Marketing With Purpose Kit: Aligning Marketing with Business Growth

**SPEAKER_1** (0:03)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media and programmatic ad experts.

**Michele Brasfield** (0:16)
Hello, good morning. Welcome to the Marketing With Purpose series of The Bliss Business Podcast, where we explore what it really takes for marketing leaders to create impact that goes beyond the numbers. I'm Michele, and in each episode, I sit down with CMOs to explore their leadership approach and strategies that drive performance and resonate with their audience. Together, we'll dive into what's working, what's not, and how purpose and empathy can transform the way brands connect with people. Let's get started. Today, I'm joined by Jessica Martin, Chief Marketing Officer at Payroll Vault. Jessica brings deep experience in marketing, communications, and leading high-impact campaigns, with a history of boosting revenue and reducing costs through initiatives. Before stepping into her role as CMO, she led messaging, event strategy, and the managed marketing program that has driven a substantial revenue increase since 2021
In her current position, she's building the marketing team and executing forward-looking marketing and advertising strategies, all while emphasizing both growth and community impact. We're going to explore aligning marketing with business growth, and I'm excited to dive in. Jessica, before we dive in, I'd love to hear why was aligning marketing with business growth, the topic you chose to explore with us today, and what makes it so important right now.

**Jessica Martin** (1:45)
Well, first, it's great to be here with you, Michele, and thank you all so much for having me. When you presented me with the topics, this one really resonated with me most because in franchising, alignment isn't only about marketing and business goals. It's a three-way street, and it goes from corporate to franchise to consumer.
If that alignment breaks down during any point, then the entire system struggles and kind of hiccups. When that alignment has synergy, that's where we see real proof. For example, this year, our local visibility jumped almost 30 percent. Our managed marketing program partners are closing an extra sale per month, giving them a $45 return on investment for every dollar that they invest. And it's critical right now because the marketing landscape is shifting at an unprecedented pace. And I know that we all feel it. And there are theories about what's working, how to make it work. And all of these new search tactics, AI search, zero click results, algorithm changes across platforms, I think virtually all of them. And if your marketing isn't closely aligned with your real business growth metrics, then we end up creating noise, and that doesn't help anyone. So without this alignment, we don't want to just cast nets, and that's what you end up doing. So that alignment gives you clarity on what actually will move the needle for your business, and consistently serve your clients as well, right?

**Michele Brasfield** (3:41)
Oh, yeah. Love that. I agree. Marketing should not just be transactional.
We don't focus on that here at Zero Company for our clients. It really needs to be meaningful and resonant, emotionally intelligent and resonant with the audience, and for you with all three of your audiences, basically. Right.

**Jessica Martin** (4:06)
Exactly.

**Michele Brasfield** (4:07)
Yeah. Your team, your customer and your franchisee. So yeah, great answer. CMOs are often pulled between short-term campaign results and long-term brand building. How do you ensure your marketing stays aligned with the company's growth goals? Where do you find the biggest friction points in making that happen?

**Jessica Martin** (4:30)
Oh, yeah. This is the conundrum for every CMO, right?

**Michele Brasfield** (4:36)
Yeah.

**Jessica Martin** (4:36)
Totally. We're constantly balancing both. Short-term, we really focus on promotions that help our emerging franchisees build their client base quickly. We want them to launch to profit. It also helps create sales momentum that helps them build the referral partner networks. We are a huge referral-based company. As you know, Payroll Vault or the Payroll Spa, wow, the payroll space is very concentrated. So that short-term to give our new franchisees that success upfront is critical. Long-term, we focus on reputation management, SEO strategies, different tactics and strategies that will compound over time. And our local search visibility ramping up, it didn't happen overnight. That is a result of consistent strategic effort from our team. And friction. I think the misconception that marketing is the revenue engine, I mean, it is, but we're there to generate opportunities. But that revenue will only increase when sales can effectively follow through with targeted outreach, with clear sales goals, and operations can successfully deliver on that service promise that we all have.
And a part of, like in any part of the system, if any of it breaks down, marketing, sales, operations, communications from the franchisor to the franchisee to the consumer, again, the whole thing hiccups. And that's why alignment across all departments is the foundation of true sustainable growth.