The concept of guaranteed marketing outcomes is a premise that challenges the very foundation of conventional thinking. But I’m asking you to do something radical. I’m asking you to believe you deserve it. I’m asking you to believe you will achieve your desired marketing results. I’m asking you to believe that success can be guaranteed.
I’m asking you to defy the apathy the industry expects of you and declare, “I deserve guaranteed marketing outcomes, and anyone standing in my way will be lovingly removed.”
I know that’s no small ask, and as marketers, some skepticism — or even fear — is only natural. There are three primary reasons why marketers often are skeptical that marketing results can be predicted and even guaranteed.
Reason 1: Fear of Raising the Bar
The first and perhaps most profound reason for the skepticism is fear of raising the bar. The thought of significantly elevating expectations can be downright terrifying, and rightfully so. Why risk putting a stake in the ground and back up your projections with a guarantee when the conventional approach is considered good enough?
Fear of raising the bar often stems from a fear of moving out of your comfort zone, which has worked for so long that raising the bar comes with the risk of failure. You must recognize that true progress often lies beyond the boundaries of comfort. Revolutionary change rarely occurs when you cling to the familiar. To achieve guaranteed marketing outcomes, you must get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Reason 2: Absence of Properly Structured Teams
The second reason behind the skepticism is the absence of teams properly structured to deliver predictable, guaranteed outcomes. What does a team that is built for guaranteed outcomes look like? It’s a team that approaches marketing with a results-oriented mindset from the ground up.
A results-oriented team is one that:
- Displays leadership and accountability: Leadership is marked by the courage to plant a flag and take accountability for projections and outcomes.
- Hires, fires, rewards, and promotes based on outcomes: Every team member’s performance is tied to their ability to drive outcomes. Those who consistently deliver results are rewarded, and those who don’t are held accountable.
- Measures outcomes regularly: Outcomes are measured not as an afterthought but as a routine part of operations. Weekly assessments are conducted, and outcomes are transparently shared across the organization.
- Values client outcomes: Core values are structured around outcomes. Measurable success becomes a guiding principle that permeates company culture.
- Emphasizes training: Comprehensive training and coaching programs are in place within the organization to develop the skills and knowledge needed to consistently achieve outcomes. This industry is wildly dynamic. If you aren’t sharpening your skills every quarter at a minimum, you’re obsolete.
- Follows documented processes: The team relies on written processes that have proven effective in driving consistent marketing outcomes.
Creating a results-oriented team upsets the norm. It requires a shift in mindset, an adjustment in how success is defined, and often a restructure to ensure that outcomes are prioritized. For example, at RedRover, we are structured into three divisions—Client Outcomes, Client Strategy, and Client Experience. Having specific, focused leadership over Client Outcomes ensures clear accountability for achievement of projected metrics.
Reason 3: Lack of Market Research Chops
The third reason behind the skepticism of guaranteed marketing outcomes is the lack of a market research team with deep qualitative and quantitative capabilities. In its simplest terms, qualitative research is where you explore perspectives and opinions, and quantitative research is where you explore data. Both are essential to a results- guaranteed marketing plan. Effective marketing strategies are built on a foundation of market insights and an extensive understanding of customer behavior. Without these insights, the most creative and engaging campaigns will still fall short.
A market research expert or team with qualitative and quantitative chops is crucial for:
- Formulating a backbone for your predictable plan: Market research provides the necessary insights to make informed projections— critical insights such as what messaging and offer strategies will sway customers to buy more from you, how much they’re open to buying, and how your marketing plan will perform against competitor marketing. The bottom line: You can’t calculate accurate projections without quality research.
- Identifying hidden optimization opportunities: Leveraging an objective third-party market research expert often results in their identifying otherwise hidden opportunities for marketing plan optimizations that you are simply too close to see.
- Seeing new customer data trends: A market research expert will often see trends in your customer data that can make or break your marketing strategy—trends that your passion and knowledge for your company may not easily allow you to see. For example, you likely don’t have full transparency into why lost customers left your company. They generally only share what they want you to know. You probably also don’t have complete clarity into all the reasons why a customer chooses your competitor over you in a head-to-head matchup and how they rank order those decision-making criteria.
- Uncovering unknown openings in the market: Deep market research can reveal unknown marketplace opportunities— sometimes massive openings in the market for you to steal market share. The objectivity that a market research professional brings to the table is essential for game-changing discoveries.
In an industry filled with small agencies, more than 90 percent lack the highly specialized market research skills required for such predictability. If you don’t have internal market research capabilities, it’s imperative you find a marketing agency with deep research chops or a dedicated marketing research shop that can bring objectivity to your research efforts.
The most common reason so few middle-market companies excel in creating predictable, high-performance marketing plans is that they don’t know how to get there. While the path isn’t simple, it’s proven. The comprehensive 12 BattlesTM Framework, when followed diligently, can transform an underperforming, unpredictable, and non-scalable marketing strategy from a cost center to a revenue generator.
By Lori Turner-Wilson, RedRover CEO/Founder, Internationally Best-Selling Author of The B2B Marketing RevolutionTM: A Battle Plan for Guaranteed Outcomes
Taking Action
Championing market research as a do-or-die investment is one of hundreds of best practices found in The B2B Marketing RevolutionTM: A Battle Plan for Guaranteed Outcomes — the playbook that middle-market B2B CEOs and marketing leaders lean on to scale. Backed by a groundbreaking research study, this book offers time-tested best practices, indispensable KPIs for benchmarking, insights on where your dollars are best spent, and, above all, the proven 12 BattlesTM Framework for generating guaranteed marketing outcomes. The B2B Marketing RevolutionTM is a battle-hardened approach to becoming an outcomes-first leader who’s ready to shake up the status quo, invest in high-payoff market research and optimization, and — yes — even torch what’s not serving your endgame.
