How I run marketing
Three pillars you can measure — so marketing compounds instead of scrambles.
- Problem
- When I took over, marketing mostly did things because we'd always done them. Plenty of activity, talented people — but ask "why are we doing this?" and the honest answer was "because we always have," or a shrug. There were no campaigns, no shared model for why any of it mattered, and it all leaned on organic inbound with no backup when that dipped.
- Approach
- I gave the work a why. I brought in real campaigns — and the systems to deliver them — and organised the whole function around three pillars you can measure on their own terms: Brand (the demand-influence layer), Market Sensing (the strategic-intelligence layer), and Lead Gen (the growth layer). They behave like connected vessels — a stronger brand and a sharper read on the market make lead gen easier, and lead gen turns all of it into qualified pipeline. On top of that: result-based areas of responsibility with health KPIs, a content pipeline, SCRUM for cadence, and a written manual so the system outlives any one person. The habit underneath all of it — measure what we do, ask why, and put more weight on the parts that perform.
- Result
- It added up to the best pipeline year in the company's history. In 2025 the wider business delivered roughly 150% of its new-business revenue target — marketing's job there was to build the brand and the pipeline that made it possible; sales and delivery carried it home. And it held on a deliberately strict bar: what we count as an MQL is closer to what most teams call an SQL — a real fit-and-intent buyer, not a form fill. I inherited a team and have spent the time since rebuilding and reorganising the function around it.