A business that isn’t growing or developing is stagnating and losing to more active competitors. Continuous growth is a priority for companies aiming for leadership. In a developed market, the main growth catalyst for a business is marketing. Brand recognition, building a loyal audience, managing customer experience, lead generation, and increasing sales — all of these fall under marketing tasks, and without these elements, no entrepreneurial venture will be sustainable.
Inessa Chirkina, CMO of several large European companies, international sales expert, and co-founder of the Berlin-based EdTech startup ITCareerHub, is convinced that companies that make marketing the foundation of their growth strategy most likely will have an advantage over competitors who misunderstand the role and importance of marketing work and marketing departments. She is ready to share a few secrets on how to build an effective marketing department and create synergy between different team members so they work as a cohesive whole.
Recently McKinsey published the results of a study showing that most CEOs of companies do not fully understand the potential of marketing in driving business growth. Those who do realize its importance are more likely to achieve revenue growth of up to 80%. However, they are in the minority. You have consistently developed marketing strategies for three large startups in the venture capital and EdTech sectors, exponentially increasing sales and achieving impressive ROMI figures of up to 700%. This indicates that you were initially stepping into an undeveloped field. In the course of your work, you encountered a lack of understanding from CEOs about the role of marketing. How did you deal with that?
Of course, not all business leaders fully understand the importance, complexity, and multifaceted nature of marketing. But that’s exactly why CMOs and other marketing experts are needed — to explain the significance of marketing for business success. Modern marketing has long gone beyond just advertising or branding. It is now a very complex discipline — you may not know, but in recent years, the number of marketing technologies has been increasing by double digits every year, and there are currently 11,000 different tools in existence. For a non-expert, even an experienced manager, understanding all the nuances of marketing, advertising channels, and sales-boosting tools is nearly impossible. On the other hand, it’s the CMO’s job to convey the importance of their work to the CEO and shareholders. After all, they are the marketing experts, so they should be able to sell their own product!
In my projects, I always follow the principle that the marketing department should build close collaboration with other departments, especially with sales, and create synergy with a clear division of responsibilities.
So you mean teamwork with clear division of responsibilities.
Exactly! When I form a team, I follow the principle of individual responsibility for the outcome. It’s important that each participant understands that their actions directly impact the overall success of the project, especially in cross-functional collaborations. Every team member must recognize that their personal contribution is crucial for achieving the common goal. Responsibility for the outcome isn’t just a set of empty words — it’s the understanding that everyone must do everything possible to reach the objective. Ultimately, it is the results that we will be judged and praised for.
When the team clearly understands the common goal, work efficiency increases exponentially. The same goes for working with the CEO — when communicating with leadership, the CMO must serve as the advocate for the customers’ interests, acting as the voice of the consumer. By overseeing customer experience, the CMO can improve the company’s overall strategy and steer it in the right direction, taking responsibility for customer interactions. After all, any strategy ultimately boils down to meeting customer needs as accurately as possible.
It’s also important to remember that motivation and support play a key role in achieving success. To achieve outstanding results, it’s important to build a team that is not only strong and satisfied but also capable of growing and evolving. It’s through continuous development that a team acquires new skills, gains confidence, and becomes more cohesive. My main task as an expert is to assist people in this process and inspire them for both personal and professional growth.
You previously received the “Internet Marketing Innovator” award at the international Era of Innovation competition for your project ITCareerHub, which aims to help migrants gain new skills and find jobs. Could you tell us more about this project?
As a co-founder of ITCareerHub, my goal was to create a product that would improve the lives of our clients. The task of my team was to provide IT education for people who had moved to Germany — migrants from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and other countries — so that when they arrived, they wouldn’t just rely on state welfare. Instead, they could acquire a profession that is in demand in the market, stand on their own feet, earn money, and pay taxes. I believe that my mission is to help people.
What makes this startup unique is that it is the only educational center in the IT field that includes a specialized German language course for IT professionals as part of its curriculum. Additionally, it helps graduates with employment opportunities.
In just six months, your startup’s sales volume grew from 0 to €60,000 per month. How did you achieve these results?
By the time I launched this startup, I was already an experienced specialist, so the process of getting it off the ground was smooth. I built the marketing and sales teams from scratch, creating all the necessary processes and infrastructure for their operations. We launched paid advertising channels and quickly optimized our CPL (Cost Per Lead) and ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) to 350–400%. We also implemented end-to-end analytics within the business, conducted customer development (custdev) interviews, and, based on the insights, created compelling offers. We structured them according to the stages of the sales funnel, developed warming materials, prepared webinar topics, and wrote sales scripts. All of this contributed to the growth of C1 and C2 metrics, with C2 from the total traffic increasing from 3% to 11%.
This sounds like a math course!
That’s because modern marketing is math! With formulas and big calculations. It’s impossible to identify the most effective promotion methods and assess the performance of the team itself without numbers. Every experienced CMO first focuses on key quantitative metrics such as CPL (Cost Per Lead), CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), and ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment). It’s also important to track C1 conversion carefully using the formula:
C1 = (Number of clients / Number of visitors) * 100%.
From there, we calculate CPL using the formula:
CPL = (Traffic budget / Number of applications submitted on the website).
Next, we calculate the marketing CAC:
CAC = (Total marketing expenses over a given period) / (Number of new paying clients during that same period).
And ultimately, we calculate ROMI:
ROMI = (Revenue from ads – Advertising costs) / Advertising costs * 100%
It’s crucial to constantly monitor key marketing metrics: expenses (budget), the number of leads, conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, traffic analytics, and much more. These parameters help evaluate the effectiveness of marketing efforts and pinpoint which strategies and tactics deliver the best results. I believe marketing is 80% math and 20% creativity.
Over the course of your career, you’ve launched dozens of startups at various levels, ensuring their success with well-developed marketing strategies. What else is involved in a strategy besides calculations?
The foundation of any marketing strategy is not just responding to consumer demand but also managing that demand. And I’m not just talking about increasing profits or sales of goods and services — I’m also referring to close collaboration with the sales team. Marketing management is a complex activity that includes planning, organizing, coordinating, controlling, auditing, and stimulating initiatives aimed at intensifying the process of generating and maintaining demand for products and services. We need to understand our customers’ needs and desires, and for that, it’s essential to create strategies and tactics that not only increase sales but also strengthen market positions, retain loyal customers, and attract new ones.
What tools can help with this?
Developing joint strategies between the marketing and sales departments, sharing information about market needs, analyzing results, and adjusting actions. For effective project and team management, it’s important to maintain regular organizational interactions. This can include daily morning meetings where we analyze key metrics and discuss current tasks, as well as weekly calls to evaluate the effectiveness of various marketing campaigns. It’s also helpful to create hypotheses based on the HADI cycle structure with the team to identify priorities and action plans. This ensures that each employee understands their tasks and responsibilities clearly and supports a systematic approach to testing and implementing new ideas.
I also advocate for one-on-one meetings with each team member. In these meetings, I receive feedback and analyze the mood and state of each individual on the team, which allows me to better understand the needs and emotional state of my colleagues. I recommend that other CMOs adopt this practice as well.
