How to get the board on board

Getting internal buy-in from senior managers and board members will determine whether your next marketing idea gets the go-ahead. Alex Blyth uncovers on how to get the backing of this tough crowd

JK Rowling spent a year trying to find a publisher and was rejected by 12 of them, but she was convinced that there was a market for her Harry Potter books. How right she was. Galileo spent a decade under house arrest after expounding on Copernicus’s theory of a heliocentric solar system. He was certain he was right and was eventually proved so.

These are examples of extreme opposition resulting in remarkable success, but many B2B marketers will know how Rowling and Galileo felt. It is a common complaint of B2B marketers that whether they are trying to overhaul their brand proposition, roll out a new ad campaign or get stuck into social media marketing, it is often more of a challenge to get their line manager or the board to support an idea than it is to make the campaign itself work.

Without support from this higher internal stakeholder level, the success of a campaign can be doomed from the start. So what can marketers do to achieve this all-important buy-in?

An improving situation

Simon Carter, marketing director at Fujitsu UK & Ireland, believes the boards of B2B companies tend to be less attuned to marketing than their B2C counterparts. “My personal experience is, generally, the boards of B2B brands see marketing as short-term and tactical,” he explains.

“In B2C, there is a greater understanding of the role of good marketing, of how it can help shape the business, better understand its market, and use the full marketing mix to position the brand.”

This much has been known about B2B marketing for many years, and it is fair to say that at many organisations the situation is improving. “Earlier in my career, I found many board members thought of marketers as people who produced brochures and attended industry events,” recalls Martin Smith, head of marketing at Neolane. “I worked at Ericsson and it was very difficult to convince engineers of the value of marketing. Now, however, there is a much greater appreciation of the effect marketing can have.”

In many cases, this is reflected by the presence of a marketer on the board. Carter says, “It makes life a damn sight easier if the CMO sits on the board. If you are there at the table, and more importantly, if you have the chance to voice your opinion, it makes it much easier to get approval for your plans.”

Much at stake

However, boards containing marketers remain a relative rarity in the B2B world, and even where they do exist, winning over the rest of the board is far from a pushover. Smith reports it is still difficult for him to convince board members to sanction spending on brand-building campaigns, simply because they struggle to see how it produces any ROI. Other marketers bemoan the reluctance of board members and even senior marketers to invest in social media and other digital campaigns.

We need to remember that for those senior executives a great deal rests on these decisions. So it is hardly surprising they need some persuading to run with ideas. Here are 10 tactics that will help you gain buy-in from even the most entrenched senior marketer or anti-marketing board member.

1. Logic must come first

“The starting point for building any marketing plan should be a clearly defined set of business goals and objectives,” says Phil Brown, director at The Channel Partnership. “It’s important that marketing teams can present not just the proposed activities, but the underlying logic of why those activities have been selected to help the business achieve its goals.”

He adds, “Problems occur when marketers approach the process in reverse, coming up with ideas for activities, and then retro-fitting objectives to them. These plans soon fall apart when senior managers start to probe
and challenge.”

2. Aim for specific verticals

For Smith, the greatest challenge is persuading board members or other senior colleagues of the value of branding campaigns. “It is difficult to show how activity resulted in sales,” he explains. “So, we run our brand campaigns in specific verticals of a finite size, and this allows us to more accurately correlate clicks, downloads and so on, to individual campaigns. It’s not entirely accurate and there is still some halo effect – where a campaign influenced a buyer but not in a direct way – but this approach at least allows us to demonstrate that our work is producing results.”

3. Involve salespeople

Smith also advocates involving salespeople in the planning of campaigns. “Build teams around a vertical campaign, so marketing and sales executives work together to devise a plan. It educates both salespeople and marketers on the value of the other department, and it creates an atmosphere of shared ownership around a project. So, by the time it comes in front of the board, much of the job of persuasion is done,” he says.

4. Form your allies

Indeed, most experts recommend widespread lobbying around the business before taking any proposals to the board. “Before presenting plans it’s always a good idea to get input from at least the CEO and FD,” says Linda Miller, innovation director at Brand Learning.

“Marketers are so busy they can become distant and disconnected from the heads of other business units and lack an understanding of what they do.”

She adds, “Ultimately, investing more time connecting with other functions, developing relationships with them and building in their perspectives will pay off by decreasing resistance to marketing initiatives. Nothing gets a new proposition or campaign through more effectively than the active support and enthusiasm of the finance team.”

Carter notes that non-executive directors on the board can either be vital allies or opponents, so it is worth spending time researching their backgrounds to find out if any have marketing experience, and then speaking to them to explain your plans.

5. Avoid surprises

For Javier Diez-Aguirre, corporate communications director at Ricoh, the key to senior stakeholder buy-in is to avoid surprises. “Early one-to-one engagement is absolutely fundamental,” he says. “I find it useful to identify one or two ‘sponsors’ [or supporters] on the board who have nothing to do with marketing or communications. This gives more credibility. The ideal situation is when somebody else [i.e these sponsors] is supporting the work for you.”

6. Present the evidence

“Don’t just waltz in and announce that you want to use Twitter or Facebook for marketing,” advises Nick Pauley, MD at Pauley Creative. “This is the most common mistake marketers make when approaching the board. Research everything, prove everything, and try to anticipate where the resistance will lie. Instead of just saying you want to use Twitter, present a case showing that 50 per cent of your top customers are actively using it, and two of your major competitors are running campaigns to reach them. Find examples of their interaction online, and give examples of how you could be taking advantage of these situations.”

7. Think ‘company’ initiative

“I have generally had success when I have succeeded in showing how something is a business, not a marketing campaign,” says Diez-Aguirre. “The focus should not be on the marketing project you want the board to approve, but on alignment of agendas and what is best for the company as a whole. Try to make everyone feel that they are all in this together.”

8. Give choices

Diez-Aguirre also recommends presenting senior executives with at least three scenarios to choose from. “I usually don’t lead the conversation with my recommendation,” he explains. “I outline the facts and likely outcomes of various scenarios.

“At some point, I am then asked for my recommendation. This is a critical point in the conversation. I need to demonstrate that my recommendation is not merely my preferred choice, but is in fact the result of cross-border and cross-functional collaboration. This is also a good moment to paraphrase advice and suggestions from any ‘sponsor’ board members.” 

9. Propose parallel processes

Carter takes this idea a step further to recommend a tactic that will both appeal to financially cautious board members but also deliver the necessary long-term brand-building benefits. “Propose a parallel process,” he says. “One that delivers short-term tactical results and one that provides brand development, thought leadership and credential building.”

He adds, “The two processes need to live and die on their own, but they should also be inextricably linked. That way, the board sees the tactical stuff and is happy with it, while you also deliver the real results that make the former so much easier.”

10. Avoid marketing jargon

Finally, Bethanie Nash, MD of Smart Monkey Marketing, offers this advice on how to deliver your ideas. “Marketing jargon will only make you appear like a narrow-minded marketer unable to see the wider business picture,” she says. It is advice that every marketer walking into a boardroom ignores at their peril.

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