In today's hyper-competitive marketplace, marketing teams face unprecedented pressure to demonstrate measurable business impact. Generic awareness campaigns and vanity metrics no longer satisfy executives demanding concrete ROI. The solution lies in a fundamental shift: aligning marketing campaigns directly with quantifiable improvements in how customers get their jobs done—specifically, how fast and accurately they can complete essential tasks.

At thrv, we use our proprietary and patented Jobs to be Done (JTBD) method to help our portfolio companies design marketing campaigns that communicate measurable job performance improvements, moving beyond traditional product features to focus on the speed and accuracy gains customers actually value. This guide reveals our frameworks for KPI-mapped messaging, CES-differentiated creative strategies, and campaign structures built around job step reduction that drive both engagement and conversion.

Table of Contents

• Why Speed and Accuracy Matter More Than Features
• The Performance Gap in Current Marketing
• Our Job Performance Alignment Method
• Our KPI-Mapped Messaging Strategy
• CES-Differentiated Creative Development
• Campaign Architecture for Job Step Reduction
• Our Measurement and Attribution Models
• How We Address Common Pitfalls
• From Campaign Alignment to Equity Value Creation
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why Speed and Accuracy Matter More Than Features

Companies using advanced analytics and data-driven strategies report 5-15% higher marketing ROI compared to their peers, with average cross-channel marketing generating approximately 5.3:1 returns. Yet most marketing campaigns still focus on product features rather than the job performance improvements customers actually seek.

The disconnect stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of customer motivation. When business users evaluate solutions, they're not primarily interested in technical specifications—they're focused on how quickly and accurately they can complete their essential tasks. Research consistently shows that customers make purchase decisions based on their ability to "determine optimal strategies," "ensure compliance requirements," or "calculate accurate forecasts"—not on feature lists.

This creates a massive opportunity for marketers who understand how to communicate speed and accuracy improvements directly. Instead of promoting "advanced analytics capabilities," our successful campaigns highlight "reduce forecast calculation time by 60%" or "ensure regulatory compliance accuracy improves to 99.2%."

The Business Impact of Job-Focused Marketing

Our portfolio companies that align marketing messages with customer job performance see significant improvements:

• Conversion rates increase by 23-45% when messaging focuses on specific job improvements rather than generic benefits
• Sales cycle length decreases by 30% as prospects immediately understand tangible value
• Customer acquisition costs drop by 18% due to improved message-market fit

The key lies in understanding that customers don't buy products—they buy better job performance.

The Performance Gap in Current Marketing

Despite widespread adoption of "performance marketing," most campaigns fail to connect with the specific performance improvements customers seek. Our analysis of current marketing approaches reveals three critical gaps:

Gap 1: Feature-Centric Messaging

Most campaigns emphasize what products do rather than how they improve job execution. Messaging like "powerful automation tools" fails to communicate the specific speed and accuracy gains customers will experience.

Gap 2: Generic Performance Claims

Vague promises of "increased efficiency" or "better results" lack the specificity needed to differentiate solutions. Customers can't evaluate competing claims or understand actual impact.

Gap 3: Disconnected Measurement

Marketing attribution focuses on channel performance rather than customer job improvement. Teams optimize for clicks and impressions while missing opportunities to demonstrate real business value.

Our Customer Effort Score Opportunity

While 95% of marketers consider their data-driven strategies at least "somewhat successful," they face significant challenges in targeting segmented audiences (45%) and real-time decision-making (38%). This struggle indicates a deeper problem: campaigns aren't designed around how customers actually experience and measure job performance.

Our Customer Effort Score (CES) provides the missing link. CES measures the percentage of customers who report difficulty completing specific job steps, based on effort required, speed of execution, and accuracy achieved. High CES indicates significant unmet needs and valuable targets for marketing campaigns.

Our Job Performance Alignment Method

We use our Job Performance Alignment Method to provide a systematic approach to designing marketing campaigns that communicate measurable improvements in customer job performance. This methodology shifts focus from product features to specific, quantifiable gains in speed and accuracy.

Our Core Principles

1. Customer Jobs Over Product Features

Every campaign element must connect to how customers get specific jobs done. Instead of highlighting "advanced reporting capabilities," our campaigns emphasize "generate compliance reports 75% faster."

2. Speed and Accuracy Metrics

All value propositions must include specific, measurable improvements in job execution speed or accuracy. Vague efficiency claims are replaced with precise performance gains.

3. Job Step Reduction

Our campaign structures follow customer job flows, highlighting how solutions eliminate steps or reduce friction at each phase. This creates intuitive, compelling narratives that prospects immediately understand.

Our Implementation Process

Phase 1: Job Mapping

We identify the specific jobs target customers need to complete. We focus on high-effort activities where customers currently experience friction.

Phase 2: Performance Gap Analysis

We measure current speed and accuracy levels for each job step. We use Customer Effort Scores to identify the highest-impact improvement opportunities.

Phase 3: Solution Mapping

We connect solution capabilities to specific speed and accuracy improvements. We quantify the exact performance gains customers will experience.

Phase 4: Campaign Development

We design messaging, creative, and campaign structures that communicate these specific improvements clearly and compellingly.

Our KPI-Mapped Messaging Strategy

Traditional marketing messaging focuses on product capabilities rather than customer performance outcomes. Our KPI-mapped messaging reverses this approach, starting with the specific metrics customers use to evaluate job performance and working backward to solution capabilities.

Identifying Customer Performance KPIs

Our successful KPI mapping begins with understanding how customers measure their own success. For most business applications, these metrics fall into three categories:

Speed Metrics

• Time to complete specific tasks
• Processing throughput rates
• Response time requirements
• Cycle completion frequency

Accuracy Metrics

• Error rates and quality scores
• Compliance pass rates
• Precision measurements
• Validation success rates

Effort Metrics

• Number of steps required
• System interactions needed
• Manual intervention frequency
• Rework requirements

Our Performance-Focused Message Development

Once we understand customer KPIs, our messaging development follows a structured approach:

1. Baseline Current Performance

We start messages by acknowledging current performance levels: "When compliance teams spend 6 hours generating quarterly reports..."

2. Specify Improvement Metrics

We clearly state the exact performance gain: "...our platform reduces report generation to 90 minutes while improving accuracy to 99.7%."

3. Connect to Business Impact

We link performance improvements to broader business outcomes: "This allows compliance teams to focus 80% more time on strategic risk assessment."

Our Message Testing and Optimization

Our KPI-mapped messages require different testing approaches than traditional marketing copy. Instead of measuring click-through rates alone, we track:

• Message comprehension: Do prospects understand the specific performance improvement?
• Credibility assessment: Do prospects believe the claimed improvements are achievable?
• Relevance scoring: How closely do the highlighted KPIs match prospect priorities?
  
  

Email campaigns using our KPI-mapped messaging consistently achieve ROI rates of $42 for every $1 spent, significantly outperforming feature-focused alternatives.

CES-Differentiated Creative Development

Our Customer Effort Score provides a powerful framework for creative development that visually communicates speed and accuracy improvements. Our CES-differentiated creatives focus on reducing perceived effort rather than highlighting product features.

Our Visual Design Principles

Effort Reduction Imagery

Our visuals immediately communicate reduced complexity. We use before/after comparisons showing fewer steps, cleaner interfaces, or simplified workflows.

Speed Communication

We incorporate visual elements that suggest velocity: streamlined processes, reduced wait times, immediate results. We avoid static imagery that doesn't convey performance improvements.

Accuracy Representation

Our design elements suggest precision: clean data visualizations, error-free outputs, validated results. Visual clutter undermines accuracy perception.

Our Creative Format Selection

Different creative formats excel at communicating specific performance improvements:

Interactive Demonstrations

Most effective for showing job step reduction. Prospects can experience the simplified workflow directly.

Animated Comparisons

Ideal for speed improvements. Animation naturally demonstrates time compression and efficiency gains.

Data Visualizations

Perfect for accuracy improvements. Charts and graphs provide immediate credibility for precision claims.

Campaign Architecture for Job Step Reduction

Traditional campaign structures follow the marketing funnel: awareness, consideration, decision. Our job step reduction campaigns follow customer job flows, creating intuitive progression that mirrors actual user experience.

Our Job Flow Campaign Structure

Phase 1: Job Initiation

Our campaigns begin where customers start their jobs. Messaging addresses initial challenges and friction points, immediately establishing relevance.

Phase 2: Process Optimization

Each campaign phase corresponds to a major job step, highlighting specific improvements available. Prospects naturally progress through the sequence.

Phase 3: Job Completion

Final campaign elements focus on outcomes and results, demonstrating successful job completion with improved speed and accuracy.

Our Multi-Channel Job Alignment

Different channels excel at communicating specific types of job improvements:

Email Sequences: Perfect for detailed step-by-step improvement explanations. Each email can focus on optimizing a specific job phase.

Social Media: Ideal for quick wins and immediate improvements. Social content works best for single-step optimizations.

Content Marketing: Excellent for comprehensive job transformation stories. Long-form content can detail complete process improvements.

Paid Advertising: Most effective for high-impact, single-metric improvements. Ad copy must communicate value in minimal space.

Our Measurement and Attribution Models

Traditional marketing attribution models focus on touchpoint contribution to conversion. Our job performance attribution measures how effectively campaigns communicate and deliver on speed and accuracy improvements.

Our Performance-Based Attribution Framework

Job Improvement Attribution

We track which campaign elements most effectively communicate specific performance gains. This reveals which messages and channels drive understanding.

Customer Effort Reduction Scoring

We measure actual CES improvements for customers acquired through different campaigns. This connects marketing messages to delivered value.

Speed and Accuracy Tracking

We monitor whether customers achieve the performance improvements promised in marketing campaigns. This validates message accuracy and builds future campaign credibility.

Our Key Performance Indicators

Our job performance campaigns require specialized KPIs that connect marketing activities to customer outcomes:

Primary Metrics

• Job completion time reduction
• Accuracy improvement percentage
• Customer Effort Score decrease
• Process step elimination
• Error rate reduction
  
  

Secondary Metrics

• Campaign comprehension rates
• Performance claim credibility
• Competitive differentiation scores
• Customer success achievement
• Retention and expansion correlation

How We Address Common Pitfalls

Pitfall 1: Overpromising Performance Improvements

Problem: Marketing teams exaggerate speed and accuracy gains to increase campaign impact, leading to customer disappointment and churn.

Our Solution: We use conservative performance estimates based on median customer outcomes rather than best-case scenarios. We build measurement systems to validate claims with real customer data.

Pitfall 2: Generic Speed and Accuracy Claims

Problem: Messages like "work faster and more accurately" lack the specificity needed for effective differentiation.

Our Solution: We always include precise metrics: "reduce processing time by 60%" or "improve accuracy to 97.3%." Specific numbers build credibility and allow comparison.

Pitfall 3: Disconnected Campaign Flows

Problem: Campaign elements don't align with actual customer job sequences, creating confusion and reducing conversion.

Our Solution: We map campaigns directly to customer job flows. Each touchpoint corresponds to a specific job phase or improvement opportunity.

Pitfall 4: Inadequate Performance Measurement

Problem: Campaigns optimize for traditional metrics without measuring actual job performance improvements delivered to customers.

Our Solution: We implement dual measurement systems tracking both marketing performance and customer job outcome achievement.

From Campaign Alignment to Equity Value Creation

Our shift to job performance-aligned marketing campaigns represents a fundamental evolution from product-centric to customer-outcome-focused marketing. By designing campaigns that clearly communicate speed and accuracy improvements, our portfolio companies create more compelling value propositions, reduce sales friction, and ultimately drive better business results.

Success requires commitment to measurement, customer understanding, and continuous optimization based on delivered performance outcomes. Our portfolio companies that master this approach build sustainable competitive advantages through marketing that truly serves customer needs while driving business growth and creating equity value.

Our proprietary JTBD methodology, combined with our AI-powered platform, allows our portfolio companies to identify high-effort customer jobs, quantify performance improvements, and create marketing campaigns that resonate with customer needs at scale.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How do you identify the specific jobs customers need to complete?

We start with customer interviews focusing on daily workflows rather than product needs. We ask customers to describe their typical day and identify recurring tasks that require significant effort. We look for jobs where customers currently experience friction, spend considerable time, or make frequent errors. Our Customer Effort Scores provide quantitative validation of high-effort jobs worth targeting.

What if a solution doesn't provide dramatic speed or accuracy improvements?

Even modest improvements become compelling when communicated precisely. A 15% speed improvement sounds minimal, but "complete your daily reports in 17 minutes instead of 20 minutes" creates tangible value perception. We focus on cumulative benefits: small daily improvements compound to significant weekly or monthly time savings.

How do you measure Customer Effort Scores for campaign development?

We survey existing customers about specific job steps, asking them to rate difficulty on a scale of 1-10. We calculate the percentage of customers rating each step as 7 or higher—this is the CES. High CES scores indicate valuable campaign targeting opportunities. For prospects, we use industry benchmarking or competitive analysis to estimate effort levels.

Should job performance campaigns replace all traditional marketing approaches?

Job performance alignment works best for solution-focused campaigns targeting business users who evaluate purchases based on operational improvements. Brand awareness and thought leadership campaigns may still use traditional approaches. The key is matching campaign strategy to audience evaluation criteria.

How do you validate that claimed performance improvements are accurate?

We implement customer success tracking systems that measure actual job performance outcomes. We survey customers 30, 60, and 90 days post-implementation to validate speed and accuracy claims. We use this data to refine future campaign promises and build case study content.

What's the difference between job performance campaigns and traditional benefit-focused marketing?

Traditional benefit marketing uses generic terms like "increased efficiency" or "improved productivity." Our job performance campaigns specify exact improvements: "reduce invoice processing from 45 minutes to 12 minutes" or "improve forecast accuracy from 73% to 91%." The specificity allows direct comparison and builds credibility.

How do you structure campaigns for complex solutions with multiple job improvements?

We create campaign sequences that follow customer priority order. We start with the highest-effort job (highest CES) and most significant improvement opportunity. Once prospects understand primary value, we introduce secondary job improvements. We avoid overwhelming prospects with multiple complex improvements simultaneously.

How does AI accelerate job performance marketing campaign development?

Our AI-powered platform accelerates the analysis of customer feedback and behavior to identify high-effort job steps and performance improvement opportunities at scale. AI helps process thousands of customer interactions to pinpoint exactly where customers struggle most, creating more accurate and targeted marketing messages faster than traditional research methods.