Marcia Barnes
CEO + Founder Role at Valve+MeterAs the Founder and CEO of Valve+Meter Performance Marketing, Marcia Barnes knows a thing or two about marketing. This woman of influence has made a career out of transforming businesses through profitable marketing programs. Marcia’s success is deeply rooted in creating scalable and repeatable marketing programs that allow businesses to reach their full potential.
In my career, I’ve bought over $500 million of direct response marketing. For the record, most of the programs I’ve bought have failed. Probably more than 80% have failed. And yet, I’ve been successful at marketing. I get results.
The foundation for this success is a principle I learned from a marketing client many years ago. He told me, “Marcia, I have an insatiable appetite for marketing programs that work. I will buy all the marketing you can sell me if you can prove you achieve a Marketing Cost Per Acquisition (MCPA) of ‘x.’ And I have an unlimited budget for marketing programs that work.”
His philosophy was fuel for my marketing strategy. All I had to do was test a marketing program, show the data for how it performed, and then I could buy more of the program. Released from the shackles of a marketing budget, I could look for programs to test and scale. I stopped buying marketing, and I started buying tests.
I organized my testing priorities using a few simple rules.
- Can the test be measured?
- Can I test small?
- Is the test scalable and repeatable?
- What evidence do I have from past experiences this test will work?
- Test lists over testing offers. Test offers over testing creative.
Not all tests will work. In fact, most will fail. You don’t grow a business by buying marketing. You grow a business by testing, measuring, learning, and scaling successful tests. I buy tests.
In addition to leading multiple performance-based marketing agencies, Marcia has received notable recognition for her leadership as President and CEO at Indianapolis-based Defender Direct (now called DEFENDERS). Over the course of her 14-year tenure with the company, Defender Direct experienced exponential growth from $2MM in annual revenue to more than $400MM.
Marcia lives in Indianapolis and serves on many local boards including Truth at Work, YWAM and Homes of Hope. She has recently been named the 2020 Indiana WBE Role Model of the Year by the Great Lakes Women’s Business Council.