Insight case article: How we helped our IT professional services provider to improve marketing value communication

Our IT Professional Services client, with a marketing team of 10+, was struggling to communicate total marketing value and prove marketing business impact – both to the management team and within the marketing department. In this insight case article, you'll learn how we helped our client take a major step forward in value communication and business stakeholder alignment.

Main goals for the marketing executive at the start of this engagement

• Strengthen the value communication and be able to report more meaningful business results from marketing to stakeholders and management team. Also, better positioning the team to defend budgets or raise additional investments.
• Enhance the way we measure performance and define what is “good enough”. Build meaningful metrics to enable team to celebrate the success and to identify opportunities for performance improvement through the new metrics.

Main challenges

Lack of effective metrics

The marketing team struggled to communicate their value to non-marketing stakeholders, primarily due to the absence of meaningful metrics. The focus was heavily placed on "vanity" metrics such as touchpoints and leads, which did not provide a clear picture of marketing's business impact.

Decline in marketing's perceived value

The organization's overwhelming focus on lead generation, which had previously been effective, was starting to lose its relevance. The CRM system was underutilized, and there was overdependence on the sales team to maintain accurate data. This lack of robust data led to decreasing trust in marketing’s contributions.

Ineffective reporting models

Over the past two years, multiple reporting models were introduced in an attempt to improve marketing value communication. However, these models became overly detailed and tactical, ultimately failing to provide strategic insight. They also didn't address the root cause for the lack of ability to prove marketing value to the business.

Frustration with the fact we don’t know if we succeeding or not
There was a growing frustration within the marketing team because our client's team felt they were running the right campaigns and making meaningful impact on the business, but they couldn't prove the value. That led to the adoption of ROI as a default metric, despite knowing it wasn't the most accurate or appropriate way to measure marketing's impact.

Solution

Our approach involved close collaboration with the marketing executive and their direct reports, the marketing managers. Over the course of 8 weeks, we held weekly sessions focused on our framework, “The Four Dimensions of Proving Marketing Value in Complex B2B Industries”.

Mavenfirst framework: "The Four Dimensions of Proving Marketing Value in Complex B2B Industries".

01. Current state analysis and interviews

We started the engagement with a thorough analysis of past materials and interviews with the marketing team to understand the current approach to reporting, setting goals and defining value. Based on this analysis, we modified our approach to address the exact root cause identified during the first couple sessions.

02. Alignment on marketing's strategic role and goals

Based on the analysis, we identified gaps in marketing's role. We facilitated discussions to ensure the marketing leadership team aligned on the strategic role of marketing within the organization. This was essential to redefining marketing’s purpose and objectives in terms of business value and to opening the minds beyond the traditional “lead generation role”.

03. Identifying marketing’s total impact

We helped the team identify the full range of business benefits influenced by marketing campaigns and programs, including cost savings, revenue generation, and competitive advantage. We pushed them to step outside their comfort zone and look beyond direct value, guiding them in identifying the process value and performance value of marketing initiatives. This broadened their understanding of marketing’s value beyond just lead generation and direct value.

Mavenfirst: Direct and indirect value.

04. Quantifying the value in business terms

We introduced methods to quantify marketing's contributions in concrete business terms, linking efforts to tangible business outcomes such as revenue growth, customer retention, and operational efficiency. To support the execution, we provided battle-tested templates that helped the client's marketing managers quantify process value and performance value. The exercise began with completed campaigns and programs, then continued to quantifying value based on future goals on plans.

05. Communicating the right value elements to the right audience at the right level

• Stakeholder mapping:
  A stakeholder mapping exercise helped the team understand the needs and expectations of different stakeholders, enabling them to tailor their communications and reports more effectively to the right audience.
• Refining reporting structure:
  Together with the marketing team, we overhauled the reporting structure based on previous findings to ensure the right information reaches the right stakeholder group.
• Putting the reporting structure into action:
  We helped the client team to shift their reporting focus towards analysis and strategic metrics that resonated with business stakeholders, moving away from overly data-heavy tactical metrics. This improved the whole communication by making it more value-driven and ensuring insights aligned with different stakeholder goals.

Mavenfirst: Elements for impactful value communication and reporting.

Results after 6 months

Increased Value Communication: The marketing team's ability to communicate its total value to the organization increased significantly, leading to tangible improvements in how marketing’s contributions were perceived across business units.

Based on the analysis at the start of the engagement, the team's ability to communicate marketing total value grew by 55 percentage points over the course of the engagement.

Mavenfirst: Growth in client's ability to communicate total marketing value.

Stakeholder Feedback: Key stakeholders provided positive feedback. Feedback was measured in all reporting meetings as well as at the three-month and six-month marks. Stakeholders expressed greater clarity and a better understanding of marketing’s impact on business outcomes.

The best feedback came from the management team. They highlighted the shift to a more strategic level and stronger alignment with the overall business landscape.

Mavenfirst: Client's business and management team stakeholder feedback on the project after 6 months.

Marketing Team Feedback: Marketing managers reported enhanced confidence in their ability to present the team's work within a strategic context, leading to improved alignment with organizational goals. The team also established a better way to measure success in marketing, focusing on outcomes rather than outputs in campaign or team member after-action reviews. This positive shift was consistently mentioned in team-wide reviews.

Through this structured approach, the marketing team was able to identify, quantify and communicate value more effectively beyond vanity metrics and improve its ability to tie marketing programs to business impact, leading to stronger trust with stakeholders and building a better foundation to a more strategic role in the organization.

Learn more

This value communication engagement is one part of our Marketing Management System. Read more about the service here.

Typically we recommend starting with the marketing business plan, but if you are in doubt or want more information, just send us a message — we are happy to help you.