What is the most essential skill in modern marketing? It’s not just tactical know-how, technological capabilities, copywriting, SEO, or even a deep understanding of the customer. While all of these aspects are important, the key factor ultimately lies in your understanding of the business itself.
In the rapidly evolving, AI-driven landscape of future marketing, having a strong understanding of business is the key skill that sets successful marketers apart from the average ones. This understanding is crucial for thriving in a competitive environment. In this article, I will explore various aspects of business knowledge from a marketing perspective.
Where does the money come from?
Understanding a company’s value chain and revenue channels is essential for effective marketing that drives business results. Key questions to consider include: Who pays for the service or product? What are they actually paying for? How is value created and delivered throughout the value chain? These questions should be at the core of every marketer’s thinking.
From business objectives to measurable insights to actionable initiatives
Marketing is not a standalone function; it must be directly connected to business objectives through clearly defined frameworks like OKR (Objectives and Key Results). The process should always flow from strategic business goals to measurable indicators and, ultimately, to tactical actions. Without this connection, marketing runs the risk of becoming a disconnected cost center.
Profitability
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is often the default metric in digital campaigns, but it doesn’t capture the full picture. A deeper understanding of ROI (Return on Investment) includes overheads, customer acquisition costs, margins, and lifetime value. Marketers who understand profitability can better prioritize resources and justify investments.
Also read:
Measuring B2B Marketing Results and ROI: Key Insights and Tips
B2B Marketing KPIs — What Every B2B Marketer Should Know
Sales process and customer pipeline
Marketing and sales must be aligned in how they understand the customer journey. This includes knowing the stages of the sales funnel, recognizing purchase behaviors, and identifying bottlenecks in the pipeline. Marketers who have a solid understanding of business collaborate closely with the sales team to ensure that messaging, timing, and strategies are synchronized throughout the entire process.
Additional resources:
Is Your Sales Funnel Stuck? How to Boost the B2B Sales & Marketing Pipeline
Customer needs and lifetime value
Knowing what problems your product or service solves is key to building meaningful content and campaigns. But understanding how customer value develops over time is what makes marketing sustainable. This means tracking and increasing the lifetime value of customers through retention, upselling, and continued engagement strategies. If you keep chasing quick wins, such as easy conversions or leads, you may be misallocating your marketing investments and inhibiting sustainable long-term growth.
Brand and competition
Your position in the market isn’t just about your product or features, but the perception your brand holds. A strong understanding of competitive dynamics, demand, and your own brand’s role within the industry is essential. Reputation and brand equity are long-term business assets that marketing must actively build and protect.
If you want to succeed in marketing, drive results, stand out from the competition, and utilize AI technologies without fearing they will replace you, learn the business. This will give you an edge, whether you are an employee, business executive, or agency, to be at the core of a successful business, where marketing is deservedly seen as an essential growth-driver instead of a cost center that it often is.
You might also be interested in this:
Generative AI in Digital Marketing: 3 Examples
Add This Marketing-Focused CustomGPT to Your Marketing Toolkit