Strategy

Strategy

Events and materials are the output. This page is the thinking behind them: how I size up a product line, break down the target, shape the message and check the results. Figures are relative only, with no internal financial data from my employer.

Four steps

Four steps I take
with every product line

  1. PositionWork out the race, the unique value, the competition and who's most worth talking toCase
  2. Break downSplit the revenue target into opportunities, win rate and deal size; decide which part marketing owns and where leads come fromCase
  3. TellName what the audience is worried about, tailor the angle for each group, then roll it out across the website, events, ads and contentCase
  4. VerifyCheck conversion from lead to opportunity to deal, fix where it stalls, and go back to positioning or messaging when neededCase

Verifying loops back to the start, so this is a cycle, not a one-way line.

Flagship case · UiPath · 2019 to today

When positioning shifts and the market matures,
who you talk to and how has to change too

7 years, 30+ events and 40 website articles, accounting for nearly 50% of the CRM contacts PGi has built up across all product lines

Vendor positioning (approx.)Reboot WorkThe Foundation of InnovationThe Future of Agentic AutomationAgentic Business Orchestration
  1. 2020–21Educating the market10+ online intro sessions that started by explaining RPA in one lineEvent page
  2. 2021Into real use cases5+ sessions on intelligent document processing with RPA, opening with everyday document problemsEvent page
  3. 2021Cross-sellingOnce the list was big enough, bringing Tableau to UiPath customersEvent page
  4. 2021Pandemic pivotTurned past sessions into a mini-course lead magnet: 750+ contacts so farMini-course
  5. 2022New audienceAfter the pandemic, resilience mattered, so the audience widened from operations to ITEvent page
  6. 2024Going deep in one industryRPA was mature in finance, so the page starts from the regulator's priorities and demos three high-demand processesEvent page
  7. 2025–26Category shiftFrom RPA to agentic automation: building on customers' RPA investment, then reframing what really mattersCIO talk decks

The product stayed the same. The market changed, so the story had to change.

Case · Position · a new product line

How I break down a new product line

I like to solve problems with structure. When we took on Dataiku in 2022, I adapted an established go-to-market sprint framework into "7 steps to the first customers", then followed it: industry-specific sessions (one for manufacturing, one for finance), our first sponsorship of a senior IT forum, and event videos turned into a mini-course so the content kept bringing in leads.

In 2026 I reworked the 7 steps into a skeleton plus a menu

  • Before starting, confirm how much each department will commit, so marketing doesn't run ahead alone
  • Step one is deciding where leads come from: if the audience overlaps our list, start from our own database; if it partly overlaps, create content for the new roles; only if it's entirely new, borrow someone else's audience
  • Replace static landing pages with interactive tools, and do AEO from day one so AI search can find the product
  • Every step has a metric and a point to stop

Evidence from execution

Case · Break down · sales goals

From the sales target down to every event

My starting point isn't an event plan, it's the sales target. I break the overall target down by product line, work with the head of sales to map out a strategy for each line, and from there decide the marketing strategy and every event. So each event I run ties back to a sales goal rather than being a one-off idea.

  1. Overall sales target
  2. Split by product line
  3. Revenue breakdownRevenue = opportunities × win rate × average deal size
  4. Current state and challenges
  5. Sales strategy mapOGSM: objective, goals, strategies, measures
  6. Marketing strategy
  7. Every event, every piece of content

Case · Verify · after the lead

From lead to opportunity: define the stages, then find where it stalls

Handing over a lead is where the real work starts. I first defined every lead status and conversion rule with the head of sales, so both teams speak the same language. Then I split the whole chain into five stages, found whether conversion stalls at follow-up, progression or measurement, and gave each a metric to track. At this point marketing is close to RevOps: not just handing over leads, but following them through to revenue and knowing who should act when they stall.

  1. Investment
  2. Activities
  3. Reach
  4. Opportunities
  5. Revenue

QuestionWe're doing more. Why aren't we getting more back?

FindingsVolume is up: more than half of the companies we reached this year were new to us, and inbound website inquiries are growing about 16% a year. But as investment grew, the revenue each dollar brought back fell. It stalls in three places:

  • Follow-upMore than half of high-intent website inquiries were still at an early stage months later (response speed, days from lead to opportunity)
  • ProgressionOpen opportunities sat mid-pipeline for a long time with no clear status (sales cycle length, deal age)
  • MeasurementNo conversion targets had ever been set, and there was no win/loss analysis (win rate, win/loss reasons)

ProposedA dedicated role to receive and qualify leads, a review process for stalled deals, and loss reasons categorized and fed back to the right team. These are proposals for the company to decide on, not changes already in place.

Case · Across years · 2022 → 2026

How five years of annual plans evolved

Every annual plan starts by looking back at last year's data. After taking Pierre Herubel's content marketing course, I adapted his five-step framework into PGi's 2025 content marketing system and broke it down into real tasks. In 2026, the data showed the limits of inbound, so the annual plan put forward the option of moving to hybrid ABM (marketing focused on key accounts). That involves how sales and technical teams are staffed, so it's a company-level decision still under evaluation.

+50%Companies reached in a year grew by half (2024 → 2025)
80%In the first 8 months of 2026, reach was already 80% of last year's total
54%More than half the companies reached each year are new to us
13+Inbound website inquiries keep growing, 13+ companies a month
  • In 2026 resources shifted to CIO-level forums, and sponsored events went from about a fifth of reach to about two-thirds
  • In 2021 website traffic grew 77.7% to about 10,000 visits a month, half from organic search; we also ran 10 online events that year
  • In 2025, 8 public classes with 65 attendees from 35 companies