AI has conflated the entire marketing profession into selling and reselling “hot leads” scraped by AI and resold in what looks suspiciously like a pyramid scheme. It’s not AI. It’s basically mail-merge circa 1994, with a fresh coat of paint and some machine learning buzzwords. Everyone wants leads, and “growth” is king. 

But Marketing with a capital M is far broader. It’s about stewarding the company’s story and credibility across all stakeholders. Revenue matters. But it’s a bit like acceleration - if you are in a drag race, acceleration is everything, if you’re in a longer race, you need a strategy - when to push, when to brake, when to pit, and how do deal with things when you get shunted into the wall.

Clarifying Roles: CMO vs. CRO

If revenue is the top priority, then give Revenue a seat in in the C-Suite. Let the CRO deal with the “I can get you 5000 qualified leads in a month” snake-oil merchants.

The CMO’s remit is broader: perception, trust, and narrative across all stakeholders. Importantly, the CRO and the sales team are internal customers of Marketing - Just another stakeholder group, alongside investors, employees, partners, and regulators.

To go back to the motorsport metaphor - the CRO is the driver, foot to the floor, chasing the wins, fighting the competitors to get it over the line. The CMO is more like the race-strategist or Race Engineer. It's a two way relationship - with the driver giving important feedback about the on-track conditions or feedback through the steering wheel so that the product can be improved. 

Marketing with a Capital M: A Stakeholder Model

Marketing is the discipline of managing credibility with every constituency that matters. Not all Marketing’s customers generate revenue directly, but they can have a big impact on growth:

• Investors who are betting on the vision. In our motorsport metaphor, these are the Sponsors - the people who pay the bills and allow you to develop the most competitive package.
• Employees and talent who choose where to work based on story, culture, and trajectory. The race teams that win have the best people - not just the best drivers, but the best designers, and engineers and pit crew.
• Customers who stick around when they believe in the brand. The fans - some will be loyal and need to be rewarded, some will judge your mistakes harshly.
• Partners, Regulators, Media and The Market can work with you, or against you, depending on your messaging and behaviour. Your choice of engine manufacturer or tire supplier can make or break your race.
• The CRO & Sales as an internal stakeholder that relies on marketing for clarity, positioning, and narrative firepower. Despite what the ‘AI lead fairies’ promise. The funnel will not fill itself.

Ignore these groups, and the company can grow revenue for a while—but it’s building on shaky ground.

Where Marketing is Central (Even When It’s Not About Revenue)

1. Fundraising
   Investors don’t just buy spreadsheets. In capital M Marketing, the CMO helps frame the category, the market opportunity, the product, the pricing and the go to market strategy. Marketing is about building long-term brand value that results in higher valuations by multiplying revenue e.g. Apple or Tesla.
2. Competing for Talent
   The best people have choice. They don’t have to work for you, they might not even want to work for you. Perhaps, an an age of AI, you don’t need as many people, but maybe you are in one of those markets where there is massive shortage of a certain kind of talent. Your employer brand and reputation are often the deciding factor in whether they even apply.
3. Reducing Churn / Navigating Maturity
   Every company eventually hits a plateau. Retention becomes the oxygen of the business. In a B2B world, the client services teams and the account management teams have a role to play in keeping the revenue from existing customers, but Marketing needs to work harder than ever to keep the brand relevant in a competitive market where shiny new competitors appear all the time, or macro shifts change the business model.
4. Damage Control
   Probably buried somewhere down in a risk assessment document is how to respond when things go wrong. When scandal, failure, or accidents happen, it’s too late to Google “Crisis Management PR companies”. What you say, how you say it, often determines whether you recover or spiral. Maybe you say - this won’t happen to us, but even a bad review on an app store or a 1 star rating from an influencer could have a massive impact on revenue. If you haven’t got a plan for this - even if it is an edge case, then ask your Fractional CMO to build one.
5. Other Arenas
   Partnerships, regulators, and communities all have an impact on your trajectory. Marketing manages those relationships too, quietly shaping long-term viability. Next time the conference organiser of the biggest trade-show in your market wants a key-note speaker, they need to be thinking of you. That’s not a revenue generation exercise, that’s part of your event marketing strategy and thought leadership plan - both of which sit under marketing.

The Investor and Founder Lens

For founders: separating the CMO and CRO roles early is clarifying. It prevents turf wars and makes leadership alignment stronger. Sales is a stakeholder of Marketing, but not its master.

For investors: portfolio companies that invest in capital-M marketing are less fragile. They raise more smoothly, attract better talent, and are more resilient when things go sideways. That means a healthier portfolio and stronger exit outcomes.

A CRO may have to be a full-time gig, but it could be combined with another role e.g. COO or even CEO, depending on the founding team’s capabilities. It probably makes sense for the CMO to be a fractional role - at least early on.

To finish first, first you have to finish. The CEO is the team principal, the CMO is the race strategist, and the CRO is the driver. The strategist and principal must deliver the driver a car, engine and tire package that can compete, but the driver can’t just keep the pedal pinned. Everyone wants the win - the sponsors (investors), the fans (customers), the crew (employees). Sometimes that means backing off the accelerator, conserving the tires, managing fuel, and waiting for the right time to overtake. Nobody wants to see the car in the wall at turn one.