3 reasons your growth marketing team may not be a growth driver

Digital MarketingSales Marketing AlignmentGrowthGTMAISEO

May 28

Is your in-house marketing team driving revenue growth effectively? Sometimes, internal blockers can hinder the team’s performance. Below are three key issues that could prevent your growth marketing team from reaching its full potential.

#1 Digital competency in the growth marketing team

Competence profiles in in-house growth marketing teams can vary widely, and it can be challenging to attract top-tier growth marketing talent, who often seek continuous skill development and career progression.

This has never been more critical than now, when new AI tools are continuously emerging and the future of SEO is uncertain amidst new emerging AI solutions.

👉 Read also: AI-first brand awareness: Adapt your brand strategy for LLM visibility.

In siloed and misaligned sales-marketing organisations, a skilled growth marketer could end up only creating PowerPoint presentations or managing social media accounts.

To attract the best in-house growth marketing talent, make sure

Your growth marketing strategy is mature and is driving the company’s business objectives.
The marketing team leader is the captain at the helm and drives this strategy, and
is also coaching the growth marketing team, creating good marketing-sales processes, and offering growth marketing training in areas of lower expertise.
Marketing and Sales teams are aligned with shared revenue-based KPIs and goals.

#2 Data-driven: more talk about the data, less action?

Growth marketing teams can collect and analyse vast amounts of data, but often they focus on readily available data rather than the data that drives business growth. It can also sometimes be difficult to find access to the right data to track.

Data ownership can be dispersed across various teams, including revenue management, sales, marketing, and customer service, making it hard to gain needed insights.

This can lead to (futile) marketing reporting that highlights various metrics and numbers, but does not report on the business impact of marketing.

Marketing KPIs and objectives must be linked to company growth, sales and revenue growth.

This cannot be achieved without creating a clear alignment between the Marketing and Sales teams:

Aligned understanding of the digital customer journey
Shared revenue-based KPIs for both teams,
Shared key initiatives for both teams,
New marketing-sales processes and
Sales-Marketing SLA to make sure both teams commit to shared goals.

#3 Unclear marketing ROI

Some growth marketing teams struggle to quantify the return on marketing investments at the revenue level. There can also be uncertainty among company management about whether their marketing team is adequately resourced and if marketing activities are yielding optimal returns.

If the management is uncertain of the impact or proper resourcing of the growth marketing team, my advice is to use an outsourced growth marketing consultant to audit the current status and offer solutions for short-term & long-term growth paths.

It's crucial to define marketing ROI, determine appropriate marketing budgets, resources, KPIs and objectives, and systematically start tracking marketing performance and marketing-driven revenue.

This means taking a new strategic approach to growth marketing that links marketing to sales and company growth.

Transform your growth marketing team into a growth machine

Assess with an expert your current marketing efforts, pinpoint what works and what doesn't, identify obstacles, and discover ways to boost performance with a new short-term/long-term marketing strategy for accelerating growth.
Optimise both your Sales and Marketing performance to drive revenue, resource these teams wisely, and create cost savings.

Unlock your in-house growth marketing team's potential by removing growth blockers, allowing for a lean Sales-Marketing engine.