Marketing should lead the strategy when awareness is the key to solving the problem.
Here’s an example from my experience
One of my Florida HVAC clients saw a big drop in revenue for 2025. They reached out to me to analyze their data and understand what went wrong.
When I received their sales and revenue data in Excel, I spotted the issue. Their close rate for sales fell a lot compared to 2024. If their close rate had stayed the same, revenue would have been much higher.
In this case, improving the close rate is the clear solution. Marketing should not lead the strategy here.
We could let marketing take the lead, but that wouldn’t fix the issue. More leads might boost sales but could hurt profitability.
A better close rate will raise revenue and enhance marketing’s effectiveness. This approach sets the company up for success in many ways.