How to demonstrate the value of marketing

Most marketers believe that marketing is poorly understood within their organisations (so it is not just those in the mortgage market!!).

Many even find it difficult to explain the role of marketing to others. This is a big challenge marketers face.

This leaves marketers feeling that they are undervalued within their organisation. Therefore, in this article we will look at how marketers can change this and show their worth.

Key Takeaways

• The only way to demonstrate your worth is to have the desire to do so

• Share the insights you have

• Show what you are doing is part of the overall journey your customers go on to build trust

• Don't just share the facts, tell the story, the so what behind the facts

• Get to know your business, its goals, vision, products and key people

• Speak the language of your key stakeholders and avoid your own jargon

• Build relationships, a key element of trust

• Use your creative thinking

• Big up Marketing

• And be the voice of the customer
  

Getting Started

Marketers need to focus on self-promotion, without coming across as big headed. You need to treat yourself as a brand and build trust in your personal brand.

This is not something that you can deliver overnight. But to make your mark begins with an intention to do so.

If you have a desire to show your value, it will happen over time. Once you have that desire, you can focus on some of these tips.

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Share the Facts

The first tip is this: share the data and insights that you have with your senior leadership team and other stakeholder. They want to see facts, not theory.

Don’t be afraid to show bad news as well as the good. It's a good idea to speak to your leadership team and find out what they would like to know; seek first to understand and then be understood.

Operational Led	Customer Led
Show your contribution to the business goals and avoid the “so what” response.	Show how brand salience is growing
Use email marketing to show increased engagement; don't get fixated with being above average on open rates. Use lead scoring to show engagement levels - and why that is important with nurturing.	Demonstrate how unprompted willingness to recommend is growing
Show how you drive more engagement through increased website traffic and traffic to key pages	Show your contribution to Net Promoter Score & Customer Effort Score
Talk about sales volume metrics (you contribute to these so talk about them)	Use lead scoring to show true engagement and how you are driving growth
Show the number of new customers onboarded in the last quarter and how many customers have been retained and lost.

Correlate & Expand

Using your data is a powerful way to demonstrate your value and avoid that horrible "fluffy marketing" tag. To build on the first point, you can also look at correlation and storytelling techniques.

If you have an analytical mind – or know someone who has – map out how driving people to your website leads to more business, for example. Show it and share it. Give attribution modelling a go. Show the correlation between building brand salience, which you can build and measure, and sales growth. Use data to prove what you are doing instead of saying “I think.”

And show how you are contributing to Return on Objectives, not ROI. Make it clear how your marketing efforts are building trust and ensuring your brand stays front of mind.

Tell Stories

Use the hard data and metrics to paint a picture. What do these al mean and what is it leading you to do next. Tel the story behind the facts and remember, no action without insight; no insight without action.

Show others how you turn information into actionable insights that make a difference and let others know the science behind the art of marketing.

Know Your Business

Make sure you know and understand your business and marketing goals; make reference to these in conversations you have. Don’t just share what you are doing – but why you are doing it and the outcomes you are working towards.

Show your credibility. Know as much as you can about how much business your company is doing right now and some of the key metrics that are relevant (even if they are not relevant to your role). The more you know the more you can be part of key conversations.

The more conversations you are in, the more chances you have to demonstrate the value of marketing.

Speak Their Language

Demonstrating the value of marketing revolves around your credibility. And to assist, you need to know what your CEO and the senior leadership team are talking about. If you don’t – the best thing to do is to ask; the worse thing to do is pretend you understand.

Make sure you get to know and understand the mortgage market and your products. This gets you involved in more strategic conversations where you can demonstrate your credibility.

Conversely, make sure others understand you; avoid jargon and fancy marketing terms. Because credibility comes from the words we speak.

Use Your Creative Spark

Creativity is the engine room of marketing. And as marketers, we have the ability to think creatively (although we don't always appreciate this skill). Creativity is about ideas. It is what drives the business forward.

With creativity you can outwit your competitors. Whilst your competitors can copy your price, or your products, they cannot emulate your creativity. It’s an intangible asset that must be continually enhanced.

This creativity can lead to enhancements within your marketing; it can make it more efficient and more effective activity. In this market, your organisation will welcome fresh ideas to compete with open arms. Get creative.

Build Relationships

Know who your circles of influence are and build relationships with these people. The best way to demonstrate the value of marketing to your business is to let others talk ab out how great you are!! Use influencer marketing internally.

Be The Voice of the Customer

Don't underestimate how important this is in terms of demonstrating your value. Being the voice of your customer is a sure-fire way of demonstrating your value. Is there anything more important than fully understanding customer?

To build your value, really understand your customers – but don’t keep this insight to yourself. Share it.

Talk Up Marketing

Most people outside of marketing do not understand it. Why would they. But everyone in organisations seems to want to be a marketer. So, whenever you can, politely tell people that marketing is much more than communication.

Closing Thought

Demonstrating your value only happens if you make it happen. It is down to you, but by building relationships creates advocates who can then also become your voice and help you prove your value.