B2B Marketing: How to Tie Marketing to Commercial Objectives
I talk about commercial objectives a lot. Because if marketing isn't moving the business forward, what are we actually doing?
The question I get back, often: how do you actually do that? What does it look like?
This is how I approach it.
What "commercial" actually means in marketing
In my mind, commercial means tied to revenue and growth. Not impressions, not followers, not 'brand awareness' as a standalone goal. You need to be able to draw a line from the activity to money the business is making (or going to make). If you can't draw that line, it isn't commercial. It's activity.
The 5 steps to a marketing strategy that drives revenue
Once the commercial goal is clear, the rest of the work follows a logical sequence. Five steps, from understanding the business to executing the plan.
Step 1: Define the commercial goal
The first conversation isn't about marketing. It's about commercial goals. That could be hitting a revenue number, growing into new markets, building toward an exit, increasing average deal size, or reducing churn. Whatever it is, that's the north star. Everything in the marketing strategy works backwards from there.
Step 2: Work backwards through the business
Once the goal is clear, the next step isn't to start running campaigns. It's to look at the business itself. I usually work through these questions:
Who are you actually selling to? Why them? Why you instead of a competitor?
Is the pricing right for the people and companies you're trying to reach?
What does your current customer journey look like?
Are there gaps in the sales funnel that'll stop us hitting the goal even if marketing does its job?
Are the right systems, processes, and people in place?
Step 3: Position the business and fix what's broken
Question 1 gives you enough to start positioning the business and deciding what to say.
Questions 2 to 5 are where you find what needs fixing — pricing that's off, gaps in the customer journey, a sales funnel that won't convert, or missing systems, processes and people.
I've seen it before: leave these to fix later and they'll cost more down the line, or stop you hitting the goal altogether. These aren't marketing questions. They're commercial ones. But they have to be answered before any marketing plan is worth doing.
Step 4: Map the full marketing funnel
Then we look at the full marketing funnel — awareness through to retention and expansion — and figure out where the gaps are. The funnel is matched up with the sales cycle and customer journey so everything pulls toward the north star.
In B2B marketing — especially in technical industries with long buying cycles — this end-to-end view matters. Awareness work today might pay off in 18 months. Retention and expansion are often the biggest growth levers. Anyone working on one stage without thinking about the others isn't doing marketing strategy — they're doing tactics.
Step 5: Decide KPIs, execute, track, improve
Then KPIs get decided. Execution happens. Tracking happens. Improvement happens. The KPIs need to be the ones that predict revenue — qualified leads, conversion rates, deal velocity, customer acquisition cost, lifetime value. Not the ones that look good in a monthly report.
What this looks like in practice
Two simplified examples of how the same logic plays out for very different commercial goals.
Example 1: Growing existing customer accounts
Say your research shows your existing customers are only buying one of your services when they could be buying three. The marketing response there might be a customer marketing campaign — case studies of accounts who've expanded, content showing where else you can help — that sales can use to open up the bigger conversation.
Example 2: Expanding into a new market
Or, if the goal is expanding into Spain: that could look like advertising to your target audience there to build awareness, so the market is warmer when your sales team starts selling. Different scenarios. Same logic. The marketing activity exists to serve a specific commercial goal.
Marketing needs to talk to sales and leadership more
This bit is underrated. Marketing needs to be in regular conversation with sales and leadership. Which deals are stuck, and why? Where's the funnel actually leaking? Budget goes where the problem is — not spread evenly because that's what last year's plan said. And marketing needs to be in the room when leadership sets the commercial goals. Not finding out after.
The honest part: this takes time
This isn't going to deliver revenue tomorrow. The process takes time, and from my experience, a lot of businesses aren't able or willing to give it the time it needs — which sets marketing up to fail. But in my opinion, this is the only way to do it properly. That said — there are usually quick wins along the way. Do those alongside the longer work to keep momentum and show value while the rest is being built. I also realise this is a much neater version than it'll ever be in real life. But it's a simplified take on the work we actually do as marketers — or at least how I approach mine.
Need help with your B2B marketing strategy?
If you're an SME working in a technical industry and you need marketing that ties to commercial outcomes — not just activity — get in touch with me at gemmagarcia@tinyteammarketing.com
