Let me ask you something most CEOs avoid answering honestly:

Is your marketing team executing a strategy, or are they performing a series of disconnected activities that feel productive but are impossible to defend financially?

If you hesitated, you’re not alone. And that hesitation is costing you more than you think.

The Expensive Chaos of Random Acts of Marketing

You know the pattern: LinkedIn ads one week because a competitor is doing them. A rebrand the next month because someone said your logo feels ‘dated.’ A podcast sponsorship because your VP of Sales heard about it at a conference. An SEO push because, well, everyone needs SEO, right?

This is what I call Random Acts of Marketing – a flurry of disconnected tactics with no strategic thread, no measurement framework, and no understanding of what actually drives your business forward.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: it’s destroying your growth potential.

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According to Harvard Business Review, businesses that lack strategic marketing alignment lose 15-25% of their growth potential annually. That’s not a rounding error. For a $50M company, that’s up to $12.5 million left on the table every single year.

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Now Ask Yourself These Questions…Honestly

1. Does your marketing team know your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) for each channel?

If they can’t tell you what it costs to acquire a customer through LinkedIn versus a conference sponsorship versus content marketing, you’re flying blind. You’re making million-dollar budget decisions based on gut feel.

2. Can they calculate your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) by segment?

Not all customers are created equal. If you’re spending the same amount to acquire a $10K customer as a $100K customer, your unit economics are broken. And broken unit economics compound into broken businesses.

3. Is your marketing strategy aligned with your sales process, customer journey, and operational capacity?

Here’s where Random Acts of Marketing get lethal. McKinsey research shows that internal misalignment creates considerable operational drag through inefficiency and friction. Your marketing might be generating leads, but if sales can’t close them because the messaging doesn’t match the product, or operations can’t deliver on the promise, you’re just burning cash faster.

CEOs, This Part Is Yours

This is not just a marketing problem. It’s a leadership one.

When CEOs ask marketing to ‘just drive pipeline this quarter’ without clarity on unit economics, they unintentionally incentivize noise over signal. Marketing responds by chasing visible activity instead of durable growth.

The Real Cost of Random Acts of Marketing

Let’s get specific about what Random Acts of Marketing actually cost you:

1. Escalating CAC

When your team can’t identify what’s working, you keep pouring money into channels that are getting more expensive and less effective. Without strategic clarity, you’re flying blind on budget decisions, and that compounds into higher acquisition costs and lower returns.

2. Revenue Leakage

As stated above, misalignment directly reduces growth potential by 15-25%. That compounds year over year. For a $50M company, that’s up to $12.5 million left on the table every single year.

3. Operational Drag and Team Dysfunction

Internal misalignment creates considerable operational drag through inefficiency and friction. Your marketing might be generating leads, but if sales can’t close them because the messaging doesn’t match the product, or operations can’t deliver on the promise, you’re just burning cash faster.

4. Competitive Disadvantage

Here’s the brutal truth. While you’re testing podcast sponsorships and debating rebrand timelines, your strategically aligned competitors are outperforming you by 30% in profitability (McKinsey & Company). They’re not smarter than you. They’re just more disciplined about alignment.

So, What Should You Do Instead?

If you’re recognizing your company in this article (and feeling a little sick about it), here’s where to start:

1. Force Every Initiative to Declare Its Economic Intent

Ask what revenue lever is this activity pulling – acquisition, expansion, retention, or pricing power?  If your team can’t answer this question, don’t approve the spend.

2. Shift Reporting from Activity Metrics to Unit Economics

Before you spend another dollar on marketing, calculate:

• CAC by channel (not blended CAC, actual CAC for LinkedIn, content, events, etc.)
• LTV by customer segment (understand who your best customers are)
• LTV:CAC ratio (For every dollar we spend to acquire a customer, how much value do we get back over time)
• Payback period (how long until you recover CAC)

This isn’t optional math. This is the foundation of every marketing decision you make going forward.

3. Align Marketing, Sales, and Customer Experience Around the Same Math

Map out where your brand promise, marketing messages, sales conversations, and customer experience diverge. Ask:

• Is what marketing promises the same as what sales is selling?
• Is what sales is selling, what the product actually delivers?
• Is what the product delivers reflected in your customer experience?
• Can your operations team actually deliver the brand promise?

PwC found that 73% of consumers say customer experience drives their buying decisions, but only 49% of companies have actually mapped their customer journey. If you’re in the 51% that haven’t, you’re making promises you can’t keep and wondering why churn is high.

4. Make Strategy Visible and Repeatable

If your strategy lives in the CMO’s head or a deck no one opens, you don’t have one.

Strategy should show up in prioritization, hiring, budget allocation, and – critically – what you actively say no to. Build a framework that connects:

• Ideal Customer Profile definition (who actually buys and why)
• Positioning and messaging (the strategic story)
• Go-to-market strategy (how you reach and convert)
• Measurement framework (what success looks like in dollars)

Every tactic you deploy should ladder up to this framework. If it doesn’t, don’t do it – no matter how shiny it looks.

5. Create Cross-Functional Accountability

Revenue generation is a team sport. Establish shared metrics and shared accountability across product, marketing, sales, and operations.

When everyone owns revenue, alignment improves and growth accelerates. Research shows that highly aligned organizations grow revenue 58% faster and are 72% more profitable than their misaligned counterparts (LSA Global).

The Bottom Line

Random Acts of Marketing feel productive. You’re doing things. Spending money. Launching campaigns. Posting content.

But activity isn’t strategy. And without strategy – without alignment, measurement, and accountability – you’re just playing an expensive game of roulette with your growth capital.

So, here’s my challenge to you: Stop guessing. Start measuring. And build a marketing engine that’s designed to scale – not just to spend.

Need Help Identifying Where Your Marketing

Engine is Leaking Revenue?

The companies that break through the mid-market growth cliff aren’t the ones with the biggest marketing budgets. They’re the ones with the clearest strategic alignment between brand promise, team execution, and customer experience.

At Britton Parris Marketing & Communications, we specialize in helping growth-stage B2B companies bridge the gap between brand promise and operational execution.

Our proprietary GrowthCore360™ diagnostic uncovers the alignment gaps that are silently draining your growth potential. Let’s talk: hello@brittonparris.com.