Dear Marketer: You’re the Reason Revenue Even Has a Chance

This is a love letter of sorts, to all those marketers feeling a bit (or a lot) downtrodden.

If you’re a marketer who feels like your work has been undervalued, misunderstood, or reduced to a line item on a budget spreadsheet, you’re not alone.

In far too many organizations, marketing has become the department of “make it pretty,” the first to get cut when budgets shrink, and the last to be credited when revenue grows. Maybe you’ve been asked to “just do more email.” Maybe you’ve been told “content doesn’t convert.” Or maybe you’ve spent months building a brand campaign only to have someone ask how many MQLs it generated in week one.

It’s frustrating—and it’s not your fault.

But here’s the truth: None of that diminishes your impact. Because marketing doesn’t just support revenue.

Marketing creates the conditions where revenue is even possible.

 

You shape the market, not just the message

Great marketing doesn’t just respond to demand. It creates it.

You reframe the problem. You spotlight unconsidered needs. You guide people to act by structuring the environment around their decisions. (That’s called choice architecture, and you use it every day.) You help buyers see why this matters now, and you design every touchpoint to nudge them through complexity—toward clarity.

That’s not fluff. That’s cognitive science in action.

And in enterprise? The decisions are slower, the buying committees are larger, and the stakes are higher. But that also means the opportunity to shape preference—and reduce friction—is massive.

 

You tap into emotion, because that’s how decisions are made

Marketing is often dismissed as “soft.” But neuroscience tells us otherwise: Emotion drives decision-making, even in B2B. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman showed that people often rely on intuitive, emotional thinking far more than analytical reasoning—especially under pressure.

Your work makes people feel something. That’s not a bonus—it’s essential. Because B2B buyers don’t just want data. They want confidence. They want to avoid risk. They want to feel good about the choice they’re making for themselves, their team, and their career.

So no, your product sheet didn’t “generate revenue.” But your campaign made someone open to hearing about it in the first place.

 

You build the brand, so sales has leverage

Without a strong brand, every sales conversation starts from zero.

And that means longer cycles, more friction—and more pressure to discount. This is loss aversion in action: When buyers don’t trust your brand, they perceive more risk and try to minimize potential loss—usually by demanding a lower price.

But when your marketing builds a brand people believe in? That trust becomes a moat. Price sensitivity drops. Shortlists shrink. Conversion rates climb. You create space for value to speak louder than cost.

 

So where did the lie come from?

The belief that marketing doesn’t generate revenue didn’t just appear—it was manufactured.

It was built by attribution software, last-click logic, and the promise that if we just had enough data, we could finally “prove” marketing’s worth. What we got instead was a narrowing of perspective.

Since 2020, the global Martech industry has skyrocketed—from US$121.5 billion to over US$509 billion in 2023 (Statista, Martech Alliance). The pressure to track everything has grown alongside the rise of AI, now used by 61.4% of marketers (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2024). AI can score leads and optimize journeys—but it still struggles to quantify belief, trust, or brand preference.

The industry built a system that rewards what’s easy to measure—not what’s most meaningful. And when that happens, we start cutting the very work that creates demand in the first place.

 

The real engine behind revenue? You

Let’s talk tactics. Email nurture, SEO, paid media, social, product marketing, influencer content, video, analyst briefings, customer stories, PR—all of it works together to shape perception and create momentum.

That’s marketing at its best:
Reducing friction.
Building emotional context.
Designing choice.
Making action feel like the obvious next step.

Revenue is the outcome. Marketing is the ecosystem that makes it possible.

 

Stop asking marketing to “prove” Itself—start measuring what matters

This isn’t about rejecting accountability. It’s about demanding better measures of value.

Attribution models are helpful. But when we optimize solely for last-touch credit, we ignore how decisions actually happen—especially in enterprise sales, where buying journeys are long, layered, and complex.

Marketing’s job isn’t to chase credit. It’s to shape context, guide attention, and create preference. When you do that well, revenue follows.

So here’s to you, marketers

To the content strategists, the brand builders, the creative rebels, the channel owners, the analysts, the planners, the social warriors, the email whisperers, the video magicians, and the marketing ops legends:

You don’t just support revenue. You spark it.
You don’t just tell stories. You shape decisions.
You don’t just report on results. You create the conditions that make results possible.

And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

P.S. Dear marketers: If you’re tired of defending marketing’s worth with a slide deck and a prayer, let’s talk. At CMD, we help B2B marketers not just prove impact—but amplify it.

Want to dig even deeper? Check out these recent CMD Perspectives:

• Three Proven Steps to Help Executives Trust Marketing More
• Reduce Marketing Waste and Boost ROI
• Marketing Strategy Is a Compass, Not a Map