How to Nurture Leadership Buy-In for Your Firm’s Strategic Marketing Efforts

Marketing departments within an organization work to convey the company’s value to its clients, prospects, peers, and industry and can be one of a firm’s key growth drivers. According to research from McKinsey, both B2C and B2B companies that view branding and advertising among their top growth strategies are twice as likely to see 5% or more revenue growth. With this powerful statistic in mind, getting leadership buy-in around strategic marketing efforts is a crucial aspect of achieving a business’s objectives. But how do you do so? Below we’ll step through several key ways to get leadership support for your marketing efforts.

1

Ensure Alignment of Your Marketing Efforts with Business Objectives

First and foremost, your plan must be aligned with overall business objectives and centered around your company’s top priorities. Make the case for why your proposed marketing initiatives are needed and how they will help the firm achieve its strategic objectives, whether they relate to revenue growth, market share capture, customer retention, or other.

One way to show leadership that your plan is solid is to directly connect your proposed strategies to the defined key performance indicators, or KPIs, that matter most to the company. Supporting your plan with data shows how marketing plays a vital role in achieving the firm’s goals.

2

Communicate Early and Often

Start the conversations around what you’re thinking early with leadership before you make the formal pitch. Share regular updates on the development of your plan during quick touch-base meetings and incorporate any feedback you receive during these sessions into your plan. Sharing your thinking earlier rather than later means you’ll have the opportunity to address any concerns before formally presenting them to the broader leadership team and ensure appropriate responses get incorporated into your presentation.

In marketing, repetition helps build familiarity around a message so apply that same sentiment to your proposed marketing efforts.

3

Find Other Internal Champions and Foster Collaboration

Engage other members of your team who will be directly impacted by the marketing plan you are suggesting to gather insights they may have and ensure their alignment. Leverage their experience and take this opportunity to refine your marketing strategy to strengthen your plan and position it for greater impact.

Among the groups to include in this discussion are your organization’s sales and customer success teams to build consensus and determine who those internal champions are that will support the successful implementation of your plan.

4

Develop a Compelling Pitch with Striking Visuals

As you build the case for your marketing initiative, start with a clear and concise executive summary that states the business case and the proposed solution. Use storytelling best practices to engage the team and bring your vision to life while also leveraging strong visuals and powerful messaging in this pitch. Research shows that 65% of the population are visual learners, so it’s important to make sure you create a presentation that ‘pops.’ Consider engaging a strategic partner to assist with creating custom templates that can make your data stand out.

The way to get buy-in from your team is to help them connect the dots between how the marketing effort will solve your firm’s strategic objectives. Developing a compelling pitch will place you well on your way to achieving leadership buy-in.

5

Emphasize the Potential ROI

Outlining the plan is one thing but being able to tie it back to what you anticipate it will achieve will be a crucial part of nurturing leadership buy-in. Bottom line, finances are essential to operating a business, so highlight the potential financial benefits of this investment and the other results you anticipate, such as brand awareness and customer engagement.

Other items to make sure you include when demonstrating the potential benefits are:

• Showcasing how the initiative will solve existing pain points or create a business opportunity
• Outlining how the plan can scale over time and grow along with the business
• Highlighting what success looks like for this initiative.

Make sure to use any relevant research from your findings, which could include anything from market research to customer insights to stats on the effectiveness of similar campaigns. Include a detailed budget and anticipated results to benchmark against actual results once the plan is implemented.

In addition to emphasizing the ROI potential, note that each member of the leadership team will have differing items they may focus on, so communicating your pitch in a way that speaks to individual values and pain points is critical.

Invest in Creating a Plan to Nurture Leadership Buy-In

Senior leadership is responsible for making sure that each department’s plans are aligned with the firm’s overall strategy and goals. You want to arm all stakeholders with the information they need to be champions for your proposed plan. Securing executive support for your strategic marketing efforts is about presenting a solid plan and building a strong case that aligns with business objectives, demonstrates a measurable impact, and engages key stakeholders along the way. Bring in strategic partners where it makes sense to help you build your case and know that you can see your plan come to life by taking the right approach to nurturing leadership buy-in.