Jani Hovila
How would it feel if your management team knew instantly not just what marketing does, but the impact you create?
If they knew how your success contributes to business performance and what is expected not only of the marketing department but also of you as its leader. They would know and trust that if given more resources, this is how our business improves. That it would be so clear that at the end of the year, both you and your boss know before the meeting how marketing did.
This article was originally published in our newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter and get the thought of the week in your email:
Sounds like clarity, doesn't it?
We talk quite a bit about alignment on the marketing role. And the main reason for that is that we encounter so few companies where there is real alignment on a leadership team level for marketing outcomes.
From my perspective, this is the root cause of many friction points.
Alignment on the marketing role is something you need to sell and agree on.
Something you need to nurture as you progress.
Change and update it when company priorities shift.
And when you have it, everything just locks into place.
And when you don’t have it, everything just feels like an uphill run. Tedious and challenging, and an almost constant need to prove your reason for existence.
Why have we lost alignment with the business about marketing?
I think it comes from marketing changing so much in a relatively short period of time. It has become significantly more complex. It used to be something we could describe in simple language. Now we have a huge number of acronyms, channels, and activities we are trying to manage. And in some cases, multiple things that we try to impact. Bold marketers even say that marketing is everything.
If it's hard for us working in marketing day-to-day to describe what we do, how is it even remotely possible for our stakeholders to understand it? Then our non-marketing leaders take the easy route and try to make sense of it all by focusing on the concrete things they see: a LinkedIn ad, an event, or the lead that just popped into their CRM view. And they decide, 'that is marketing.'
But when we stop thinking about tactics and more about marketing as a part of the business, alignment gets really obscure.
What is marketing responsible for? If marketing succeeds, what in our business improves?
I think this is the most important part of any Marketing Executive's duties: to establish, update, and keep it alive – and it is something that often gets overlooked or buried beneath the fire-fighting.
What are the actual building blocks for alignment?
We have discovered that the main factors are:
1. Role of marketing
What is the role of marketing in our way-of-doing-business, or what part does marketing play in our business concept?
2. Outcome expectations that come with that role
What outcomes are expected from marketing? And how will those outcomes shape our company's success?
Why should we care about alignment?
All the marketing leaders in complex B2B I talk to share one really big belief: the huge potential for B2B marketing to truly shape our company's future success, if just given the chance and the right environment to perform.
And for that potential to materialize, you need alignment.
Want to hear more?
If you find this topic timely and relevant, join our webinar to hear more about building alignment with business stakeholders: From support function to business partner: how to redefine marketing’s role to match business needs.
Key themes covered in the webinar:
• Why is defining a clear internal brand for the marketing function the foundation for your budget and resources?
• How to identify your current situation regarding the perceived role of stakeholders?
• How can you use our framework to diagnose your marketing function’s current situation?
• How can you move your marketing function closer to business?
