Forbes recently asked our CEO and Chief Storyteller, Jennifer Schenberg, a deceptively simple question: What is the one shift you’ve made in how you report marketing to your CEO that actually changed how they value marketing? For those of us in communications, the question hits just as hard. Her answer came down to one action: collaboration.
The problem with metrics alone
Every marketing report tells your CEO what happened. A prospect entered the pipeline. A deal closed. A customer said yes to an upsell. The numbers are accurate, the charts are organized, but none of them explain the part your CEO actually cares about: why. Why did a prospect agree to a meeting? Why did that deal close when three others stalled? Why did that customer add the new module?
Metrics capture the outcome but lose the cause. And when marketing can only report outcomes, CEOs will keep seeing it as a cost center instead of a revenue driver.
Strategic friction is the shift
The change Jennifer made as a CMO-in-residence was to build “strategic friction” into the process: consistent conversations with the people closest to the customer, in sales and customer success. It’s friction by design. It takes time and deliberate effort, and that’s exactly why it works.
Sales knows why a deal really closed. Customer success knows why a client stayed or grew. Those insights rarely show up in a CRM because they live in conversations. Pulling that qualitative context into the reporting is what turns a list of marketing metrics into a revenue story.
Instead of “we generated 20 leads,” the report becomes “here’s why these accounts entered the pipeline, what moved them, and how that connects to revenue.” That’s a story a CEO can act on.
Why the human element wins
The instinct in modern marketing is to solve every reporting problem with more data or better software. But the shift that changed our client CEO valued marketing and PR wasn’t another tool. It was human collaboration, the deliberate work of connecting marketing, sales, and customer success so the numbers finally have context behind them. That context is what turns a report into proof of marketing’s value.
Communications leaders have historically struggled with the same challenge. Today, CEOs expect them to prove their impact, and they finally can. A combination of AI and human collaboration has produced a new suite of metrics, and bridging traditional Share of Voice to modern Share of Model lets us show exactly how PR ties to revenue.
Jennifer was glad to share her insights alongside other leaders in a recent Forbes article about how CMOs can align with their CEOs. The common thread across every answer: connect marketing to revenue and business outcomes. Read the full Forbes article here: Market The Marketing: How CMOs Can Speak The Same Language As Their CEOs.
PenVine helps communications and marketing leaders prove their work drives revenue. Let’s start a conversation.
