Marketing With Purpose Kit: Turning Marketing into a Revenue Engine

**SPEAKER_1** (0:04)
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.

**Mike Liwski** (0:17)
Welcome back. We really are so glad that you're here. Welcome to the Marketing With Purpose Kit. This is a series of The Bliss Business Podcast, where we explore what really takes, you know, what it really takes for marketing leaders to create impact that goes beyond the numbers, because we know that that is really critical. I'm Mike Liwski, your host, and in each episode, we sit down with marketing leaders to explore their leadership approach and strategies that are really driving performance and resonate with their audience. Together with them, we'll dive into what's working, what's not, and really how purpose and empathy can transform the way that a brand connects with people. So let's get started. Today, I am so delighted to be joined by Laura Baker. You may know her as the Chief Marketing Officer of Weed Man. Now, Laura is a results marketing leader, known for deeply understanding customer needs, simplifying complex challenges, which we know as marketers, we have many of those today, and building strategies that drive sustainable revenue and growth. Now, her experience spans a number of different areas. Dealer owned, franchise owned, even corporate owned and independent business models that have really given her a unique ability to influence adoption and alignment across diverse organizations, and specifically at Weed Man, Laura oversees the marketing portfolio for North America's fastest growing franchise lawn care company. This number is astounding. They're serving more than 775,000 loyal customers across 1,000 territories. With a strong focus on performance-based analytics and compelling creative, which if you haven't had a chance to see the Weed Man for the Win campaign, check it out on YouTube. You can see some of those videos. They're really amazing.
With that creative, she leads marketing efforts designed to optimize media spend and create customers for life. We're really going to explore today the topic of turning marketing into a revenue engine. I'm so excited to dive in to this strategy discussion with you, dive into the data and even leadership approach, Laura, that you bring so that we can help others continue to grow. Welcome to our show, Laura.

**Laura Baker** (2:44)
Thank you so much, Mike. Thanks for the introduction, long introduction. Really appreciate it and really glad to be here with you, so thank you.

**Mike Liwski** (2:55)
Absolutely. As I was preparing for it, I was going through it, I was thinking, she has such a deep background that today is going to be a great show. Laura, maybe before we dive into all things marketing, let's just discuss, I'd love to hear, why was the turning marketing into a revenue engine, the topic you chose to explore with us today?

**Laura Baker** (3:19)
So I think, Mike, the reason that I picked this topic is because I think marketing has come under scrutiny lately, in terms of what's its role in the organization, and as more and more things lend themselves to performance-based advertising and AI and being efficient, I think there's more pressure on marketing than ever before.
And many organizations have worked in marketing is often seen as this luxury and an expense line, and when times get tough, it's like, oh, let's look to the marketing budget. There's only two places to cut, headcount and marketing. So that has really created a position where marketers are, I would say, really constantly defending and advocating for themselves in terms of what marketing can do and what marketing brings to the business. And so, you know, when I think about the revenue aspect, that's where marketers need to lean in, that we're this revenue generating portion of the business and that without us, you know, that falls to the wayside and that we have so much measurement now that we can prove it out. I can tell you what the cost per lead is. I can tell you what the cost per sale is. I can tell you many, many things about the business. And so demonstrating performance and, you know, a return on investment is more important than ever in marketing.

**Mike Liwski** (4:51)
Yeah, for sure. Now we do know which 50% of the marketing budget is working and isn't working, right? To refer to. So Laura, let's dive into this topic a little bit deeper. I'm really curious to find out what's worked best, would you say, for helping to turn marketing, the perception of marketing into that revenue driver at, say, your company? And maybe where do you even see some gaps where there's still more work to do?