The CMO’s Guide To Growth Marketing: Creating Brands That Convert

2024 has truly proven to be the year when everyone learned to do more with less.

CMOs are no different when it comes to the need to deliver on growing expectations with tighter and tighter budgets, but there is something special about their portfolio that sets them up for a rather unique challenge.

Not only must they deliver campaigns that capture hearts and minds, but they must also lay the groundwork for conversions, arming sales teams with the ammunition they need to close deals.

Balancing these demands requires understanding the intricate relationship between marketing and sales, embracing brand strategies that drive growth, and boldly venturing beyond silos to unify efforts across the organization.

Getting the balance right starts with understanding where marketing begins and ends, and where sales takes over.

Growth Marketing Is A Shared Fight Where Advertising Is Air Cover, Sales Is the Hand to Hand Combat

When it comes to promoting growth, marketing and sales might act on different levels, but they should always work in tandem.

Eric Hanson, CMO at Mitel, put it most aptly in our recent conversation on the role of the CMO when he noted that “marketing provides air cover while the sales team fights hand to hand in the trenches.”

This analogy highlights a core truth of modern growth marketing: marketing and sales must function as complementary forces, each amplifying the other’s impact.

With decades of marketing experience behind him, Eric knows exactly how CMOs need to interface with all of the growth-driving forces in the firm.

“Sure, we can deliver the messaging and create awareness and the materials that make our salespeople successful, but at the end of the day, marketing doesn’t close deals, sales does,” Eric explains, highlighting how CMOs today can’t afford to labor away in silos.

“No one in the C-Suite can be successful if the others are falling behind, and the CMO’s job is to set the scene for everyone else on the growth team to meet their goals,” Eric concluded.

Accomplishing this requires a deliberate recalibration of what marketing means and what strategies are deployed, ensuring they are growth-oriented rather than purely brand-building.

Why Growth Marketing depends on Marketing and Sales Working Together to Drive Growth

The days of vanity metrics are long gone.

Marketing campaigns must now demonstrate clear pathways to revenue, creating a seamless handoff from marketing-qualified leads to sales teams.

Chris Savage, CEO of Wistia, reflects on this alignment. “One of the biggest lessons from our 2024 State of Video Report is that large budgets don’t guarantee outsized outcomes, particularly on the revenue side. Low-budget videos can easily outperform big productions, particularly when they build an authentic case for conversion, not simply awareness.”

But how exactly does a CMO build towards conversion?

Matthew Herbert, co-founder and CEO of Tracksuit, has dedicated his career to helping CMOs figure this out.

“Brand has proven to be the moat that drives sustained growth,” Matthew explains, “but if people only know your brand but aren’t considering it, you’re missing the mark.”

Growth marketing demands more than flashy ads and A-lister cover shoots. Building a brand that converts in today’s market requires a commitment to authenticity that CMOs of the past may have felt outright uncomfortable with.

Matthew emphasizes the importance of understanding where a brand stands in the eyes of the customers, and what it needs to do to meet their expectations.

“Awareness alone isn’t enough to drive sales,” he says. “You need to reach your audiences where they are and when they are ready to consider buying with materials that speak to them exactly at that moment, and getting this equation right isn’t always easy to do,” Matthew noted.

Although building a brand that converts might not be easy, it is most definitely worth it.

One way CMOs can get started with building brands that convert is by breaking down the silos in their own organizations so that the marketing aligns with every other path of the company’s growth strategy.

How CMOs Can Build Brands That Convert, Not Just Brands People Know

Perhaps the most important step a CMO can take is to reach outside of the marketing team and engage the rest of the organization deeply to understand what truly drives client conversion and growth and what doesn’t.

Eric Hanson of Mitel notes that successful CMOs often take on an orchestrating, not a dictating role.

“The better a CMO orchestrates action across the organization, pulling in data points from product management to finance, the better they’ll understand what makes the clients convert and resonate with what the company is offering,” Eric notes.

Moreover, Eric notes that “a great CMO serves as a change agent for the company, and the personal journey to grow into and within this role never really ends.”

Jim Kaskade, CEO of Conversica, highlights the role of technology in bridging some of the gaps that exist in many companies today.

“AI tools have revolutionized how marketing and sales teams collaborate,” Jim explains. “The right tools can enable teams to engage leads more effectively, ensuring no opportunity slips through the cracks, and that every churn is analyzed for lessons learned.”

Jim sees AI as a force multiplier, enabling marketers to work smarter while empowering sales teams to focus on high-value interactions.

“The technology doesn’t replace the human element, it enhances it, allowing teams to prioritize what matters most and making CMOs all the more powerful agents of change in their organizations,” he says.

The Role of AI in Growth Marketing: Driving Precision and Personalization

Nick Smith, founder of Sailes, reinforces this perspective, highlighting how AI creates a new level of precision in sales that also helps CMOs excel in their work.

“We’ve moved beyond static lists of leads to dynamic engagement strategies. AI can now tell us who to reach, when to reach them, and, most importantly, how to engage them effectively,” Nick explains, something that will be truly a game changer for CMOs.

This precision, Nick points out, comes from addressing real-world challenges rather than chasing hype, a fact marketers should keep in mind.

“We built our sales tools to tackle specific pain points our clients have, like how to improve personalization at scale or how to prioritize leads effectively. When AI is deployed at the intersection of sales and marketing correctly, it does more than boost efficiency. It helps the entire organization connect with prospects in a more genuine and conversion-bound manner.”

Nick also emphasizes the iterative nature of using AI in sales and marketing collaboration.

“AI tools should evolve with your teams. The best systems get smarter over time, learning from every interaction and refining strategies to align even more closely with customer needs.”

For CMOs, this means embracing tools that enable real-time collaboration and data sharing, ensuring everyone from the C-suite to the sales floor has access to the insights they need to succeed.

The challenges of growth marketing are immense, but so are the opportunities. As Eric Hanson from Mitel notes, “The CMO’s role is all about playing the long game while also delivering short-term results. If you can do both, you and the company win.”

No one knows what the coming year has in store, but one thing is certain; as CMOs navigate the challenges ahead they must remain focused on what drives growth, both today and tomorrow.