The Marketing Pendulum

It’s wild to look back at how much marketing has changed over my career.

I can trace it through distinct eras. Each shaped by a different understanding of the buyer, a different definition of marketing’s job, and a different standard for proving our value. We changed what we measured, the tools we used, the work we owned, and the outcomes we were expected to deliver.

And with every shift, marketing had to evolve in significant ways. We didn't just have to change our tactics, but our whole role in the business changed over time.

The collateral era

When I started, marketing was often the department that made things look good.

We made the brochures, direct-mail pieces, trade-show booths, presentations, and sell sheets. Sales carried the number, owned the buyer relationship, wrote all of its own outreach (remember those days???), and got to be the hero.

Marketing would find out after the fact that sales had sent a poorly worded message. Sales did its thing. Marketing created awareness.

Marketing was frequently a cost center, and every headcount request and program budget came with the same underlying question: Is this really necessary?

The brand and storytelling era

Then marketing began to earn a larger strategic role. We moved into the storytelling era and had to start telling stories that moved buyers.

Brand mattered. Customer insight mattered. Loyalty mattered.

Companies began to understand that buyers do not simply choose the best product. They choose the company they understand, trust, and remember.

Marketing was no longer just producing materials. We were shaping the story sales brought into the market, and creating the credibility that made those conversations easier.

The customer and demand era

Then the assignment expanded again. "Demand" became the buzzword.

Marketing was expected to understand the buyer: the segments, pain points, buying journey, objections, and moments that shape preference.

Then came lead generation. We created campaigns, collected names, handed leads to sales, and began trying to connect activity to pipeline.

Then demand generation raised the bar further: do not just capture people already looking. Create the interest. Educate the market. Build the audience. Shape preference before a buyer ever raises a hand.

Marketing began to own more of the work around the sale: targeting, positioning, content, website experiences, events, paid media, nurture, lead routing, and increasingly the sequences, talk tracks, and materials sales used to engage prospects.

The measurable-growth era

Then digital changed the conversation again. We had so much data!

Suddenly, we could point to leads, conversion rates, pipeline, attribution, and revenue. Marketing had numbers. We could connect activity to outcomes.

For a while, marketing was not just making things pretty. We became growth heroes. Everyone could see marketing's impact.

This was also when I entered healthcare SaaS and I learned quickly that measurement does not make buying decisions simple.

In healthcare, the buyer is rarely just one person. A clinical leader may care about workflow and outcomes. IT and security may care about integration and data protection. Compliance may need confidence that the solution is defensible. Finance and procurement may be evaluating cost, vendor stability, and implementation risk.

The stakes are high, and the buyer is understandably risk-averse.

They are not simply asking, “Does this product work?” They are asking, “Can I trust this company? Can I defend this decision internally? What happens if this goes wrong?”

That changed how I thought about marketing.

Our job was not just to generate a lead and hand it to sales. We had to build confidence before the buyer ever raised their hand: through the brand, the narrative, the proof, the customer stories, the content, the website, the sales materials, and every interaction that showed we understood their world.

But in becoming measurable, marketing also inherited more responsibility. We were no longer judged only on brand awareness or campaign execution. We were asked to explain the leads, pipeline, conversion, cost, and contribution to revenue, while sales still controlled key later-stage variables: follow-up, discovery, deal strategy, pricing, and closing.

The attribution-reset era

And now, the pendulum is swinging back.

Buyer journeys are more complicated. Attribution is murkier.

A prospect may see a LinkedIn post, hear a peer mention a company, read reviews, attend an event, search the category, speak with a partner, and only then request a demo.

The decision was built through many touchpoints, especially in complex, risk-sensitive buying environments.

So marketing is being asked to justify its spend, and, in some cases its role, again.

The irony is that marketing now owns more of the growth system than ever: awareness, narrative, audience, demand, capture, nurture, enablement, operations, and measurement. Yet the proof is less tidy precisely because buyers have more ways to learn, validate, and decide before they ever speak to sales.

Great marketing should be accountable for business outcomes. But it must also be trusted to build the things that make those outcomes possible: a clear market position, buyer confidence, differentiated demand, customer loyalty, and a brand that is remembered before the buying process becomes visible.

Marketing’s job was never just to make pretty things. It was to make growth possible.