The fact that CEOs are reluctant to sign off on a budget for something they can’t physically see the results of is pretty understandable. If you think about the main aim of a business (which is to make a profit), no smart business person would want to part with (and possibly lose money over) a campaign they aren’t certain will work.

Our success is your success

No one cares about your business's success as much as your marketing manager does. Why? Because the success of our job is directly pinned to the success of your business. Marketers have done the homework of working out industry benchmarks, achievable success points and KPIs based on your goals.

We’ve tied ourselves to these objectives, and if we don’t achieve it, that means we haven’t done our job well enough. And this will, of course, put our jobs on the line.

We aren’t winging it

Marketing, at its core, is an art form fused with a logical flow as opposed to an exact science. While we can justify our strategy with surveys, data and analytics, the truth is that a lot of the creative bits are based on a 'hunch' that you can only sharpen if you’re able to understand, interpret and predict people’s behaviour.

What you would consider to be 'winging it' marketers would call 'making an intuitive choice' based on a deep understanding of how to connect with a target audience.

It can’t be documented on a ledger, and you’re probably not going to find it in a textbook, but it’s the difference between a hit campaign that has everyone excited, or one that doesn’t quite land with the target audience.

While research is vital in informing the choices marketers make (and inspiring your faith in our vision), it isn’t the beginning and end of them.

Jargon talk comes with the territory

Any marketer worth their weight in gold will know what the words they use mean, and will use confusing jargon sparingly. Albert Einstein once said: "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." We find the same to be true when it comes to what we do.

It probably doesn’t matter to you what psychographic segmentation is, or what in the world CPC stands for, but you do care about the ROI - and believe it or not, so do we.

That’s why we have terms that help us do our work, which involves collecting and interpreting data about what consumers want, as well as how, where and why they’ll purchase it.

This way, we can position your product in a way that makes it easy for consumers to spend money on it, while we measure the effectiveness of whatever strategy or tactic we’ve implemented. It’s also a marketer’s job to be transparent and make sure that their client is fully on board with their strategy, as well as keep them up to date on its progress (or lack thereof).

Transparency matters

When it comes to effective communication with your marketer, giving them a clear vision will help them identify the most important marketing goals they should be focussing their efforts on. Picking too many business and marketing objectives and weighting them all of equal importance, can lead to spreading your marketing efforts too thin.

Another hurdle for marketers is in when they don’t have a clear understanding of the company’s marketing budget. We get that it’s often difficult to talk about money, but this is a critical step for marketers to know what they’re working with.

We’ve got solutions, but we need to work with you on implementing them

Every company wants an effective solution to their problem, and your marketing team has the same end goal as you do in this respect. If you ask a marketer what the biggest hurdles they face, they would probably mention things such as excessive red tape and impractical systems, which hinder their freedom, creativity and the effectiveness of their content.

We understand the need for a clear system to be followed — especially in the fast-paced world of digital marketing. Convoluted processes could mean the difference between a post that makes your brand go viral versus one that is outdated.

Here’s just one example of this: if a community manager needs to get approval from three different HODs before sending out a Tweet, consider that piece of content irrelevant by the time it gets approved.

Thankfully, this issue has an easy fix. By encouraging open and honest communication, your marketing team can help you identify what currently hinders their success, and they can then brainstorm solutions that are a win-win for everyone.

We’ve got no doubt that the rocky relationship between CEO and a marketer can be repaired through effective communication and collaboration. Marketers can be your business’s greatest asset, so hopefully, through reading this article, you’ve gained some clarity on how to cultivate a valuable relationship with them.

For more information, visit www.arcinteractive.co. You can also follow Arc Interactive on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.
If you haven't read the fuel that flamed Arc Interactive's response article yet, read it here: What do CEOs really think of marketers?