Marketers, Stop Talking Marketing AT the C Suite.

May 16, 2024

A conversation that comes up time and time (and time and time) again in marketing circles is how do we sell in marketing as a revenue generator rather than a cost centre.

More often than not this ambles lazily into how do we justify long term brand spend when we can't show immediate ROI as we can with performance.

It's a more nuanced take on how can we been seen as something other than the oft cited "colouring in department"?

Or, if you are American, the "colouring in department".

Now, some of you might not like what I'm about to say.

But we have brought it all on ourselves.

You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

God damn us all to hell!

Here's the thing, marketing is the only core business function that routinely talks in obscure jargon, citing luminaries nobody outside our profession knows, making arguments that nobody outside of our world cares about, obsessing over things which make no sense to rational people.

And in doing so we've earned our place on the table with the smaller kids. With their grubby little hands and their open mouthed spit-eating.

Seriously, when was the last time you heard a CFO refer to an inspirational book when asked a direct question? Or a CPO preface every single fucking response by seeking to validate the concept of agile?

You don't.

So, my call to arms is this:

Marketers, please stop talking marketing AT the C suite.

What do I mean? Well here's some pointers to start with:

• STOP seeing the CFO as the enemy who only wants to reduce budgets
• STOP talking about top of funnel brand awareness as a marketing goal
• STOP trying to sell in the creative for brand platforms or advertising campaigns
• STOP allowing for subjectivity, including your own, what any one person likes is irrelevant
• STOP saying yes or no to suggestions based on current workload or even your expertise
• STOP obsessing over the inputs, trying (and failing) to explain marketing theory and practice

And instead:

• START seeing the CFO as the most powerful ally you can have in any boardroom
• START talking about future sales and projected bottom of funnel incremental growth
• START talking about creativity being the single biggest ROI multiplier within our control (see the work of Paul Dyson)
• START championing objectivity, only what research has identified will work is relevant
• START putting suggestions on a priority list to be discussed at the next quarterly planning meet as product teams do
• START obsessing over the outcomes, framing what marketing will deliver to the business in business terms

That way we might just have a chance, as we used to say at my last agency, of regaining marketing's seat in the boardroom.