How Marketers can get "Better At" Marketing (Part 2: Alignment)

As we hop into Part 2 of the "Better At" Marketing series, let's start with a brief recap of what it means to be "Better At"...

?? Improving others while improving ourselves ??

And today, we're talking about ALIGNMENT.

Which, by nature, involves two things ??

So for our exploration today, we'll be looking at how we can better align our selves as marketers, to the things that we touch most in Marketing; and maybe some things that we could touch MORE that would add greater value to the organization as a whole.

Enable Results: Aligning with Business Strategy

When it comes to generating revenue through marketing efforts, this is where the rubber meets the road. But surprisingly often, the overall business strategy doesn't get fully passed on to the Marketers, which leaves them doings THINGS that only contribute if they get lucky.

I don't know about you, but I don't like to depend on LUCK for strategy.

So, how can Marketers ensure that their efforts are aligned with business strategy?

The #1 way is to Pressure Test your marketing activitities against Corporate Values.

And how do you do that, you might ask?

Well, let's say one of your corporate values is "Cares About People" (it's a pretty common one). So, with that in mind, how does your company SHOW people that it cares about them? Are there some examples you can pull from sales or customer service? Are you building up clients to be repeatable? Or referrable? What efforts are going into that?

Now, take that information and allow it to inform your upcoming, let's say, social media post.

How could you use that post to DEMONSTRATE "Cares About People"?

You might think that's over-thinking things.

And to be honest, for marketing teams that are running so fast they don't have time to think, these are the types of things that get skipped.

But what's the difference between a social media post you posted just to post it, and one that authentically creates a brand experience?

EVERYTHING.

A handful of posts that create a meaningful brand experience are MUCH GREATER THAN daily posts that don't.

And really, do you want to create a huge volume of experiences that DON'T match your desired brand experience? What's the value in that?

Oh, and let's not forget that Strategy isn't just about Values. It's also about RESULTS.

So, how can we extrapolate this exercise to align with the desired results?

That all comes down to Asking Good Questions.

Let's say the goal is to double sales this year. There are actually MANY ways that Marketing COULD contribute to that. But most of us can't do EVERYTHING. So we need a small set of things that can deliver on that.

And those things? They come from activities that are in alignment with 1) who we are as people and 2) who we are as a business.

When we align HOW we do things with WHAT we need to do, and then TRACK how well we're doing that, we actually discover OUR way of getting what we want.

And that's even better for your alignment habit :)

Enable Conversation: Aligning with the Brand Story

Have you ever tried to tell a story you hated?

If you have, how hard did that feel?

Now think about a story you tell often; it might be from your own experience, or it might be a re-telling of one of your favorite stories (personally, I'm thinking about my adventure experience on Mount Fuji as I write this).

Feel easier to tell?

It's a heck of a lot easier to tell as story you LIKE to tell. One you have FUN telling.

The tricky bit here is, a lot of businesses don't actually KNOW their brand story well enough to tell it well themselves, so as a Curious Marketer, this is our opportunity to dig.

It starts in the job interview. I'm a big fan of asking about the Origin Story of the business (which actually does alignment double duty for me, because I get access to the brand story AND figure out if they are as into super heros as me ??)

I'm also a fan of "summing up" the brand story whenever I'm told one, because it almost ALWAYS opens the door for more clarity. Which just gives you a better opportunity for alignment.

And as a sub-category to this one, especially for B2B companies, the core solution is almost always rooted in the brand story. As a Marketer, if you're going to be finding yourself doing a lot of talking about a product, understanding the brand story and how it differs from your competitors makes for MUCH greater differentiation than on product features alone.

And we can Pressure Test this one as well!

When we're creating content, is the brand story coming through? Or am I getting distracted by a separate series of checklists that pulls me back into "direct competition"?

We can, with the right intention, pull ourselves back to the meaningful part of the conversation. Which is easier to identify if we're aligned from the beginning.

Enable Connection: Aligning with Customers

At the end of the day, generating revenue is all about the customers. And there are some cool things to explore when we stop thinking about "marketing" or "selling" and we think about "aligning" instead.

The biggest difference here is a shift from marketing/selling TO, to aligning WITH.

How does that feel different to you?

Take away the demographics and psychographics of defining target audiences, humans experience things that are done TO them, and things that are done WITH them, completely differently. Let's breakdown how each feels for the client:

- Marketing TO feels like broadcasting, persuasion, attraction

- Selling TO feels like convincing, pushing through, transactional

- Aligning WITH feels like partnership, understanding, co-creation

And as Marketers, if we're talking about Shared Value, WE are the ones on the other side of the client (well, us and the entire business we represent). We don't JUST want the client to feel the partnership vibes. WE want to feel them as well.

And when we come at it from the perspective of aligning WITH the clients in solving their problem, I mean, that feels pretty good; especially if you're already aligned with the first two pieces of the puzzle.

Bringing It All Together

Let's round this up with an example, bringing all these categories together. Honestly, we can even use the check box analogy here to make it simple:

? Is this action aligned with the business strategy?

? Is this action aligned with the company's brand story?

? Is this action aligned with my clients in partnership in solving their problems?

Only you can answer the questions, and I would encourage you to be honest in your assessment. After all, there's no point in going through these questions and sacrificing what we talkaed about last week in our exploration on Discovery. If you've gone to the extent to discover these things about yourself, NOT using them to align your actions wastes all of that beautiful work. And there are enough things in this world that are wasted...let's not let your potential be one of them.

Prioritizing the Process of Alignment

As mentioned ealier in the document, this might sound like a LOT of things to do.

But just like any skill, the more you practice, the faster you get.

And when we get "good" at aligning ourselves with things, we get to reach OUR greatest potential, in however we choose to make that look in terms of careers.

And it all comes down to YOU.

YOU are the only one who can FEEL if things are aligned with you.

So it has to be YOU who decides to turn on your Alignment Radar (totally just made that up).

And when more of us are bringing our Alignment Radar to the table; when we're asking good questions to identify alignment; we get to SHOW people what it looks like to make aligned decisions; for us AND the brands we represent.

And that, my friends, creates a more authentic marketing industry ?

Together, we can??

If you're ready to start enabling the alignment conversations in your role, check out the upcoming Authentic Marketing Academy, starting on March 5, 2025. Not only will you learn how to tap into these insights from an alignment perspective, but you'll also deep-dive the other 3 areas that truly bring Authentic Marketing to life??

Or you can always start by booking a virtual chat!