Lifetime Value Multipliers: How to Maximize Every Dollar Spent Across the Customer Journey

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Marketing Isn’t Magic—It’s Math (With Better Fonts)

Let’s get one thing straight: marketing isn’t a mystical art practiced by hoodie-wearing wizards who whisper to algorithms under a full moon. It’s not a vibe. It’s not a TikTok dance. It’s not even “going viral” (whatever that means anymore—your grandma’s banana bread recipe went viral in 2020, and she’s not your CMO).

Marketing is math. It’s strategy. It’s systems. It’s spreadsheets with soul. And if you’re not treating it like a business function with KPIs, ROI, and a plan that doesn’t rely on “hope” as a tactic, then you’re not doing marketing. You’re doing improv. And unless your name is Tina Fey, that’s not a growth strategy.

The Myth of the Marketing Unicorn

Somewhere along the way, we started believing that great marketing is about finding a unicorn—a single campaign, channel, or influencer that will magically 10x your business overnight. Spoiler alert: unicorns aren’t real. And if they were, they’d charge $50K per post and ghost you after the first invoice.

Real marketing is built on repeatable systems, not one-hit wonders. It’s about:

Understanding your customer better than they understand themselves
Building a funnel that doesn’t leak like a dollar-store garden hose
Testing, measuring, iterating, and optimizing like a caffeinated scientist

In other words, it’s not about finding a unicorn. It’s about building a damn horse and teaching it to run faster.

Framework: The 3M Model (Message, Market, Mechanism)

Here’s a simple framework I use with clients who are tired of throwing spaghetti at the wall and calling it strategy. It’s called the 3M Model:

1. Message

What are you saying, and why should anyone care? If your messaging sounds like it was written by ChatGPT on NyQuil, it’s time to sharpen it. Your message should punch through the noise like a toddler in a library.

2. Market

Who are you talking to? And no, “millennials who like coffee” is not a target audience—it’s half the planet. Get specific. Get weird. Find your niche and own it like it owes you money.

3. Mechanism

How are you delivering the message to the market? This is your channel strategy—email, paid ads, SEO, carrier pigeons (hey, if it works). The key is to match the mechanism to the market. Don’t try to sell B2B SaaS on Snapchat unless your ICP is 14-year-old CTOs.

Case Study: The SaaS Startup That Stopped Chasing Trends

One of our clients—a mid-stage SaaS company—was stuck in the “shiny object” loop. Every quarter, they’d pivot to the latest marketing trend: Clubhouse, NFTs, AI-generated haikus. Their pipeline looked like a Jackson Pollock painting—chaotic, colorful, and completely untrackable.

We stripped it back to the 3M Model. Refined their message to focus on one pain point. Narrowed their market to a specific vertical. Focused their mechanism on LinkedIn and email sequences. Within 90 days, pipeline increased 42%, CAC dropped 28%, and their head of marketing stopped crying in the break room.

Truth Bomb:

“Marketing isn’t about being everywhere. It’s about being in the right place, with the right message, at the right time—consistently.”

Stop Worshipping the Algorithm

Let’s talk about the algorithm gods. Too many marketers are out here sacrificing strategy at the altar of Instagram’s latest update. Here’s a radical idea: build a brand that doesn’t live or die by the whims of a social media platform run by a 24-year-old product manager named Chad.

Instead, focus on owned channels:

Your email list (still the highest ROI channel—fight me)
Your website (optimize it like it’s your best salesperson)
Your content (not just blogs—think guides, tools, calculators, memes with purpose)

Algorithms change. Audiences don’t. Build for the latter.

5 Tactical Moves You Can Make This Week

Audit your funnel: Where are leads dropping off? Plug the leaks before you pour more in.
Rewrite your homepage headline: Make it about the customer, not your product. No one cares that you’re “innovative.”
Segment your email list: Stop sending the same message to everyone. That’s not personalization—it’s laziness.
Run a win-loss analysis: Talk to recent deals—won and lost. Learn what actually moved the needle.
Kill one zombie channel: If you’re still posting on Twitter out of habit, stop. Focus on what works.

Final Word: Be the CFO’s Favorite Marketer

Here’s the dirty little secret: the best marketers aren’t the most creative. They’re the most accountable. They know their numbers. They speak in revenue, not reach. They can walk into a boardroom and explain how $1 in marketing turns into $5 in pipeline without breaking a sweat—or using a single buzzword.

So stop chasing trends. Start building systems. And remember: marketing isn’t magic. It’s math—with better fonts and a killer sense of humor.

Ready to Ditch the Fluff?

If you’re tired of marketing that sounds good but performs like a wet sock, let’s talk. Or at least connect. I promise