Uncovering the Hidden Gold: How Marketing Can Secure a Seat at the Revenue Table

# Marketing

# Sales Strategy

# Data

Breaking the cycle of "more is better"—how aligning marketing with revenue creates real business impact.

Heather Holst-Knudsen

As a marketer, have you ever found yourself stuck in a cycle of sending more emails, spending more on paid digital campaigns, and trying to build even more partnerships? It's easy to get lost in the data, assuming that driving more traffic and leads will ultimately lead to revenue growth. However, what I learned through my years in event and media marketing is that the traditional approach isn't always the best one. In this blog series, I'll share my journey to discovering a better way to align marketing with revenue goals and secure a seat at the revenue table.

I started my career in event and media with a large event and media company working in event sales marketing. During this time, I used to sit in on calls with potential exhibitors to learn how to sell better. I created collateral for sales reps but often found that what we created was not used. Despite the challenges, I continued to help create fantastic-looking event prospectuses that would contain stats from the attendees of the prior year. Afterward, I transitioned to working with the company's media business, where I repeated many of the same things we did on the events side. The most significant piece of work every year was the media kit, where we tried all sorts of ideas, from creating packages that combined events and media to building out directories and channels on websites. A few years later, I moved back to managing attendee marketing. Here, we employed all sorts of innovative ideas to drive registration, from giveaways to flash sales, all to ensure that we'd have enough attendees at the event and hit our attendance goal.

Marketing reported on our KPIs: lead generated, traffic to the website, paid digital performance, number of registrations, number of actual attendees, saturation of attendees to exhibitor, and more. Sales reported on their KPIs: pipeline, new business, renewals, square foot sold, sponsorships purchased, and more. Then we rinsed, lathered, and repeated the same thing - year after year, event after event.

But there was always a common dialogue: attendee quality is not strong, more event attendees, more registrations for this webinar, more clicks on these ads, more subscribers for newsletters, more leads for this white paper, etc. So, marketing did what marketing did - send more emails, spend more on paid digital campaigns, rent lists, and try to build even more partnerships.

Then, one day sitting at my computer while reconciling the forecast it hit me…we are doing it wrong.

But what was uncovered was gold!

While H2K Labs isn't focused on typical marketing dashboards and audience performance, I learned some valuable lessons that apply to the work we are doing today. Over the next few weeks, I will share more about what I learned and how it applies to securing marketing a seat at the revenue table.

The benefits of becoming gaining a seat at the revenue table

Ensuring the marketing strategy is aligned with revenue goals

Empowering sales marketing to work with account reps to improve outcomes for deals

Delivering quality leads to the programs sales is selling

Reporting on metrics that matter

Identifying gaps with data

Are you tired of focusing on attendee quantity instead of revenue quality? Join me on this journey to uncover a better approach to marketing that will empower your team to work with sales account reps, deliver quality leads, and report on metrics that matter.

About the Author

Heather Holst-Knudsen is a distinguished figure and expert in the events, media, marketing and technology sectors. Using her extensive experience, she guides clients in adapting to structural economic and market changes, seizing the chance to innovate and evolve. She specializes in digital and data disruption and opportunity, exploring how these overarching factors can impact revenue growth, customer-centricity, operational efficiency, profit margins, and the overall valuation of companies in both public and private markets.

Her journey began at her family business, Thomas Publishing Company, where she honed her skills. She further expanded her expertise by holding positions at early industry giants Miller Freeman, Reed Elsevier, and IDG. Returning to Thomas Publishing, Heather founded and spearheaded Manufacturing Enterprise Communications, an integrated media portfolio connecting buyers and sellers in the manufacturing and technology sectors. Starting in 2015 and spanning the next seven years, she leveraged her expertise as a revenue and business leader in various SaaS businesses, including Feathr, Gleanin, Brella and Edflex.

Heather is deeply passionate about digital innovation, data monetization, and AI and how these strategies fuel revenue growth, profitability, and company valuation. To serve and create value for clients in these areas, she launched H2K Labs, dedicated to generating and leveraging value through data for media, business information, events, and adjacent technology and service markets.

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Uncovering the Hidden Gold: How Marketing Can Secure a Seat at the Revenue Table

Breaking the cycle of "more is better"—how aligning marketing with revenue creates real business impact.

About the Author

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