Stephen Tarleton is director of marketing at digital employee experience management platform 1E .
Great companies have great leadership: not only in the CEO's chair, but also in senior management. Therefore, I believe that the best business decisions are made when the entire management team discusses and then agrees. The marketing manager plays two main roles in the executive decision-making process: the vertical role of go-to-market decision specialist and the horizontal role of developing communication plans for all business decisions. Regarding the latter, marketers can use many of the same frameworks in their strategic marketing plans to inform the decisions of the executive team.
Know your listeners
Essentially, all marketing activities and plans begin with the same step: defining and understanding your target audience. When it comes to communicating corporate decisions, managers must do the same and ask themselves: Who are the stakeholders who need to know? Employees and customers are the first two things to engage. If the decision is important, marketers may need to coordinate communications with company board members and investors. If this is a go-to-market decision, communication with trading partners may also be necessary. For example, I previously served as Director of Cyber Security Marketing at Insurtech, where we sold exclusively through broker channels, so keeping the broker informed about the company's solutions is critical to our success.
Once your target audience is defined, understanding their needs is the key to a communication plan. Take, for example, the labor base. When you return to modeling in the office, face-to-face meetings are likely to be the best forum for disseminating information. However, if your organization uses a hybrid or fully remote model, you may need multiple communication channels so employees can hear and process messages. In general, what needs to be said once needs to be said often.
Explain why
As Simon Sinek explains in his TED talks and book Start with Why , great organizations start their messaging with a "why," which is essentially their core belief or mission. At 1E, we believe technology should create new opportunities for everyone to succeed in the workplace. That's why we're building platforms that help our customers remove digital friction from the employee experience. So all of our outbound marketing starts from there. Then (as Sinek explains) we explain how we do it, and finally we explain what we do. I've found that this makes it easier for people to process information, especially when it comes to marketing. People often want to buy not only from companies that make great products, but also from companies that believe in what they believe.
When you're communicating business decisions, the "why" is critical. Don't just state the decision, explain "why" management made the decision, then how it was made, and finally describe what the decision was. This contrasts with the traditional "first responder" model favored by many management consultants. Again, this means that strategic business decisions are delegated when necessary.
To do this effectively, the management team must make CMB decisions as quickly as possible, and the company must have a clearly defined mission, vision, values, and goal framework. When employees understand the purpose and mission of the company, they feel more connected to their business or work and to their colleagues, which can improve morale, communication and trust. As more teams work in hybrid structures, this pattern of strategic decision-making becomes increasingly important, as employees are no longer in the same office, which can mean they are more separated from each other and may have limited day-to-day communication. access to department heads.
As companies accelerate their growth, they may be required to make changes in many aspects of their business. As our guiding star, we created a digital employee experience (DEX) space, refreshed our branding and messaging, and restructured our best-in-class SaaS products with a new naming convention. When the senior management team communicated these changes, we spent additional time explaining why we made these changes, including the market trends, customer needs, competitive pressures and industry best practices that influenced our final decision.
CMOs should take the extra step to create three strategic anchors that will help all organizations make decisions:
1. Does it correspond to our North Star?
2. Is it urgent and pervasive, and do customers really value it?
3. What is the most effective way to grow in the next three years?
Tell interesting and memorable stories
Storytelling is a good thing marketers do, and if they do it effectively, customers will be more motivated to buy their product or service. As Donald Miller documents in his book Story Brand Building , the most compelling stories a company can tell are not about its company, its products, or its services. The best stories are the ones where the customer is the hero and you are the guide on that hero's journey. (Imagine you're Yoda and the customer is Luke Skywalker.) Customer-centric stories can have more than just external marketing benefits. It can also bring the company together and strengthen the customer's role in the company. Therefore, this framework also works when operational decisions are communicated, especially when they are communicated consistently through operational communication channels, and has the advantage of putting the customer at the center of the decision. (See the second strategic anchor above.)
I understand that companies need to prioritize marketing and communications in their business planning and decision-making. As more CMOs are leading corporate strategy since the start of the pandemic, I'm starting to see companies moving in this direction. Communication increases recognition among employees and customers. When given a seat at the table, the CMO can help improve internal employee morale and productivity, as well as improve customer service and external communications.
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