When CEOs talk about growth, it’s safe to say that internal communication is usually not the first fix on their list.
Yet, departmental alignment is exactly what helped my company maintain annual growth rates in excess of 70% for the last 8 years. Clear alignment from the c-suite on marketing plans based on each department’s specific insights enabled, among other things, the velocity and momentum necessary to earn a top 100 spot on the Inc. 5,000 list and 3 repeat appearances after.
In truth, marketing departments are well suited to internal communication on top of their usual consumer-focused duties, owing to their consumer relationships and customer data pipeline. And by aligning c-suite department heads with marketing – and vice versa – businesses can lay fertile ground for growth.
The Importance of Alignment
It’s hard to effectively collaborate when teams believe they’re reaching for different goals. Simultaneously, it’s hard to connect with consumers when they spot a difference between your brand’s perceived value and what your marketing says.
Interdepartmental alignment is a salve for this subtle dysfunction’s root cause. Marketing must put in place a continuous collaborative process with the c-suite in order to align business objectives with marketing campaigns. As business goals grow, this group communication effort ensures your marketing is aligned with your new operational environment – thus providing a cohesive experience for both your employees and customers.
It’s only after creating this alignment that the company can effectively pursue new strategies to attract, retain, and convert consumers.
The C-Suite Guides Marketing
Since the c-suite plays such a central role in challenging and iterating all of the company’s evolving processes, marketing’s responsibilities must include the collection and interpretation of marketing data for their benefit. Over time, the data may lead to new conclusions, which marketing must put in a recognizable context for department heads to act on. This evolution must occur alongside changes to the marketing strategy to keep your company message aligned with consumer expectations.
It’s also important that you measure marketing effectiveness beyond basic web analytics. Find forward-looking measures that help identify future opportunities and demonstrate your company’s progress towards greater alignment. For the latter, think speed-to-launch, or how quickly lessons from the field can successfully be integrated into your next marketing offer.
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How to Ensure Continuity
As valuable as it is, alignment is easier stated than achieved. Still, marketing departments can take tangible steps to create working relationships that facilitate this invaluable c-suite-marketing feedback loop.
The first step is to learn in great detail the goals, strategies, and challenges faced by fellow departments and the end customer. Without understanding their context, there’s no way for marketing to offer synergies that make a bottom-line impact.
This impact is the ultimate goal that will benefit the company and also the second part of this new two-way street.
Broadly speaking, you’ll need to understand the following three factors to get a feel for what deeper collaboration might look like:
- How marketing can help each department accomplish its goals. CFOs, for instance, benefit enormously from high-quality financial data tied to marketing touchpoints.
- How marketing can help them make effective decisions. For example, assisting CEOs with broader business strategy.
- How they can help marketers make effective decisions. For instance, CIOs may appreciate having a say in marketing technology investments.
Remember, you’re not doing research for the sake of research, you’re looking for ways to create durable partnerships and flexible processes internally. Each of these partnerships serves an important and distinct role and can only be effective when balanced by all considerations and capabilities relevant to the role.
Success is a Two-Way Street, Too
Companies frequently succumb to the temptation of throwing the latest technology or hottest tactic at growth targets. But if my company, AdCellerant, never aligned on a clear and purposeful transition to a technology platform provider, marketing would not have the intelligence and context necessary to make that transition possible. You could look at that as a win for marketing, but in reality, everyone played a part to ensure that success happened. Internal alignment between the c-suite and marketing team is, truly, a win for everybody.
