Marketing With Purpose Kit: Turning Marketing into a Revenue Engine

**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.

**Mike Liwski** (0:15)
Welcome back everyone to the Marketing With Purpose. This is a series of the Bliss Business Podcast where we explore really what it takes for marketing leaders to create impact that goes beyond just the numbers. I'm Mike Liwski and in each episode, we sit down with real marketing experts to explore their leadership approach and the strategies that really drive performance, and in particular, resonate with their audience. Together we'll dive really into what's working, what's not, and how purpose and empathy can transform the way brands connect with people. So let's jump in. Today with me, is I'm being joined by Josh Prizer, who serves as a Fractional CMO at Zero Company Performance Marketing. Now, Josh has been a cornerstone of the Zero Company team since 2002, really guiding clients with multi-million dollar ad budgets towards strategic, sustainable growth. And with defective expertise across Google, Bing, programmatic platforms, including display, video and CTV, he brings both precision and discipline to building marketing systems that drive real revenue. Beyond technical mastery, Josh is deeply motivated by helping businesses reach their full potential and seeing how that growth positively impacts the people behind them. Now we're going to really explore today turning marketing into a revenue engine. And so I'm really excited to dive in to how strategy and execution and really purpose all come together to create measurable results. So Josh, welcome to our show. We're so happy to have you on with us today.

**Josh Prizer** (2:06)
I'm happy to be here. I'll tell you what, that intro, I'll tell you on down days, I might just fire that thing up and play it just to pump me up. So thank you.

**Mike Liwski** (2:14)
Appreciate it. Hey, an intro that you'll play it for your mom and I'm sure she'll be super proud. So Josh, before we really dive into all things marketing, I'd love to hear, why was turning marketing into a revenue engine, the topic that you chose to explore with us today?

**Josh Prizer** (2:35)
Yeah, I think it's an important topic because I think most companies still treat marketing like a cost center instead of a revenue system. And good marketing shouldn't just be about the dashboards, right? It should be able to prove that it produces a predictable cash flow. And what I see all the time is owners and franchisees who are emotionally exhausted, right? Sometimes they're spending tens of thousands of dollars a month. They don't know if it's working. They go, well, I'm putting money in and I think we're getting money out, but they can't necessarily connect it. So, you know, again, turning that marketing into a revenue engine is sometimes more than just about the, you know, not really about dashboards or reports. It's really about giving leaders peace of mind. Yeah.

**Mike Liwski** (3:25)
Yeah. I think of the old adage, right? I know 50 percent of my marketing is working. I just don't know which 50 percent. But like even today, that doesn't necessarily have to be true. We have so much data and metrics at our fingertips. Now, with CMOs, you know, they're often really pulled as you were sort of speaking about near-term campaign results and showing your revenue, and then kind of the building of that long-term brand. So, how do you help to ensure that your marketing strategy really does stay aligned with the growth goals that a company has to hit or that they've set forth, and still be able to maintain that brand building and kind of reduce the amount of friction points that can sometimes happen between those two challenges?

**Josh Prizer** (4:14)
Yeah, that's a great question. Friction is real, right? Especially between different departments. And I think most of the friction comes from sometimes when marketing is being measured on activity and the business is being measured on revenue. So, it's so important to communicate what are our short-term goals, what are our long-term goals, how are we going to measure results, what are the KPIs that are going to determine what success looks like?
Because the bottom line is if your customer acquisition cost is below your contribution margin, then growth is good, right? Put your foot on the accelerator, let's go. But if it's flipped, and sometimes that's the case, right? Where people want to grow, but they haven't measured, and then when they do, they realize, wait a second, our customer acquisition cost is above our contribution margin. Well, now that growth is actually destructive. No matter how pretty the ads look. So you have to make sure you're measuring, you have to make sure you're communicating, you have to make sure you're all aligned before you can, again, push on that accelerator and go.