Why Managing Expectations and Getting Buy-In is Essential to Success – Part 1
Running a business today means that digital and marketing will be core to your success, similar to any other essential department. This is why it is critical that leadership plays a significant role not only when you begin building your marketing strategies, but also as you continue to move throughout your digital and marketing journey.
It’s important that executives understand the expectations from the beginning and that senior resources get buy-in every step of the way, otherwise it will end up costing the company a lot of money and time that could otherwise be avoided.
Let’s break-down a few important points to help you avoid common pitfalls around expectations:
- Like sales or accounting departments, hire people and partners that you trust and providers whose work you respect. There are two simple reasons for this; a. This person or team will be accountable for making decisions and spending money that impacts your business outcomes for years to come. b. Equally they will need to “DO” to learn what is working and what isn’t, and this will take significant time. You’re in this journey for as long as the business will continue to exist, so it’s best to surround yourself with partners and people that you would trust other fundamental aspects of the business with.
- If you are an Executive make it a priority to understand your programs and platforms. I don’t mean become an expert in growth technology or performance marketing – that is why you will hire the experts. However, it’s key to understand what programs are being implemented and how they will support a business outcome that you are hoping to gain. Ask the right questions to make sure you align your thinking with what is actually taking place.
“Here’s a simple example: Make it your business to agree on KPI’s before you proceed to implement a strategy. Identify any considerations or variables that may come up and lay them on the table. If you do, you will avoid an immense amount of time, which will enable you to pivot and optimize 10X faster than if you didn’t” – Robyn Croll, VP, Customer Insights at Goose Digital
- Start from the best chance to succeed: In addition to the two points above, here are a few other things you can do to put yourself in the best place for success. Select best-of-breed – future proof technology and hire experts that know how to use it. It takes unique skill sets and many hands to impact business outcomes and continuously plug the technology with strategies that produce positive value. This is called Performance Marketing and is still where a lot of organizations struggle today.
The single biggest hurdle facing this industry is a lack of knowledge. How is leadership supposed to guide the strategies, outcomes, people, performance if they don’t understand it themselves? These above steps will significantly reduce friction around this problem.
What’s Next?
In the second and final part of this blog series we will cover 3 principal tips for obtaining and keeping buy-in from executives.
Are you looking to invest in a modern marketing plan? Taking a strategy led and technology enabled approach is the first step. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help.