A Powerful (But Not Easy) Way to Boost the Influence of Marketing

In my latest three posts (here, here, and here), I've been discussing the widely-held perception among marketers that the marketing function in most companies has less influence than it should have - and less influence than it once had.

Some research studies (like this one) have shown that the influence of the marketing organization has declined over the past 2 - 3 decades.

In my previous posts, I've argued that the rise of business strategy has had a significant impact on the role of the marketing function. Over the past sixty years, strategy has become the primary mechanism senior business leaders use to make major decisions about the future of their business and create their gameplan for success.

This development has affected the marketing function for two reasons.

First, the formulation of a complete business strategy will require several decisions that most marketers would call "marketing" decisions. For example, strategy makers must decide how to segment their industry, what their target market will be, and how they will deliver compelling value to their target customers. Most marketers would say these are classic marketing decisions. Think Segmentation-Targeting-Positioning. 

Second, strategy development in most companies is the responsibility of the CEO and usually involves some or all of the company's C-level executives.

So, the bottom line is that the rise of strategy has transformed some "marketing" decisions into "strategy" decisions and changed who typically makes those decisions. This doesn't make the marketing function's loss of influence inevitable, but it does change what marketing leaders need to do to preserve - and even raise - that influence.

In essence, marketing leaders must recognize that how much influence they possess will be largely determined by how much they contribute to (a) the success of their company's strategy, and (b) the effectiveness of their company's strategy development process.

In my last post, I argued that marketing leaders must perform two core jobs well to raise their influence.

First, they must ensure that their teams are creating and running marketing communication programs and performing other marketing activities that support their company's business strategy. I discussed this task in detail in my last post.

Provide Strategy-Critical Intelligence

The second core job is equally important, but less frequently discussed, at least in a detailed way. To increase their level of influence, marketing leaders need to provide their company's strategy development team the information and insights they need to make sound strategic decisions.

The choices that senior business leaders make when developing a business strategy are high-stakes decisions that will have a major impact on their company's competitive success. Therefore, those choices should be made on the basis of detailed and reliable information about the company's capabilities and its competitive environment.

More specifically, strategy developers need detailed and reliable intelligence about their company's industry, its potential customers, and its competitors. I've use the term intelligence intentionally because what strategy developers need is not simply raw data, but data that's accompanied by a sound analysis of that data.

The following outline shows that major kinds of information marketing leaders need to provide to the senior business leaders who comprise their company's strategy development team. This outline is not exhaustive. It contains the types of information that apply to most companies, but additional or other information can be important based on a company's specific situation.

Providing the information shown in this outline, along with adequate supporting evidence, won't be a trivial undertaking for marketing leaders in many companies. The intelligence needed for strategy development differs from the data many marketers now routinely collect. Therefore, providing this intelligence will require a fairly significant amount of research.

The amount of work required to perform this job well can be substantial, but the payoff justifies the effort. When a company's strategy makers have access to relevant and accurate industry, customer, and competitor intelligence, they are more likely to make sound strategic choices, which will ultimately make the company more successful.

For marketing leaders, performing this job well will enhance their influence and, by extension, the influence and stature of the marketing organization. When the CEO and other company leaders view the senior marketing leader as a trusted source of the industry, customer, and competitor intelligence that will help them formulate better business strategy, they will place greater value on, and give greater weight to, the view and perspectives of the marketing leader.

Top image courtesy of Joshua Tree National Park via Flickr (Public Domain).

How to Elevate the Influence of the Marketing Function

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Many marketers believe that the marketing function in most companies doesn't have as much influence as it should have. In my last two posts (here and here), I discussed why this circumstance developed, and I argued that one of the main causes was the rise of strategy as a business discipline.

Over the past five decades, strategy development has become the dominant process senior business leaders use to create their gameplan for success. Developing a complete business strategy requires company leaders to make several decisions involving customers, competitors, and other market-related factors. 

As a result, the strategy development process essentially transformed a number of "marketing" issues into "strategy" issues.

So, how can marketing leaders increase the influence of the marketing function under these circumstances? To accomplish this goal, the marketing function must perform two core tasks effectively.

• It must create and run programs that support the company's chosen business strategy.

• It must provide the company's senior leaders information and insights that can enable them to make sound strategic choices.

At first glance, these tasks may seem obvious, but they are more nuanced than they first appear. And when they are done properly, they will boost the influence of the marketing function.

I'll discuss the first task in this post, and I'll cover the second task in my next post.

Job 1 - Run Programs That Support Company Strategy

The first job of the marketing function in any company is to create and execute marketing programs that support the company's chosen strategy.

This job may seem easy to understand, but what does "support" the strategy actually mean in operational terms? How can we determine that any marketing program meets the "support" requirement?

In my last post, I introduced the strategy framework developed by Roger Martin, one of today's leading authorities on business strategy. Martin describes strategy as the answers to the five interrelated questions shown in the following illustration:

The answers to these questions constitute the five core elements of a complete business strategy.

• "What is our winning aspiration?" - A description of what strategic success looks like for the company.

• "Where will we play?" - A description of the company's target market.

• "How will we win?" - A description of how the company will deliver distinct and superior value to its target customers.

• "What capabilities must be in place?" - A description of the activities the company must excel at performing to be successful with its "where-to-play" and "how-to-win" choices.

• "What management systems are required?" - A description of the management and measurement systems the company needs to support its other strategic choices.

Martin has also written that the primary job of a company's functional units (e.g. marketing, human resources, manufacturing, etc.) is to provide the essential capabilities and the required management systems identified in the company's strategy.

Martin's approach is useful for marketers because it establishes boundaries or "guardrails" for marketing plans, and helps ensure that marketing programs actually support the company's strategy.

For example, this approach requires that:

• Every marketing communication program should be specifically designed to reach, or create engagement with, potential buyers in the target market(s) identified in the company's strategy.

• All marketing communication programs should describe and present the value provided by the company's products or services in ways that are aligned with the "how-to-win" element of the company's strategy.

• The metrics used to measure the effectiveness of marketing programs should be designed to measure performance in the target market(s) identified in the company's strategy.

The credibility and influence of the marketing function are enhanced when this task is performed well, and when the senior marketing leader effectively communicates the rationale for marketing's activities to the CEO and other senior company leaders.

Performing this job well demonstrates to the CEO and other senior executives that the senior marketing leader and the other members of the marketing team understand the company's strategy and are applying their marketing expertise to make the company's strategy successful.

What the Rise of Strategy Meant (and Means) for Marketing

Many marketers now believe that the marketing function in many companies has less influence than it should have - or once had.

As one example, they frequently point out that the marketing function is usually responsible for creating and running promotional programs, but often has little or no influence over the other three "Ps" of the marketing mix - product, price, and place.

The idea that the fundamental purpose of a business is to understand customer wants and needs, and create products or services to satisfy those wants and needs emerged in the 1950s. As this concept gained traction, many marketing scholars embraced the view that the marketing function in a well-managed company would direct much of what the company does.

In my last post, I explained that the marketing function in most companies never gained the broad authority that marketing scholars anticipated. What actually happened was that strategy development became the primary mechanism senior company leaders used to make major decisions about the future of their business.

Over the past six decades, the strategy discipline has become the dominant method for describing the purpose of a business and creating the "recipe" for its success. In the words of Walter Kiechel:

"Strategy's coming to dominance as the framework by which companies understand what they're doing and want to do, the construct through which and around which the rest of their efforts are organized, eclipses any other change worked in the intellectual landscape of business over the past fifty years." (Emphasis in original) [Walter Kiechel, III, The Lords of Strategy:  The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World (Boston:  Harvard Business Press, 2010)].

The rise of strategy to the dominant position in the hierarchy of business management tools effectively prevented the marketing function from gaining expansive decision-making authority in most, though not all, companies.

To understand how this happened, we need to look at what a complete strategy encompasses and where strategy is made in most organizations.

The What and Who of Strategy

Roger Martin, one of today's leading authorities on strategy, defines strategy this way:  ". . . strategy is an integrated set of choices that uniquely position the firm in the industry so as to create sustainable advantage and superior value relative to the competition." [A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin, Playing to Win:  How Strategy Really Works (Boston:  Harvard Business Review Press, 2013)].

Martin goes on to describe strategy as the answers to five interrelated questions. The following illustration shows Martin's five core strategy questions and some of the subordinate questions that business leaders must answer to create a complete strategy.

Veteran marketers will recognize that answering some of these questions will require strategy makers to use several marketing principles and methods.

For example, the "Where will we play?" question will require strategy makers to decide whether and how to segment their market and select their target market. And the "How will we win?" question will require them to determine how they will deliver value to customers that is distinct from, and superior to, the value offered by competitors.

The rise of strategy also constrained the marketing function's decision-making authority because of who formulates strategy. In most companies, strategy development was (and still is) led by the CEO, and usually involves some or all of the company's C-level executives.*

So, as senior company leaders increasingly used strategy to define the purpose of their business and create their gameplan for success, they absorbed several market-related decisions into the strategy development process. As a result, those decisions became "strategy" decisions rather than "marketing" decisions.

Under these circumstances, the influence of the marketing function across the company will be largely based on the contribution it makes to the success of the company's strategy.

To maximize the influence of the marketing function, most marketing leaders will need to reframe the function's mission and objectives to make clear that the function's first priority is to support the company's strategy and strategy-making process.

In my next post, I'll explain how marketing leaders can use this approach to increase their influence with other senior company leaders and enhance the influence of the marketing function throughout the company.

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*In larger enterprises with multiple business units or brands, each business unit and brand will likely require a distinct strategy. These strategies are typically developed by each business unit leader or brand manager with input from his or her leadership team.

Top image courtesy of  Stefan Erschwender via Flickr (CC).

Has the Influence of the Marketing Function Declined?

(David Packard, the co-founder and former Chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, once said, "Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department." This post explains why Packard's view is accurate but why it's also not necessarily an indictment of the marketing function.) 

A Perceived Loss of Influence

There is a widespread perception in the marketing community that the marketing function has been marginalized at many companies, that the influence of the marketing organization is not as broad or as strong as it once was.

Marketers frequently cite two circumstances as symptomatic of marketing's diminished stature and influence.

First, marketers often describe the lack of influence in terms of the 4Ps of the marketing mix. They note that in many companies, the marketing function is responsible for designing and executing promotional activities and programs, but has little influence over product, price, or place.

Marketers have also observed that senior marketing leaders often don't play a prominent role in the formulation of their company's business strategy.

Recent surveys by Marketing Week and McKinsey & Company have shown that one or both of these circumstances exist at many companies.

So, has the influence of the marketing function actually declined over the past several years, as many marketers believe? Or, is this perception the result of an inflated view of marketing's influence in the past?

To answer these questions, we need to take a brief tour of marketing history beginning about seven decades ago.

The Emergence of the Marketing Concept

In the 1950's, companies began to adopt a new guiding philosophy for achieving business success. This philosophy came to be called the marketing concept, and its core principle was what we might today call "customer centricity."

According to the marketing concept, business leaders should first develop an in-depth understanding of customer needs and wants, and then use that understanding to create products or services that will meet those needs and wants better than competitors. Furthermore, all organizational functions of the company should be aligned on the primary purpose of satisfying customer needs and wants.

Management icon Peter Drucker provided an early statement of the marketing concept as a management philosophy in his 1954 book, The Practice of Management, when he wrote:

"There is only one valid definition of business purpose:  to create a satisfied customer. It is the customer who determines what the business is. Because it is its purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two - and only these two - basic functions:  marketing and innovation."

By the 1960's, the philosophical principles of the marketing concept had become well established in business thinking, and many marketing scholars had embraced an expansive view of the role and authority of the marketing function.

In his 1960 marketing textbook, Basic Marketing:  A Managerial Approach, E. Jerome McCarthy, the creator of the 4Ps model of the marketing mix, described the authority of the marketing function in exceptionally broad terms when he wrote:

". . . marketing should determine what products are to be produced (product development, design, and packaging) what prices to charge (credits and collections and pricing policy), and where they are to be available (warehousing and transportation) - as well as selling and advertising."

Other marketing textbooks soon began describing the role and authority of the marketing function in similar terms, and as a result, many marketers came to believe that a powerful marketing function was the norm in well-managed companies.

What Actually Happened

This belief, while widespread, was never completely accurate,* and it's clearly not accurate today. Recent research suggests that the marketing function in most companies does not have the broad authority and responsibilities the marketing scholars of the 1960's described.

A study published in the May 2023 issue of the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science found that only 17% of the companies included in the study had marketing functions that controlled all marketing decisions and set their company's growth agenda.

The influence of the marketing function may have declined in some companies over the past several years, but in most companies, the marketing function never wielded the broad authority many marketing scholars had anticipated.

What actually happened in most companies is that strategy became the preferred way for senior company leaders to make major decisions about the future of their business. And because a sound strategy must address several important marketing issues, senior company leaders began making major marketing decisions as part of the strategy development process.

Therefore, in companies with a mature strategy development process, the marketing function doesn't fully control all marketing decisions. I frequently hear or see marketers complain about "non-marketers" making marketing decisions, and clearly the risk for mistakes increases when the people making marketing decisions don't understand basic marketing principles. However, when marketing is defined broadly, such decision making is probably inevitable and may, in fact, be necessary and beneficial.

Peter Drucker viewed marketing as a general management responsibility. In his 1973 classic, Management Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, Drucker wrote:

"Marketing is so basic that it cannot be considered a separate function . . . it is, first, a central dimension of the entire business . . . Concern and responsibility for marketing must, therefore, permeate all areas of the enterprise."

To maximize the influence of the marketing functions in these circumstances, marketing leaders must develop capabilities and perform activities that are specifically designed to support their company's chosen business strategy and strategy-making process. I'll discuss the ascendancy of strategy in more detail and explain how marketing leaders can accomplish these tasks in my next two posts.

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*Marketing functions with broad responsibilities and decision-making authority did exist, primarily in large consumer package goods (CPG) companies that had adopted brand management structures and processes. Proctor & Gamble invented the brand management function in the 1930's, and by the late 1950's, it had been widely implemented by U.S. CPG companies. These companies may have inspired the view of the marketing function advanced by marketing scholars.

Image courtesy of Virtual EyeSee via Flickr (CC).

Looking Back, Looking Forward - 2026 Edition

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The beginning of a new year is what behavioral scientists call a temporal landmark - a date that is more meaningful than others. Temporal landmarks often prompt us to make significant life changes or commit to pursuing new goals.

If you doubt the power of temporal landmarks, just consider how often we make "New Year's resolutions" to lose weight or begin a regular exercise program.

Like many marketers, I used the final few weeks of 2025 to reflect on what happened during the year and plan for 2026. For the past few years, I've used my first post of the new year to review a few of the major developments that occurred in B2B marketing during the year just ended, and preview some of the topics I'll be writing about in the year ahead.

So, here's a look back at 2025 and a look forward to 2026.

Looking Back - Another "Year of AI"

Artificial intelligence was one of the hottest topics in marketing in 2025, as it was in 2024 and 2023. OpenAI's release of ChatGPT in November 2022 ignited an arms race of epic proportions among the mega-cap technology companies.

As a result, the performance of the large language models that power generative AI has been increasing at an exponential rate, and the number of software applications incorporating AI in some form has exploded.

Despite the obvious importance of the subject, I did not publish a single post in 2025 that focused primarily on AI. I decided to steer clear of the topic because an abundance of information about AI is available from other reliable sources.

If you want to stay on top of what's happening in the AI space, I strongly recommend that your subscribe to Christopher Penn's newsletter. Penn is my go-to resource for insightful and pragmatic commentary on the latest advances in AI. His December 14, 2025 newsletter contains an excellent review of the major developments in AI that occurred in 2025.

Looking Back - B2B Brand Building Gains Traction

After languishing in the shadow of demand generation/performance marketing for nearly two decades, B2B brand marketing seems to be on the cusp of a renaissance. The volume of content highlighting the importance of having a strong B2B brand has increased dramatically over the past couple of years.

The growing interest in B2B brand building can be attributed to several factors. For one thing, many B2B marketers are finding that marketing tactics that worked well only a few years ago have become less effective.

In addition, several recent research studies have provided insights about the real-world B2B buying process that make the value of a strong B2B brand abundantly clear. The most recent research addressing this issue is the 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Study by 6sense, which I wrote about in November.  

We are still in the early stages of the resurgence of B2B brand building, but the momentum is real, and I expect it will continue to build in 2026.

Looking Forward

Each year, I try to identify a small group of issues or circumstances that I believe will play a prominent role in B2B marketing during the coming year. These issues or circumstances will provide the themes for many of my posts here.

In 2026, one set of issues I plan to focus on relates to the scope of authority and responsibility of the senior marketing leader and the marketing organization in a B2B company.

There is a widespread belief in the marketing community that the role and influence of the marketing function are more narrow today than they were in the past. Many marketers describe this issue in terms of the 4P's of the marketing mix.

In Marketing Week's 2025 Career & Salary Survey, over 88% of the responding marketers said they or someone within their team have influence over advertising (promotion). But:

• Only 48.5% said they have influence over product development
• Only 34.1% said they have influence over price
• Only 32.7% said they have influence over place

Others describe the issue in terms of marketing's lack of involvement in the business strategy development process at many companies. For example, in a 2024 survey by McKinsey & Company, only half of the surveyed CMOs said that marketing executives are involved in the strategic planning process at their organization.

In my upcoming posts, I'll discuss this issue, and I'll explore what the role and primary responsibilities of the marketing organization should be in a well-managed B2B company.

Here's to a year of successful marketing in 2026.

Three "Ugly Duckling" Posts From 2025

A couple of weeks ago, I published the list of my ten most popular posts of 2025. I ranked posts based on cumulative total reads, which means that posts published later in the year were at a major disadvantage compared to those published earlier in the year.

Several posts that I published in the second half of 2025 have attracted a significant number of readers, but not quite enough to crack the top ten list. In a way, these posts are like the ugly duckling in the much-loved fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. They just need more time for their popularity to become evident.

Before I close the books on 2025, I wanted to highlight a few of these ugly duckling posts that, with time, will become beautiful swans.

So, in case you missed any of them, here are three posts from this year that are worth reading as you wrap up 2025 and move into 2026.

[Research Round-Up] 6sense Study Provides Critical Insights on B2B Buyer Behavior

Source:  6sense

This post summarized some of the major findings of the 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Study conducted by 6sense. The 2025 study is the third edition of 6sense's B2B buyer experience research, with previous studies being conducted in 2024 and 2023.

All of the 6sense buyer experience studies have provided valuable, and occasionally counterintuitive, insights about the real-world attitudes and behaviors of business buyers.

My post discussing the 2024 edition of the study made this year's top ten list, and I expect this post to attract similar interest over time.

What Has (and Hasn't) Changed in B2B Marketing 

A substantial majority of experienced B2B marketers would probably say that the last two decades have been a period of unprecedented change in B2B marketing.

Over the past twenty years, we have witnessed the proliferation of marketing channels, the explosive growth of marketing technologies, and the appearance of several new marketing techniques.

During the same period, we've also seen the introduction of an array of "new" concepts and models describing the B2B buying process and exploring the role of marketing in the revenue growth of B2B companies.

While it's obviously essential for marketers to keep on top of significant changes in their profession, it's equally important that they remember what things haven't changed.

In this post, I used excerpts from a 1972 book by Frederick E. Webster and Yoram Wind to make the point that many of the core principles of marketing and buyer behavior have changed very little.

Long Live the 4P's

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The 4P's model of the marketing mix was introduced by E. Jerome McCarthy, a marketing professor at Notre Dame, in his 1960 marketing textbook. McCarthy's model quickly became popular, and it's been a core part of the marketing curriculum at virtually all universities for decades.

Despite its popularity and longevity, the 4P's model has been criticized for a variety of reasons, and several marketing academics and other pundits have offered alternatives that are designed to address the perceived limitations of McCarthy's original model. So, we now have the "7P's," the "7C's," and the "5B's," among others.

A recent salvo of criticism aimed at the 4P's was fired by Joanne Seddon, the CEO of the Marketing Accountability Standards Board, in a article published this fall at WARC.

In this post, I used excerpts from McCarthy's 1960 textbook to demonstrate that most criticisms of the 4P's model, including Ms. Seddon's, are misplaced.

Top image courtesy of Lando Mollari via Flickr (CC).

Our 10 Most Popular Posts of 2025

This will be my last regularly scheduled post for 2025, and I want to thank everyone who has spent some of his or her valuable time reading this blog. My goal here has always been to provide content that readers will find informative, thought-provoking, and useful, and I've been immensely gratified by the attention and engagement this blog has received.

For several years, I've used my last post of the year to share which posts have been most widely read. For this list, I'm only considering posts published in 2025, and I've ranked the posts based on cumulative total reads. Therefore, those published early in the year have a significant advantage.

So, in case you missed any of them, here are our ten most popular posts of 2025.

     1.     Cracking the Code on Strategic ABM Success

     2.     Why We Need a New Model of B2B Marketing 

     3.     The Recipe for Content That Creates Mental Availability

     4.     Thought Leadership or Brand - Which Matters More to "Hidden Buyers"?

     5.     Six Key Steps to Winning CFO (and CEO) Support for Increased Investment in Brand Marketing

     6.     When the Most Important Goal in B2B Marketing Is to be Remembered

     7.     [Book Review] A Playbook for Leading Marketing In a VUCA (Volatile-Uncertain-Complex-Ambiguous) World

     8.     [Research Round-Up] Two Surveys Take the Pulse of Senior Marketers

     9.     [Research Round-Up] A Detailed Look at Real-World B2B Buying

    10.     How to Make Sustainability Marketing Effective Marketing 

Happy holidays to everyone, and best wishes for a great 2026!

Illustration courtesy of Dark Dwarf via Flickr (CC).