Marketing is often one of the most misunderstood departments in any organization, with Human Resources closely trailing behind. The term “marketing” is ambiguous; it serves as both a noun and a verb, carrying different meanings for everyone. Sometimes, marketers need to look at themselves in the mirror to recognize the role they’re playing in creating some of the misunderstandings about what Marketing means for their organization.
From branding and advertising to lead generation, social media, design, analytics, video content, blogs, SEO, and PPC, the diverse interpretations create a department that is often seen through a subjective lens. It’s not always easy to define for an organization the value marketing plays but if marketers don’t do a better job defining it, we’re leaving the interpretation up to other departments and business leaders.
When a non-marketer attends a podcasting conference, they may return to the office firmly believing that podcasting should be the marketing department’s primary focus. This sentiment can equally apply to other channels such as social media or direct mail. It’s not always true, but perception is reality and so marketers need to get in front of these symptoms of marketing distrust before they can grow.
If you’re a beginner in a marketing role, be assured, this issue goes all the way to the top. Many CMOs face the same lack of trust as the youngest, least experienced marketer on the team. It often begins with the promotion into a leadership role.
In early leadership roles, it’s common to encounter these challenges. When an individual gets a promotion, the people with the power to promote are often the definers of what they expect from marketing. While gratitude is felt for the opportunities provided, the path can be fraught with challenges, especially when the individual must learn to balance the needs of sales and executive leadership in cooperation with their own views of how to make marketing more effective.
Success in marketing leadership roles often requires learning to manage complex projects and repeatedly bring new products to market, all while developing a team of specialized individuals working harmoniously. However, one of the most critical skills—saying no to ineffective ideas—may not be immediately apparent.
There exists a tendency for marketers to be treated as tactical workers rather than strategic leaders, largely due to the corporate structure that prioritizes demands from C-suite executives and sales teams for immediate output, often centered around the simplistic goal of increasing sales.
Moreover, marketers frequently find themselves in positions misaligned with the true marketing needs of the organization, leading to unrealistic expectations about their skill sets. For instance, a company may hire a content writer but then assign them roles such as webmaster, SEO/PPC expert, social media manager, videographer, and data analyst, among others.
Marketing professionals often face scrutiny for the presentation of their work and are held accountable for the effectiveness of poorly conceived ideas handed down to them. The criteria for success are frequently unclear, leaving any outcome that fails to resonate with executives or sales teams perceived as a marketing failure.
Like any professional, marketers desire to be appreciated and empowered to deliver exceptional results. They seek a place at the strategic table and the trust to implement a strategy they believe in, while walking the fine line between creativity and measurable outcomes.
The trouble for marketers is that it’s never going to be given to them. They have to find new ways to operate in order to take control of these situations.
How Marketers Can Do A Better Job Leading
Your ability to build your marketing leadership is not easy, and everyone has their own pace and approach. It starts with expectation setting.
- Alignment: The only way to get control of being a reactionary marketing department is to create a vision for others to rally around. This doesn’t simply mean that you come up with a strategy and expect everyone to fall in line. It means you need to have a vision for how marketing will make everyone’s job better and more effective. This means finding the things that aren’t working well for the department as well as sales or executive teams as it pertains to marketing operations.
Be an active listener and potentially grow some thick skin to hear their perception of what isn’t working. Don’t get defensive, just listen. Everyone wants to be validated for their feelings and that includes the CEO. Show that you’re a problem solver because you’re willing to be vulnerable and hear the issues. You may have a tendency to think that’s just their perception, that’s not really how it is…but keep in mind that perception is reality.
As part of your vision or overall strategy, you need to show how you are adapting your marketing operations to better support or close the gaps that exists with sales and marketing or the C-Suite and marketing. Show that you’re not just coming up with ideas, you’re solving the inefficiencies that are causing roadblocks to growing the business.
Always leave room for their input and feedback. You’re talking to executives and sales leaders. They have good ideas, and a seat at the table you want to be at. Let them help you get there by being a part of the solution – that’s how you build alignment. - Measurement: Enough with the vanity metrics! Everyone wants you to succeed. Did you know that? Your executive team, your sales team, they all want you to be successful because it helps them. They can like you, but personal connection only goes so far. They want you to succeed at driving their business forward. The trouble is, you may not be very good at giving them information that they can celebrate about. The cliche “if I had a nickel” is apropos because nearly every marketing dashboard provides meaningless data. Social media engagement at 300% or Email open rate at 32%, Website Traffic up 22%. So what?! What does any of it really mean as a marketing success? Your C-Suite and Sales team are looking for leads. Did any leads come in? There are two simple answers the CEO is looking for Yes or No and please don’t be a marketer that says I don’t know. Yes, means marketing’s working, No means it’s not, right? Of course not.
There’s so much more to a story than No. How much traffic does your website really need to generate a lead? How much closer to that number are you? If the traffic is there, but the leads aren’t, what’s your conversion rate and what are you doing to increase it? How does any social media engagement play into your growth strategy? Does it generate more website traffic? Does it increase subscribers? Does it feed sales more contacts to reach out to? If you’re not explaining the “Why?” in your alignment phase, you can’t fix the measurement. But once you’re doing both, now everyone gets more excited about how to define success. - Prioritize: In marketing, everything is urgent, right? Of course not, but Jane doesn’t know that Jack also sent an urgent request to marketing. What Jack and Jane don’t know is that the CEO has a big presentation next week and needs a deck completed for the meeting. What the CEO doesn’t know is that the sales director asked for a new campaign, including print materials for a small event they’re attending next week. What the director of sales doesn’t know is that the VP of Sales needs two sales decks designed along with a product info spec sheet for the client they’re trying to close by the end of this week.
If you don’t have a process for prioritizing work, you’re going to drown in requests. More importantly, your marketing career is going to stall because you begin to look like the person who either can’t get anything done on time, or can’t handle the work or you guessed it, needs someone to manage them? Now, instead of being seen as the leader, you’re seen as the employee who needs a leader. You need to leverage tools and practices for how you manage requests and prioritize work. In doing so, you will have the ability to say no to anyone making a request, even the CEO when you can prove without a fight or emotion that their request is not as valuable as another request.
You will find that the CEO may be willing to scale down what they need for next week’s presentation, or that the sales team doesn’t need a custom campaign for a last-minute event they’re attending, they can make do with what they have. As for Jack and Jane, their requests can be taken care of in a couple of weeks. Closing the sale by Friday is more important and will be the focus. Now this isn’t to say you can only do one project at a time, but you should be more focused on revenue-driving projects as the priority. If the CEO disagrees because they want their deck, that’s their decision to make and can always override other priorities, but now they know your decision-making is worthy, they’re just deciding for their particular circumstances.
Using Azola Creative’s AMP Framework™️ is simple but not always easy. However, it does help you build and demonstrate stronger marketing leadership, and that makes the effort worth it and more profitable for your career and your organization’s growth.
Here are some helpful resources as you move along in your journey:
- DiSC Assessments: Learn how you communicate and how your colleagues communicate. More effective communication is a strong indicator of strong leadership skills.
- Lead Generation Calculators: Leveraging these tools helps you build reporting that matters, from how much website traffic you need to what your SEO Strategy is expected to deliver.
- Lunch and Learn: Each month, we host a Lunch and Learn session to work towards bridging the trust gap between CEOs and marketers by tackling issues that affect marketing effectiveness