This is the third post in my series What I talk about when I talk about B2B marketing. This post is focused on the second of the three key takeaways: B2B marketing is a team game.
If you haven’t read the other posts in this series, start with What I talk about when I talk about B2B marketing and then read B2B marketing is complex but doesn’t have to be difficult.
B2B marketing has a bad rap. See below.
Ok, you may not get this if you haven’t worked on a B2B marketing team, but take it from me, this hit close to home (and also made me laugh).
Regardless, more often than not, marketing has to fight the image of being a service and the “make it pretty” part of an organization rather than a strategic and invaluable function. This is incredibly unfortunate. When marketing is allowed to unleash its full potential (cliché sounding, I know), it can unlock growth unlike any product-led or sales-led organization can unlock. (See my views on “marketing-led” organizations).
Successful B2B marketing programs are cross-functional. End message. That’s it. Easy. The same goes for sales, CS, engineering, product, everyone. The minute functions are “competing” against one another, the minute the business ceases to grow into its full potential.
So what to do?
I’m assuming that you are a marketer who understands how marketing supports the entire funnel, so you won’t continue this bad rap. If not, we should talk. I am more than happy to help make marketing a strategic function of your org. Otherwise, here are some easy things to keep in mind to get marketing to the right place:
Educate your business on marketing’s role
Like it or not, you will more than likely have to educate non-marketers about marketing’s role, responsibilities, and how they can support.
Believing that marketing only “makes decks on brand” or “runs ads” will only hurt the business.
Build strong relationships
Relationships are more important than skills. If you haven’t built a strong relationship with each department, then you aren’t a team. This should be obvious, but the marketing leader should have at minimum a respectful and communicative relationship with their sales, product, finance, and CS counterparts. This is critical to ensure strategies are executed without basic miscommunication or tension.
Connect marketing goals with corporate goals
And ensure any marketing goals that require cross-functional input are represented in that department’s goals (and vice versa). Departmental goals that don’t like together mean the company isn’t working as a team. Creating a goal-setting structure that cascades – both up and down – is critical in ensuring the business can move forward and that priorities are aligned.
If marketing has goals that involve needing product or even CS and they don’t have equivalent goals, why would they prioritize supporting marketing?
Regardless of how cheesy this statement is, it 100% has meaning: Teamwork makes the dream work.
Header Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash