How to Help the Marketing Team from Drowning in Its Own Success

This article first appeared in Dansk Markedsf?ring, Sep. 9th 2022

Author: S?ren Langkjer Ravn , [email protected], Strategic Planner at &Co. /NoA

In last year’s animated Disney hit, 'Encanto', the main character's older sister, Luisa, sings a song about feeling the pressure of being blessed with a God-given strength. Because under the surface of her strong exterior, she feels doubt about whether she is able to do all the tasks that the people of the village are asking of her, including taking care of the six donkeys, who always seem to find themselves in trouble. It's a pressure that eventually leads to a nervous breakdown.

But while the Madrigal family in the end sees Luisa for much more that just her raw power, CEOs around the world aren't that overbearing to their CMOs. Forrester published a study last year showing that 58,7 percent of marketing leaders are feeling an increased pressure from their CEOs to prove the value of marketing.

One could presume that the escalating pressure from the CEOs comes as a natural consequence of the data-driven revolution in marketing: "Now that we have all this insight, we must be able to say something more intelligent about the results, we are creating", they might think. The 2021 BureauTrends-report published by CreativeClub Denmark states that the ability to produce measurable results is a rising demand from CMOs to their agency partners. But even with large amounts of data and all the technology in the world, it hasn't gotten any easier to prove the relationship between marketing results and business performance.

However, the CMO's biggest problem isn’t the lack of technology or missing frameworks for proving the value of marketing through data. The biggest problem is that the marketing department is drowning in its own success.

No Time For Strategy

Marketing departments own the access to the markets within companies. And everyone in the company seems to be jealous of this. That's why they keep asking marketing for help to solve their own tasks, that involves communications and customers: HR wants to do recruitment campaigns and employer branding. Sales wants more leads. Product development wants feedback and insights into customer behaviour. Communications wants to do PR and try to shape the company reputation. All the while marketing is trying to do their own campaigns and activities and operate all the channels and platforms. The popularity of the marketing department means that they are drowning in day-to-day tasks.

?And that's a problem, because then there is no time to do strategy. There is no time to think about the long term and plan how the efforts and activities of marketing will work out over time. No time to think about how marketing could accelerate the commercial agenda of the business.

That's a shame.Why? Because the marketing department is the one department within a company that holds the strongest tools for creating growth. As strategy- and management guru Peter Drucker said: The business has only two functions: Marketing and innovation. These are the primary functions that create results and value for a company. Everything else is just cost.

But how do you get started in proving the value of marketing? What should marketing leaders do, as they are creating the plans for 2023 in these weeks?

S?ren Langkjer Ravn is a Strategic Planner at &Co., where he guides and consults a great variety of clients on how to create the biggest marketing impact creatively.

The Most Important Questions

First off, the CMO shouldn't start off with a spreadsheet. Because even though doing the calculations to document the contribution of marketing to the business is an important task, it's neither the most central nor the first one the CMO needs to address.

The most important task, however, is to translate the commercial strategy of the company into the right areas of activities and tasks for the employees in the marketing department. And the most important question that needs to be answered, is what should we spend our time on, if we are to contribute to the commercial goals of the business? That's the main question – and the one the CMO must document that she has a clear plan on how to answer.

The most important question that needs to be answered, is what should we spend our time on, if we are to contribute to the commercial goals of the business?

The process starts by making sure that, as a CMO, you have a strong foundational knowledge on how the different levers of marketing create value. Some activities are cost-reducing and affect the bottom line. Some activities create growth and affect the top line. What is the goal of the company? And considering this, what activities are the right ones for the marketing department?

Next, the CMO must look at the different timescales, that the relevant activities would have. Some activities create results right away. Some take a little while. Ask yourself: When am I to show what results? How can I make sure to drive results in the short term, while still building the foundation for long term value? And when the different activities influence each other, how do we then prioritise? What should we start when? And in what order?

And finally: Are you capable, as a leader, of including your employees in the process of finding the answers to the questions, so that they feel empowered to solve the tasks afterwards?

As a CMO, if you can communicate how your marketing activities connect with the overall commercial strategy of the business, in both a clear and coherent language - and based on a solid marketing theoretical foundation - it will be so much easier to document the value of marketing with numbers afterwards. You shouldn't need a Ph. D. to do so, but you must have a healthy dose of common sense and the time and will to build a coherent plan. If you can include your employees in the process as well, you’ve secured momentum and ownership going forward.

How to Get Started

Start by making sure that you and your team have some actual time set aside to go through the overall commercial strategy together. And not just two hours on a Friday afternoon. Get out of your usual office space, so that both body and mind is tuned into seeing the task and challenges in a new light. For at least one or two days, preferably more. Get someone to help you out - both in terms of coordinating all the practical aspects but also someone who's acting as a neutral facilitator, like an internal or external consultant that you trust.

Go through the commercial strategy together and ask yourselves the question: "What needs to be true for this strategy to be a success?"

And more specifically:

1.????What does the strategy assume that our customer will do or what needs they will have?

2.????What does the strategy assume that the market will do, maybe as a reaction to us?

3.????What does the strategy assume regarding our resources and budgets?

Will the customers develop a growing need for sustainability that we are able to differentiate on? Then we need to plan activities that helps us achieve that.

Do we think a competitor will lower their prices to acquire customers? Then we need to make sure our differentiation is sustainable and clearly communicated.

Will macro-development (like the rising inflation) create tension in our markets? Then we need to invest to make sure we get more than our fair share of the potential customers that are up for grabs.

Do we need to grow, but at a lesser budget? Then we need to streamline our workflows and collaborative processes.

When you are working with these questions, you will eventually see the outlines of the type of marketing activities and initiatives that are needed to make the commercial strategy a success. And then you are already on your way to creating the right plan for marketing.

In the end, the results of marketing will be affected by many external factors that sometimes can be hard to account for as a CMO. However, if you’ve done your homework well and shown your CEO in simple terms, how your activities in the marketing department support the overall commercial agenda of the business, then you’ve taken the first step in getting a seat at the leadership table and making marketing a core value driver for the business.

If you want more tips and guidance on how to get your marketing strategy up to speed, feel free to reach out to S?ren Langkjer Ravn, [email protected], or CEO ?rnulf Johnsen , [email protected].