Managing Marketing & Stakeholders

The world of marketing is subjective in its nature, what is valued by one may be disliked by another.

This can lead to a convoluted marketing process, where many voices steer campaigns away from original marketing plans, diluting effectiveness, with ambiguous messaging, loose strategies and poor executions.   

So how do you launch that effective campaign when dealing with a range of stakeholder’s, inputs and opinions? 

Get key people involved from the ground up.

Before you get creative speak to your stakeholders. What do they want to achieve? Do they have a vision already of the end product? What’s the real problem we’re solving? What essential elements must be included? We need to identify what we’re producing before we even think about how we’re going to produce it.

This process not only helps form the bones of your campaign but assists in building relationships and more importantly, trust. People are more likely to accept your recommendations when they feel like they are being heard and can see their inputs being considered. 

Keep the communication channels open.

As you create iterations of your strategy developing the elements of your campaign, continue to engage with stakeholders. Highlight where you have included their suggestions, why you had to alter certain ideas and why various pieces needed to be dropped. Engage with them as often as possible formally or informally. Working as a team at this stage means you’re more likely to produce a strong, single minded execution. It might sound counter-intuitive, but working together means you’re more able to bring all stakeholders along with the great concept, versus selling them on a great concept they’ve had no part in.

Education is key.

Don’t just say something won’t work and expect your stakeholders to accept your advice. Detail how you have formed this opinion, outline the information, the proof, supply data, show your paths of thought and provide examples of effective campaigns which support your recommendations. 

“Without data you are just another asshole with an opinion”

Fighting words from a past marketing manager

Undoubtedly there will be back and forth over certain items however the continuation of this process will lead to a campaign with strategic foundations, strong stakeholder investment and if successful, will lead to a more streamlined process next time around as you continue to build trust and demonstrate your effectiveness coordinating campaigns.