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THE ONE-PAGE MARKETING PLAN

Get executive buy-in faster by presenting your strategy in the language your board already understands.

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Imagine you're in a board meeting, and the CEO looks at you and asks, "What are we really getting from our marketing budget?" It's the question that keeps marketing leaders up at night.

The numbers are tough to swallow. Most CMOs last only 12-18 months in Silicon Valley. Even worse, only 66% of Fortune 500 companies have a marketing leader—and that number is dropping.

The good news is when times get tough, smart marketers actually do better. The secret? They balance quick wins that boards understand with long-term plans that drive real growth. This is how to build marketing that's so clear and reliable that your leadership team will bet on it.

The Marketing Leader's Problem: Too Much Work, Too Little Credit

Marketing leaders need to wear many hats. They're part psychologist, part numbers person, part creative genius, and part business manager. They need to know technology (marketing buys tons of software), understand data, get how people think, plan strategy, and run daily operations.

Everything changed with COVID. Now AI is changing things again. But many CEOs and boards still think marketing is just about making things pretty or planning parties.

This creates a big problem. Marketing work has gotten way more complex, but other leaders don't really get what marketers do. The job is super important but often overlooked by the people who control the money.

Karl Vandenberg knows this well. He's the CMO at Illumio and was named Cybersecurity Marketer of the Year in 2024. Before marketing, he ran products, led companies, and handled mergers. This outside view helps him see marketing's unique challenges clearly.

Building Trust with Numbers

When Karl joined his last company, he was the fifth marketing leader in five years. Trust was gone. His fix? Run marketing like a sales team.

He started by building a computer program that could predict which companies would buy their product. Today you can buy this technology, but his team built it from scratch to prove marketing could be as numbers-driven as engineering.

Here's what they did:

• Used data to find the right companies to target
• Figured out who makes buying decisions
• Looked at what worked before and what didn't
• Built a model that showed how spending led to sales

Then Karl did something unusual: monthly pipeline reviews with the board, just like sales teams do. He gave his team quotas and paid them based on hitting sales targets.

This openness worked. By talking in "sales speak"—forecasts, quotas, pipeline numbers—marketing finally made sense to board members. Within six months, he had enough trust to talk about bigger, long-term investments.

Balancing Quick Wins with Big Picture Thinking

When money gets tight, most people focus only on activities that show immediate results. But that's exactly when you should also invest in building your brand.

The problem? Brand building doesn't show instant payback. Karl's answer is to think about "Return on Goals" not just "Return on Investment."

Take their recent AI product launch. Instead of focusing on sales, they aimed for 100 free trial signups per week. It's measurable and shows progress, but it's not directly about money—yet.

For long-term investments like brand building, track early signs of success:

• How well people know your company
• Media mentions
• Website visitors
• Overall brand health scores

During COVID, while running a startup backed by investors, Karl made a bold choice: invest in brand. They tracked progress with a score card, showing quarterly proof the investment was working even before sales went up.

Think of brand as air cover for your sales team. When people have heard of your company, they're more likely to talk to your salespeople. You can't draw a straight line to sales, but it makes everything else work better.

Key Relationships and Local Teams

After your CEO, your most important work friend is the head of sales. This partnership doesn't always come naturally, especially for technical marketers, but it's crucial.

Working with the product team matters too. But the sales partnership is extra important in B2B tech, where buying decisions involve 15+ people across different departments.

Karl uses what he calls the "franchise model." Marketing and sales work together at the local level. Regional teams get:

• Their own budgets
• Dashboards to track results
• Freedom within company guidelines
• Local knowledge to guide decisions

This changes how people think. Instead of marketing "owning" the budget, they're investing money to help sellers succeed. Local teams combine marketing skills with sales street smarts, creating better campaigns and stronger trust.

The One-Page Marketing Plan

Marketing might be complex, but explaining your plan doesn't have to be. The one-page plan turns your strategy into something any executive can understand in minutes.

Here's how it works:

• Business Goals: Start with company-wide goals/objectives
• Marketing Priorities: How marketing supports those business goals
• Marketing strategies: The approach you'll take to execute on priorities
• Tactics: Major initiatives that will move the needle
• KPI: Two measurements per priority, maximum

A good plan might have five company goals, five marketing goals, three or four big projects per goal, and about 10 total measurements. These feed into a simple dashboard for executives.

The magic is keeping it simple. No marketing jargon, no detailed channel plans—just the big picture. When people ask about specific tactics, those details live in your project tools, not executive updates.

Advice for New Marketing Leaders

Since 60% of CMOs are first-timers, here's how to succeed:

Start by proving you can deliver leads and pipeline. Show you can hit targets before asking for money for long-term projects.

Accept that you'll spend about 30% of your time teaching others about marketing. You need to think big picture while delivering daily results. There's no way around this balance.

Use data to back up your ideas, not just report what happened. When your models show clear thinking and real facts, people trust you even before you prove results.

Build relationships on purpose. Work closely with sales leaders, product teams, and regional managers. Give local teams responsibility while keeping everyone aligned.

Don't give in to pressure for only quick results. Companies need marketing leaders who can deliver now while building for later. Those who only focus on today fail both themselves and their companies.

The Future of Marketing Leadership

Marketing has completely changed. As AI reshapes how we work and how buyers shop, marketing will become even more important to business success.

For marketers ready to handle this complexity, the opportunity is huge. Companies need people who can mix creativity with numbers, big ideas with daily execution, future vision with current results. Those who master this mix won't just earn trust—they'll shape how businesses grow.

In times of big change, one thing is certain: companies that invest in strong marketing leadership will beat those that don't. The question isn't whether to build trustworthy marketing—it's whether you're ready to lead the change.