How do you communicate demand generation updates and activities to the rest of the company?

I generally like to communicate through two types of vehicles:

Weekly progress updates - this is meant to convey what's happening now

• Performance metrics (absolute numbers, performance vs. goal, YoY %)
• Drivers of above performance (i.e. what's causing it)
• Adjustments that will be made given the drivers (i.e. what are we doing differently?)
• Where we're stuck (i.e. how readers can assist)

Monthly progress updates - this is meant to convey overall progress against a larger strategic plan

• Performance (monthly to give context)
• Initiatives that we committed to doing at the start of the plan (more context as to the what and the why)
• Progress of those initiatives
• Bottlenecks
• Adjustments that we'll making based on what we learned (this reflects more against initiatives and where we're spending time)

There is a phrase my team will tell you they're tired of hearing: "You have to market the marketing"

The purpose of this isn't just recognition of the work the team does, though there's nothing wrong with that. When you regularly communicate what is launching, what completed, what your results are, wins/losses, learnings, etc. you engage those around you in the marketing. You give them confidence that their work is being put forth to the market. You get feedback and ideas. Often times marketers are oddly shy about their work, I think mostly because we get so many subjective opinions from people who maybe don't fully understand our space. But we do ourselves, and our potential results, a disservice when we let fear prevent us from being open.

Marketing can be a black box to people outside of it, which is why transparency and education are so important. The last thing you want is for the rest of the company to think Demand Gen is just running ads and sending emails. The reality is, Demand Gen is highly strategic and directly tied to revenue, and it’s our job to make sure that’s clear.

One of the ways we have started to do this is through Monthly Business Reviews (MBRs). These meetings focus on key areas: What’s in the market right now? How is it performing? What’s not working and why? What’s coming next? We make sure we’re looking at actual business metrics—pipeline contribution, conversion rates, and revenue impact—not just vanity metrics like clicks or impressions.

Another key piece is real-time dashboards. Everyone should be able to see how Demand Gen is performing at any time. No hidden reports, no mystery numbers—just clear, accessible data that shows the impact of our efforts.

But beyond the numbers, I think one of the most important things we do is educate the company on how Demand Gen actually works. A lot of people think marketing is just about ads and messaging, but in reality, it’s a highly sophisticated system that involves experimentation, optimization, and a deep understanding of customer behavior.

Attribution is a great example. People outside of marketing often assume it’s easy to track the exact path a customer took to conversion. The reality is that it’s messy and tracking is even more so—last touch, multi-touch, incrementality—it’s all complex. But people will assume we're guessing if we don’t communicate that complexity and show how we measure success.

As a marketing leader, one of the best things you can do is build strong relationships with Finance. If Finance understands the value of Demand Gen and sees that we’re disciplined in allocating budget, it’s a lot easier to secure resources and make the case for growth.

At the end of the day, if you’re not actively communicating Demand Gen’s impact, people will make their own (often incorrect) assumptions about it. Regular updates, clear reporting, and ongoing education are the best ways to make sure the business understands how marketing is driving revenue.

Alignment with sales is extremely critical for marketing to succeed. And alignment begins with communication.

• Publish a marketing calendar in advance, where everyone can view the activities that are coming up, irrespective of their degree of involvement. This helps the broader team feel a part of the program, as well as uncover new ideas from different cross functional teams

• Share a weekly update over a call or email/newsletter highlighting the key demand gen metrics that are being tracked

• Democratize access to marketing dashboards, so that everyone can view data in real time

• Quarterly and annual wrap up reports help present an overall picture, especially in context of the goals set at the start of the quarter/year

This is a critical and often underrated skill. The key is to proactively address questions, especially from stakeholders. Here are a few tips:

• Establish self-serve dashboards. Dashboards can serve as executive summaries for data, providing a clear picture of trends and progress towards goals at any given time.

• Short-term cadence. Depending on the goal, establish a frequent communication cadence (e.g., weekly) to provide updates. This can be done through Slack or Teams messages, weekly snippets, email updates, or other effective channels for you and your team.

• Long-term cadence. Consider conducting retrospectives after campaigns or projects, documenting what worked, what didn't, and identifying next steps based on observations.