Evolving your B2B marketing mix is becoming more of a requirement than a nice-to-have in today’s changing business climate. With the need to reach more prospects in varying channels, it’s imperative to have commitment from company stakeholders and decision makers. Without their stamp of approval, the long-term nature of some digital marketing will likely erode confidence and can lead to program funding cuts.
So, how do you go about convincing the C-suite as to the advantages of moving beyond traditional methods and embracing the non-traditional? To move your B2B marketing forward and convince your executive team to sign-off, consider the following ways to sell digital marketing to the C-suite:
1. Align with company goals
By aligning digital marketing efforts with company goals, you force the marketing team to develop campaigns that will deliver to metrics important to the C-suite.
While digital marketing efforts in social channels, for example, won’t immediately tie to ROI you can show correlation between social statistics such as ‘Likes’ and increased traffic to the website from Facebook.
Next, dive into analytics to determine what visitors from Facebook are doing on your website. i.e. downloading a white paper, therefore becoming an inquiry.
Increasing inquiries on the site and prospects in the pipeline for the sales team is something to which most C-Suites will positively respond.
Since the majority of the C-suite always keeps an eye out for industry proof, consider including industry reports, white papers, case studies and other elements to resonate the value of long-term digital marketing to your organization, while working to create your own proof points.
2. Reference competitor’s success
Keeping with the angle of industry proof, one effective method to sell digital marketing includes showing competitor success.
If a competitor is utilizing successfully specific digital channel well, add this to your presentation to executives. For example, proof that competitors are actively engaged in Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn is often very compelling.
However, before showing this to the executive team, dig into each channel and make sure it’s not an employee-centric destination.
Not many executives will turn a blind eye to even the most non-traditional methods if competitors appear to have an upper hand.
3. Emphasize marketing analytics
Although you can sell the need of digital marketing to your C-suite, remember to include which methods are available to create measurable, consistent statistics based on the performance of your digital marketing campaigns.
Without proper measurement and data, stakeholders will become reluctant to continue efforts once the excitement around launching a new campaign begins to wear off.
To measure success of digital marketing, ensure you have marketing analytics in place capable of assessing each area from milestones to inquiries and eventually to sale.
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