Executive Deal Flow: Networking Strategies for CMOs

Table of Contents

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

Networking for Deal Flow: How to Generate Executive Opportunities as a CMO

Let’s get one thing straight: marketing isn’t a mystical art practiced by hoodie-wearing wizards whispering to the algorithm gods. It’s not a vibe. It’s not a TikTok dance. It’s not even “going viral” (whatever that means anymore). Marketing is math. It’s strategy. It’s business. And yes, it’s got better fonts than finance, but that doesn’t mean it’s fluff.

If your marketing plan sounds like a horoscope—“Q3 will bring engagement and alignment with your brand’s true self”—you’re doing it wrong. Marketing is a growth engine, not a mood board. So let’s break down how to stop treating marketing like a magic trick and start treating it like the revenue-driving machine it is.

The Funnel Isn’t Dead—You Just Don’t Know How to Use It

Every few months, someone declares the marketing funnel dead. Usually, it’s someone trying to sell you a new funnel. But here’s the truth: the funnel isn’t dead. It’s just been misused, abused, and turned into a PowerPoint slide that makes your sales team roll their eyes.

The funnel still works—if you treat it like a system, not a suggestion. Here’s how to make it work like a Swiss watch (instead of a leaky bucket):

Top of Funnel (TOFU): Stop chasing impressions like they’re Pokémon. Focus on qualified reach. If your audience is “everyone,” your results will be “no one.”
Middle of Funnel (MOFU): This is where most marketers ghost their leads. Nurture them. Educate them. Don’t just send them a whitepaper and hope they call you back like it’s a bad Tinder date.
Bottom of Funnel (BOFU): Align with sales. If your BOFU content doesn’t help close deals, it’s just expensive wallpaper.

Truth Bomb:

“Marketing isn’t about making noise. It’s about making money.”

Attribution: The Marketing Version of CSI

Let’s talk about the dirty word in every CMO’s boardroom: attribution. It’s the marketing version of CSI—everyone wants to know who did it, how they did it, and why the budget is still missing.

Here’s the deal: perfect attribution is a myth. But directional attribution? That’s your best friend. You don’t need to know exactly which tweet made the sale. You need to know which channels are pulling their weight and which ones are just eating snacks in the break room.

Use a blended model. Track first touch, last touch, and multi-touch. Then triangulate like a Navy SEAL. And for the love of ROI, stop giving 100% credit to the last click. That’s like giving all the credit for a wedding to the guy who caught the bouquet.

Brand vs. Performance: Stop Choosing, Start Integrating

Ah yes, the age-old debate: brand or performance? It’s like asking if you should eat food or drink water. You need both, genius.

Brand builds trust. Performance drives action. Together, they’re peanut butter and jelly. Apart, they’re just sticky and sad.

Here’s how to integrate them like a boss:

Use brand to increase conversion rates: A strong brand makes your ads more believable. Believability = clicks. Clicks = cash.
Use performance data to inform brand strategy: If no one’s clicking on your “bold, disruptive” campaign, maybe it’s just confusing. Or worse—boring.
Align KPIs: Don’t let your brand team measure “awareness” while your performance team measures “revenue.” Get them in the same room. Preferably with snacks.

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

Here’s a simple framework I use when a startup founder corners me at a party and says, “We need marketing.” (Spoiler: they usually need therapy and a CFO.)

Message: What are you saying, and why should anyone care? If your message can’t be understood by a 7th grader or your grandma, rewrite it.
Market: Who are you talking to? Be specific. “Millennials” is not a target market. “Millennial moms who use Slack and drink oat milk” is.
Money: What’s the business goal? If your campaign doesn’t tie back to revenue, retention, or referrals, it’s just theater. And not the good kind with popcorn.

Case Study: How We Turned a SaaS Snoozefest into a Revenue Rocket

One of our clients—a B2B SaaS company with a product so boring it could put Red Bull to sleep—was stuck. Their CAC was higher than Snoop Dogg on a Tuesday, and their sales team was blaming marketing for “bad leads.” Classic.

We applied the 3M Model:

Message: We ditched the jargon and focused on outcomes. “Optimize your cloud-based infrastructure” became “Cut your IT costs by 30% in 30 days.” Boom.
Market: We narrowed their ICP from “IT professionals” to “CIOs at mid-market fintech companies.” Suddenly, their ads stopped being ignored like a LinkedIn cold pitch.
Money: We tied every campaign to pipeline contribution. Not MQLs. Not clicks. Pipeline. The CFO cried tears of joy. Or maybe it was relief.

Result? CAC dropped by 42%. Sales cycle shortened by 18 days. And the CEO stopped asking if we could “just go viral.”

Executive Deal Flow: Networking Strategies for CMOs

Table of Contents