Digital CMO's Guide to Marketing Measurement: Think Like a Submariner for Operational Success

Early in my career I had the honor to serve in the Navy on fast attack submarines. At the time, submarines were focused on intelligence gathering, strategic deterrence, and preparing to fight WWIII against the Soviets. To accomplish such missions, submariners had to operate fairly complex machinery in a hostile environment with a crew made up of personnel in their twenties. On the surface, marketing and being a submariner are not exactly similar. But as a new digital CMO at a purely inbound B2B-driven software company, the more I dug into the problem of building the operating framework for my marketing team, the more I found myself relying on the many lessons I learned as a submariner.This book attempts to simply lay out the processes and measurements required to operate a real-time, high-velocity lead generation system for B2B marketers. Included are the metrics down to suggestions about the structure of the marketing organization and even the operational meeting cadence. Some may find the detail too much for a CMO. But I will propose that CMOs must have a command of these details if any measure of their success is based on lead generation. Without this level of knowledge, a CMO would lack the understanding needed as he or she asks the tough questions required of a digital marketing organization.

A 20+ year high-tech veteran, Bryan has worked in sales and marketing leadership positions across of range of companies and sales models. These companies include Sybase, Dell, NetApp, FairMarket (eBay), and Egenera. This business career experience combined with his early work as an operations officer on a fast attack submarine, provides a unique view into the world of marketing operations. Bryan holds a BS in Systems Engineering from the US Naval Academy and an MBA from Stanford University. He blogs on measuring marketing effectiveness at www.storymetrix.com.