Getting Management Buy-in For Marketing Initiatives

Being a marketing agency founder, I interact with a lot of B2B marketers on a daily basis. One of the most common challenges many of them face is getting management buy-in (and budget approvals) for new marketing initiatives (or any marketing at all in some cases). While some industries like SaaS are marketing-heavy, others like industrial heavy equipment manufacturing do not believe in active marketing efforts except for events, tradeshows, and a few other age-old tactics.

Given that marketing is a game of experimentation and takes time to work, marketers need enough budget and resources to try out new things. Only with this flexibility can they succeed, especially in a highly competitive market. This is why it is extremely important to take the management team into confidence to gather the right support at the right time.

Interestingly, this is not always between the marketing team and the CEO, COO, or CRO. Marketing managers often find it difficult to get approvals from the CMO too for campaigns, despite having merit. In this edition of the Elevate Your Marketing newsletter, I try to address these challenges. We look at the topic completely from a practical standpoint, keeping in mind the barriers and boundaries that exist.

Understanding the views of both sides

First, we need to understand that this is not a battle between marketing and management (or the CMO and team members). While marketers' key objectives are improving visibility and generating leads, the CEO or management is responsible for ensuring that the topline as well as the bottom line of the business are healthy. This means prioritizing the distribution of budgets and expecting some departments to do more with less. A few other reasons why some CEOs tend to give less weight to marketing are:

• They often have to focus on immediate revenue and pipeline goals, which could mean more attention towards functions like sales.
• Some believe that the product or solution should sell itself and marketing can merely be a facilitator.
• Most companies do not have proper revenue attribution methods in place. This makes it difficult for marketing teams to prove the ROI of their efforts. This in turn leads to an impression that marketing is not doing enough for topline growth.

Despite these challenges, B2B marketers have to be proactive in voicing their opinions and getting approvals for budgets and new initiatives so that they can meet their goals. It is not about proving who is right. It is rather about finding a balance between the two views and ensuring the interests of both parties are met.

Getting the basics out of the way

Understanding the fundamentals is key to establishing a system for consistently getting management buy-in. Anything you propose needs to have the following elements:

• Expected outcomes (if possible, express the ROI in dollar terms)
• Timeline
• Budget and resources needed

You could also quote examples of similar businesses that have had success with the same tactic. This will instill some confidence in your superiors.

Taking this structured approach shows that you have thought through the new initiative well. Since CEOs and senior leaders often like to see things in boxes, helping them visualize the results is essential.

How B2B marketers can increase their chances of getting management buy-in

There is nothing like a perfect approach that will always get you a YES. You will face rejections a few times in any kind of business. However, in this section, I explore a few tips that will significantly increase your chances of buying your CMO or CEO into the strategies and tactics you wish to implement.

1. A clear alignment with short-term and long-term business goals

When you design your marketing campaigns and initiatives, make sure they align with the short-term and long-term objectives of the business.

For example, if the short-term objective is to increase the number of leads by 50% in 3 months, you should invest some energy into ads, outbound email, cold calling, and LinkedIn outreach. On the other hand, if the long-term goals of the business include establishing thought leadership and improving brand awareness, you should invest in activities like podcasting, video marketing, community marketing, etc.

If you are unable to convince the management to start short-term and long-term activities in parallel, initiate the former, show some results, and then get the buy-in for the latter.

Approaching marketing this way supports the cause of achieving immediate outcomes while focusing on long term growth objectives. This is more likely to get the management on your side compared to focusing only on branding or thought leadership activities.

2. Make others work less

Have you ever tried to get a quote from your CEO or key leaders for a press release? We all know it takes time, and is often impossible. It's not because they don't want to contribute. They probably have more important things to look into. The key lesson here is that making your management team and key leaders work to get marketing-related tasks done is not a good idea. That will reduce your chances of getting things done even if you manage to get an approval.

What you need to do instead is reverse the process. You take the first step and have non-marketing stakeholders contribute with minimal effort. For example, trying to get a lot of technical content out initially that requires the active contribution of your SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) might not help. Instead, start with something that the marketing team can create on its own (say content related to the applications of your solution) and only needs a final review from the technical team.

In essence, the lesser the work your CEO and key leaders have to do, the better. Activities of this nature will see approvals and closure much faster compared to others.

3. Distribute your spends

When you work with an external vendor, how do you negotiate payments? Either you ask for a long period (like NET90 for example) or you explore the possibility of paying in installments. What if you apply the same logic to your marketing activities?

For instance, consider a marketing initiative that needs a total budget of $5000. Instead of spending all of it in a single month, see if you can distribute it across many months. For a CEO or CFO, maintaining a steady cash flow is important and hence this small step can make a difference.

Another hack is to use the same budget on multiple activities. As long as they can help you achieve the same outcomes, it works. This is because it gives an impression that you are doing many things with limited resources. For example, instead of putting all your money into creating whitepapers, invest in ebooks and blog posts as well. The number of whitepapers you can create will come down. But diversifying the content format will make it easier for you to prove that you are making the most of the available resources.

This is more of a psychological approach than anything else. But I have seen this work first hand. In addition, diversifying helps to distribute your risk of losing money, just like in the case of investing in the stock market.

4. Outsource to experts

This might sound counter-intuitive. But finding experts to do the job for you can reduce the distance to your end goals. When you are having a consultant, marketing agency , or freelancer by your side, you are also offloading some part of your responsibility. While you will still remain accountable, you have the leverage to push your aide to achieve your marketing goals.

Now, when you outsource, aren't you likely to incur higher costs?

Well, it depends. Most often, outsourcing can turn out to be more cost effective, especially if you can achieve your goals in a shorter period compared to doing it all by yourself. I am not getting into the details of outsourcing here since that is not in scope. But follow the principle of diversification and derisking here as well. Instead of giving the entire pie to a third party, keep some critical tasks in-house.

The ability to get things done quickly and reach your marketing destination faster is the biggest leverage you have with outsourcing. This can be highlighted when you pitch this to the CMO or CEO. As an individual, you also benefit from having everything delivered to you in a platter, assuming your marketing partner takes care of not just the strategy but execution too.

Related: Single Marketing Agency vs. Many: What Should you Choose?

5. Target the influencer

In marketing, we often discuss the importance of selling to the influencer first. This can work in your internal communications too. This is mostly relevant for large organizations where CEOs, founders, and other key leaders have team members directly working with them in key roles like strategy, growth, financial analysis, etc. For example, if the CEO's office has a growth specialist, taking him/her into confidence is a great way to open your doors to the CEO's mind.

6. Always put them in the driving seat

Everyone wants to feel important, especially leaders. It's important for you to create an atmosphere where the leader(s) feel they are in the driving seat though you should be the one holding the steering wheel.

It's not what you say, how you say it matters too.

So, when you make your pitch, be sure to take into account the management's concerns. While you want to implement your ideas, see how you can accommodate the leaders' inputs into your overall strategy. Lending your ears to them will make it easier for you to get the management team on your side.

Final words

While the techniques we discussed in this article will improve your chances of getting management buy-in, it is very person-dependent. For instance, some people are generally reluctant towards spending money on promotions and marketing. A small percentage of leaders will also have unrealistic expectations.

At the same time, it is equally important for B2B marketers to understand the position and limitations of the management and come up with strategies and tactics that align with the overall business goals. As I mentioned in the beginning, it is not a battle but a game of balancing the goals of two sets of business stakeholders who have different worldviews when it comes to business growth.

Looking to take your B2B marketing efforts to the next level? Try Skalegrow

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More learning resources

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