revenue impact:
Pipeline Contribution: Percentage of sales pipeline sourced or influenced by marketing activities
Velocity Metrics: Time-to-conversion at each stage of the revenue cycle and how marketing activities accelerate movement
Channel Partner Performance: Revenue generated through enabled partners vs. non-enabled partners
Campaign ROI: Direct revenue generated per dollar spent on specific campaigns
Customer Lifetime Value: Long-term revenue impact of marketing-sourced customers vs. other acquisition channels
Implementing Data-Driven Attribution Models
A critical component of revenue-focused marketing is understanding which touchpoints truly influence purchase decisions. Data-driven attribution models provide this insight by analyzing the complete customer journey rather than giving all credit to the first or last interaction.
Strategic Implementation:
Move beyond simplistic "last-click" attribution to multi-touch models that reflect the complex buying journey in building products
Implement algorithmic attribution that uses statistical analysis to assign appropriate credit to each marketing touchpoint
Track both online and offline interactions, including showroom visits, trade shows, and sales consultations
Conduct regular attribution analysis to identify high-impact channels and reallocate budget accordingly
Use attribution insights to optimize the marketing mix and identify gaps in the customer journey
Real-World Impact: One premium building products brand implemented a data-driven attribution model that revealed their social media campaigns, previously considered brand-building only, were actually initiating 28% of customer journeys that ultimately resulted in purchase. This insight led to a reallocation of budget that improved overall marketing ROI by 34%. (Source: Google/Boston Consulting Group, "Attribution in Building Materials," 2023)
At least 40% of CEOs expect CMOs to focus on 5 key growth challenges: revenue, market share, competition, reputation and company narrative.
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The Path Forward: Transforming Your Marketing Organization
Converting your marketing function from a cost center to a revenue engine doesn't happen overnight. It requires strategic vision, cross-functional collaboration, and often cultural change within the organization. Here's how to begin:
Establish Revenue Accountability: Set clear revenue contribution targets for marketing and incorporate them into performance metrics
Break Down Silos: Create regular touchpoints between marketing, sales, and product teams focused specifically on revenue growth
Invest in Capabilities: Ensure your team has the skills, tools and resources to execute revenue-focused strategies
Start With Quick Wins: Identify one or two high-potential revenue strategies that can demonstrate early success
Communicate Results: Regularly share marketing's revenue impact with executives and other stakeholders
Conclusion: The Revenue-Generation Imperative
For building products CEOs, the message is clear: marketing must evolve from creating awareness to driving revenue. Companies that successfully make this transition gain a powerful competitive advantage, a marketing function that contributes directly and measurably to business growth.
By implementing the strategies outlined above, forward-thinking building products companies are transforming marketing from a necessary expense into a powerful revenue engine that drives predictable, scalable growth, exactly what CEOs are demanding.
This article is the first in our series expanding on "Marketing Solutions That Drive Growth: What CEOs Really Want." In upcoming installments, we'll explore the remaining four key challenges: market share expansion, competitive advantage, brand reputation, and unified messaging.