How Marketing Truly Drives Profitable Growth
Barbara Toens, Global CMO at Gantrex, brings her pricing PhD and global B2B experience to this in-depth discussion. She explains how marketing earns its C-Suite seat by ensuring every decision starts with deep customer understanding. Barbara shares best practices for VOC calls, cross-functional alignment, and transforming marketing from a cost center to a growth engine.
Barbara Toens brings a unique combination of global marketing leadership and a PhD in pricing to her Global Chief Marketing Officer role at Gantrex. With a career spanning automotive to industrial B2B marketing, she emphasizes the power of placing the customer at the center of all marketing efforts. This article explores how her holistic approach to marketing and pricing drives profitable growth through customer insight, voice of customer initiatives, and strategic alignment.
“When marketing leads customer conversations, we transition from vendor to trusted long-term partner.” – Barbara Toens
The interactive podbook below contains:
- Barbara Toen’s introduction video
- Full Episode video, audio, transcript, and article
- 8 Summary Videos + 1 Summary Article
- Episode Highlights Video
- YouTube Short Post
Article: “ How Marketing Truly Drives Profitable Growth”
This article is based on an interview with Barbara Toens, Global Chief Marketing Officer at Gantrex
Understanding Marketing’s Strategic Role in the C-Suite
Barbara stresses the importance of having a marketing voice at the executive table, driving an outside-in perspective focused on customer impact. “We ensure that all discussions and decisions are centered around the customer,” she explains. This mindset encourages cross-functional collaboration and helps break down silos between departments. When marketing is positioned as a strategic partner, it enables better alignment between product innovation, customer needs, and market opportunities. This ensures that offerings are developed with the customer in mind, reducing the risk of misaligned solutions and improving the chances of market success.
This shift from inside-out thinking, where internal agendas often dominate, to an outside-in approach positions marketing as a growth engine rather than a support function. Barbara illustrates how marketing can serve as the connective tissue between departments, ensuring that insights from the market consistently feed into executive-level decisions. This alignment increases efficiency and agility, enabling organizations to respond quickly to customer feedback and competitive shifts. By anchoring strategy in customer insight, marketing earns its place as a critical contributor to business growth and innovation.
Building Trust Through Voice of Customer
VOC (Voice of Customer) calls led by marketing provide unique insights beyond transactional sales conversations. These calls allow marketers to uncover deeper strategic pain points and understand the full context of customer needs, preferences, and long-term goals. Barbara recounts initial resistance from sales colleagues who are skeptical about marketing stepping into customer conversations. However, the collaborative approach quickly proved its value. “Ninety-five percent of them thanked us afterwards for actionable, customer-driven recommendations,” she notes. The outcome was richer insights and greater alignment between sales and marketing teams.
By conducting these calls, marketing becomes a trusted bridge between the company and the customer, enabling a clearer understanding of how solutions are perceived and where adjustments may be needed. VOC insights validate pricing strategies, expose hidden service gaps, and uncover opportunities for upsell or innovation. They also foster credibility and trust internally and externally, reinforcing the brand’s commitment to truly listening to its customers. Over time, this proactive engagement nurtures stronger, longer-lasting client relationships and positions marketing as a driver of customer advocacy and business intelligence.
The Value-First Pricing Approach
Barbara advocates for pricing to be viewed as a core marketing function that doesn’t operate in isolation but is fully integrated into what she describes as a “virtual value circle.” This strategic loop includes marketing, sales, innovation, and finance, all working together to deliver and capture customer value. Barbara emphasizes that price should never be the lead conversation point. Instead, it comes only after a clear value articulation has been delivered. “Price is the last item you touch. It should not be a shock,” she says. This sequencing ensures that customers understand the value they receive before evaluating the cost, strengthening both positioning and trust.
This approach reframes pricing from a transactional activity to a strategic dialogue about value, outcomes, and partnership. Businesses can command stronger margins and avoid commoditization by delaying price discussions until after value has been established. It also shifts the internal perception of pricing from a tactical lever pulled late in the process to a foundational element of brand and customer experience strategy. When value-first pricing is done right, it supports long-term customer loyalty, reflects the true worth of the offering, and drives sustainable, profitable growth for the business.
Conclusion
Barbara Toens demonstrates that effective marketing leadership requires deep customer insight, purposeful engagement, and value-based pricing strategies. Her experience highlights how marketing can be transformative when it is empowered to lead conversations about customer needs and business impact. Rather than simply driving campaigns or messaging, marketing becomes a strategic function that shapes how organizations innovate, communicate, and grow.
By embracing these principles, marketing leaders can confidently claim their seat at the C-suite table and drive measurable business results. This holistic approach transforms marketing from a cost center into a core driver of sustainable growth. It encourages a culture of customer obsession, cross-functional alignment, and long-term value creation, ensuring that marketing is present at the executive table and leading the conversation.
ELEVATING CONTENT MARKETING STANDARDS RAISES A CRUCIAL QUESTION:
Why shouldn’t the very act of creating thought leadership content also spark new conversations with in-pipeline deals, top prospects, and high-priority customers for revenue expansion? Or serve as the cornerstone for learning and applying voice-of-customer strategies? That’s the power of ABM Podcasting—engaging B2B buyers and customers in meaningful conversations that uncover essential go-to-market insights, support long sales cycles, reinforce your market perspective, build peer-level trust, and dismantle objections that kill deals.
Steven MacDonald
Steven MacDonald is the founder of Content Strategies, CEO of a MarTech SaaS Company, fractional CMO consulting with leading B2B companies and former Director of Strategy and Client Service at top ten digital marketing agencies.
Steven MacDonald
Steven MacDonald is the founder of Content Strategies, CEO of a MarTech SaaS Company, fractional CMO consulting with leading B2B companies and former Director of Strategy and Client Service at top ten digital marketing agencies.
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