Give marketers a seat

So you want marketing to have a seat at the big table.

As passionate marketers, I’m sure we can all agree that marketing should have a voice in the board room. And, while this is a popular view among marketers (surprise, surprise), these thoughts aren’t shared with board members.

But it’s easy to forget who marketers really are in a company. Yes, we’re there to sell a product, but this is a fundamentally flawed way of thinking. Marketers represent the wants and needs of the customer. This is why market research is so key. Without it, marketers are prone to making dangerous guesses as to the wants of the supposed ‘market’ based on their own biased exposure to it.

First and foremost, we are market-oriented.

And that’s what marketing is so good at. Marketers have the ability to really and truly listen to what the customer wants. And, in a board room, this matters. Regardless of whether board members agree, companies should be in touch with their customers at every level of their organisation. This includes the boardroom. And this is the job of a marketer.

So how do we get there?

ROI discussions are one thing, but remember that the board is looking to measure effectiveness. Where measuring success based on ROI can lead to a battle of interpretations, a better metric is pricing. You as a marketer have a better chance to sell that your brand achieve sustainable pricing power than specific ROIs. Sustainable pricing power is a hard number that you either have or you don’t. And that is something that can’t be argued with.

This week, in something a little different for us, we take a look at taking the marketing role to the next level. Because, when it’s marketers talking to marketers, we can all (most of the time) agree on the big important stuff. But getting that into board rooms is a whole other challenge. Today’s podcast comes from Jon Evans who sits down with Chris Burggraeve and discusses what being a successful CMO on a board looks like, why they should be there, and how to be successful once you are. This one is a must-listen if you want to hear the value that marketing can bring to an organisation at every level, regardless of if you are specifically looking for a seat on a board.