Publisher’s Note:
Jonathan Graviss (“JG”) is a regular OOH Today contributor whose Thursday columns offer practical advice for OOH operators. Graviss’s observations are based on real-world, extensive industry experience. No fluff or phoniness here. Many sales teams rely on his insights. Start your New Year with more substantial revenues with today’s feature. Man! I wish I had his when I managed my OOH Markets back in the day!
Man! I wish I had his when I managed my OOH Markets back in the day!
The 90-Day Operator Playbook: Align Marketing with Sales Goals
Most OOH companies don’t struggle because they lack effort. They struggle because priorities don’t translate cleanly into action.
Leadership sets goals. Sales chases opportunities. Marketing stays active. Somewhere between those functions, alignment erodes. By mid-quarter, teams feel busy but unfocused, reacting instead of progressing.
High-performing OOH operators avoid this by treating quarterly planning as a strategic reset rather than an administrative task. The objective isn’t more activity. It’s a tighter alignment between company goals, marketing priorities, and sales focus over the next 90 days.
Quarterly Planning Is About Focus, Not Forecasting
In an industry shaped by seasonality, advertiser timing, and budget cycles, perfect forecasting is unrealistic. Focus is not.
Quarterly planning works when leadership answers one question clearly:
What matters most this quarter?
Research from Bain & Company shows that organizations with fewer strategic priorities outperform those pursuing too many initiatives at once. The same holds for OOH operators. When everything feels important, execution loses impact.
Strong operators define a primary quarterly objective. That objective might be to stabilize renewals, build inbound demand, expand a specific advertiser category, or prepare the pipeline for a peak season. The key is clarity.
Translating Goals into Marketing and Sales Priorities
Misalignment often begins with translation failure.
Leadership speaks in outcomes such as revenue, growth, or retention. Marketing and sales operate in actions: outreach, content, proposals, and conversations.
Quarterly planning connects those worlds.
High-performing operators explicitly define:
- What marketing should emphasize this quarter
- What sales should prioritize in conversations
- What leadership should reinforce consistently
If the quarterly goal is protecting renewals, marketing shifts toward proof, recaps, and reassurance. Sales shifts toward earlier renewal conversations. Leadership resists launching new initiatives that distract from the core objective.
Gartner research shows that aligned marketing and sales organizations generate stronger conversion and retention results. In OOH, that alignment reduces price pressure and last-minute scrambling.
Defining What Matters (And What Doesn’t)
One of the most valuable outcomes of quarterly planning is the constraint it provides.
High-performing operators are deliberate about what they won’t chase. That may mean pausing secondary initiatives, narrowing campaign audiences, or declining ideas that dilute focus.
Harvard Business Review consistently notes that strategic clarity comes from trade-offs, not ambition alone. In OOH, opportunity is everywhere. Focus is what makes strategy effective.
KPI’s as Alignment Tools, Not Pressure
Metrics often create tension when they are used primarily for evaluation.
Quarterly KPIs should act as signals, not scorecards. They answer one question:
Are our efforts supporting the agreed-upon priority?
The Corporate Executive Board has shown that fewer, outcome-oriented KPIs lead to better decisions than large dashboards filled with disconnected metrics. In OOH, the right KPIs reinforce direction rather than create noise.
Meeting Cadence as a Communication System
Alignment doesn’t hold without reinforcement.
High-performing operators use meeting cadence to reconnect teams to priorities. Weekly and monthly conversations serve as alignment checkpoints, not status updates.
According to PwC’s 2024 CEO Survey, organizations with consistent communication rhythms respond faster to change without losing focus. That balance is critical in OOH.
Why This Matters
As OOH becomes easier to compare and harder to differentiate, internal clarity directly affects external confidence.
Advertisers feel alignment. They hear it in consistent messaging and experience it in smoother conversations.
Quarterly planning isn’t about control. It’s about direction.
And direction is what turns effort into results.
High-performing OOH companies don’t rely on effort alone to stay competitive. They create clarity through strategy, align teams around shared priorities, and use planning cadence to sustain momentum.
This article reinforces the ideas explored in our recent blog, Leading with Strategy: What High-Performing OOH Companies Do Differently, where we break down how leading OOH operators use strategy and alignment to drive more consistent growth.
You can read the full piece and explore additional insights on positioning, planning, and long-term OOH growth at GravissMarketing.com.
Let’s elevate OOH together and make sure your company’s marketing is as strong as your locations.
About Graviss Marketing
Graviss Marketing helps OOH operators build the digital presence, marketing systems, and sales tools they need to win more advertisers. With decades of OOH experience and a focus on digital innovation, we partner with operators to ensure their business stands out — on the road and online. Learn more about how we can help your company market smarter, visit http://www.GravissMarketing.com, or email info@gravissmarketing.com.
Let’s elevate OOH together.
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