46: Why You NEED Stakeholder Buy-in When Crafting Effective Marketing Messaging

The Crucial Role of Stakeholder Buy-In in Crafting Effective Marketing Messaging

[00:00:00] So often entrepreneurs create their marketing message in a silo. Either it's just them working on it or they're working with a strategist on it. And. It doesn't really take into account the team that is disseminating that message. You need your stakeholders within the company to fully buy in on your messaging or it will die. We'll die. I promise you because they won't know why they should be using it. They don't really understand it. And they don't see how it's connected to your product or service. So they just, they don't, they talk about your business the way they think that. The way they interpret your business. Rather than the carefully crafted. Brand story that you developed with a strategist. [00:01:00] So for this reason I bring in stakeholders right. At the very beginning of the process. So we can get everybody on the same page from the get-go. And that is what I'm talking about today. I'm going to be talking about. All about why stakeholders matter and bringing them in early in the process. So they buy in to the messaging and. Then, and only then will your marketing message be consistent? And live on through the life of your business. 

[00:01:36] I'm Sarah Noel block, and this is tiny marketing.

[00:01:43] Let's start from the very beginning. What our stakeholders. So stakeholders within your company that should be involved in your marketing messaging. Are the, are your employees? They are the people on the ground, boots on the ground, working [00:02:00] with clients and customers. So. When I am running a messaging strategy with a client. I always make sure that we have the head of the department on any operational department that you have. So generally for myself, I am working with the CEO or the entrepreneur, the founder. 

[00:02:25] There's a bunch of slashes there, but you get what I'm saying? Um, the head of sales are that that person is my very favorite person because they know more than anyone. What customers are saying, who the ideal person is, what their challenges are, what triggered them to look for a solution in the first place. Sales are a gold mine for marketing and messaging strategies. You'll also want customer support or someone within that sort of role customer success, whatever you end up calling it. You want someone there [00:03:00] so you can understand the retention elements. What are, what is keeping people happy? What is keeping people staying with your company? What is retaining them? And that is really, really important. So I like to have somebody from the customer success role. And my stakeholder calls. 

[00:03:22] And operations is great because they helped me understand the money aspects. What can you afford? How can you, um, What is your team dynamics look like? And this gives me a really great idea of. What I have to work with when I'm creating your marketing strategy. What's my budget looking like what kind of team members are there. And at the same time, these stakeholder calls are a great time to get hand-raisers. 

[00:03:53] Who is it who feels comfortable creating content for the business? The people [00:04:00] I'm working with. They usually have like a zero to two person marketing department that is not big. Especially when we're all expected to be creating content at all times. So, what I like to do is I like to find the subject matter experts. And the people, the L the little gifts that we have within our company. And assign them projects to work on within marketing. 'cause one. Anybody who is customer facing and creating content at the same time, builds trust with your ideal customer. And it becomes a lot easier to sell when you do that. And you have your employees involved in marketing. But also, you just don't have the resources to have the marketing department create all of the content in a silo. You need. All hands on deck from it. Everybody within the company should have a role in [00:05:00] marketing. And all of the marketers listening to this right now is, are probably like wanting to slap me across the face because. I mean in my own experience, I know that everybody does think that they're in marketing, but the big difference here is the marketing person is the strategic role where the other company stakeholders, their content creators, their subject matter experts. And there are people that should be highlighted spotlighted within the content. 

[00:05:31] Once the team has created the content marketing can take over and do the editing, make sure that it needs the brand voice. Make sure that it hits it has the right hooks and closes. It has a call to action and it has a great flow. But that first draft. Would be a great place to bring in subject matter experts within the company to do that. They can be the author on the [00:06:00] content. And. It's a really exciting thing. When you start seeing the benefits. Of seeing these internal stakeholders involved in marketing. And how much more buy-in you get when people are invested in it?

[00:06:16] Next step, the importance of stakeholder buy-in. 

[00:06:22] Okay, let's explore why stakeholder buy-in matters for the success of marketing. So what we want to align goals and objectives. When marketing creates goals in their little bubble. They miss out on the goals of the wider organization. So you definitely want the CEO involved. What are the revenue goals involved in the business? You want sales involved? How many leads would it take to meet these goals? These revenue goals. And then just [00:07:00] do the math ask sales. What is your close rate? And how many of our marketing qualified leads are turning into sales, qualified leads. And then how often. Are you closing those sales qualified leads? This is just simple math. Having all of these people involved allows you to understand how many impressions. You need on your marketing to be able to meet revenue goals. It's super simple. When you think about it that way. You just need to keep track of stuff. Like, okay. So this is the math that gets me to the revenue goals of the business. And I know that, you know, X, Y, and Z. Gets me this many impressions on average, and this is usually the. 

[00:07:51] The CTR. The click-through rate on that. And, um, If it happens a lot easier. When you're [00:08:00] keeping track of these metrics and you understand all of the dynamics within the organization. It becomes simple math. And I hate math. But I love math when it comes to money and marketing. 

[00:08:17] Okay. Next you want to ensure that you have consistent messaging across all channels. So when you're involving employees, Within the marketing. You want them to share out your content? You want them talking about. The company in a very specific way you want the matching the brand story. Otherwise it gets diluted and it's really kind of pointless. Right? If customer service is talking about the company a different way. If they aren't. Um, radiating what that message is that you have determined. Like your business is this character. [00:09:00] And they help solve the problem for your customer in this way. Customer service needs to be down with that. And Dean the exact same thing. Otherwise you're diluting the message. Same goes for sales and anybody else that's customer facing. They need to be able to recite that brand messaging and convey it. In everything that they do. Especially social media. When they are sharing out content for the organization. Dang. You want to make sure that they are saying in the right way so that your message comes across. And it's clear what you do, the solution you provide, who you provide it for, why all of that jazz. 

[00:09:49] Next you lose credibility. If you don't have your marketing message. Conveyed the same way throughout the organization. It [00:10:00] makes it well. Authen authenticity is an overused word for sure. But you lose. I'm still going to use it. You lose that authenticity when different stakeholders are talking about the company in different ways and your messaging is just all over the place. It's hard for a customer or a potential customer to trust you. If you are all talking about the company in different ways. 

[00:10:32] And last you want that. Stakeholder buy-in happening because you want to foster collaboration and cooperation among the team. It's so important to be able to have marketing customer service sales. Um, and anyone else that. Communicates with the customer at all. To be on the same page when it comes to messaging. [00:11:00] So I'm just going to bring this back to how I do it. So I have a marketing Madlibs workshop that I always do at the beginning of every single project. There's no way of getting out of it. This is what I do. So I have this messaging workshop. Which I call marketing Madlibs and all of the stakeholders are invited to it. And together. We have a great conversation and I find that golden thread. Among all of the stakeholders that ties everything together. So oftentimes stakeholders think we're saying completely different things. We don't agree. And. We're never going to agree. But the thing is there is a golden thread between everything that the stakeholders are are saying. And you just have to have that marketing mind to be able to find it. And weave [00:12:00] it through all of the messaging because it's there. And I have done a million of these workshops. It is always there, no matter how disconnected the team is, how much the stakeholders are convinced that they have a broken organization. It's there and they don't realize it because they're just too deep into it. 

[00:12:22] So trust me. You need an outside facilitator because they can see things with a clear mind that you can't see when you're in the muck, you know, So. I mean, I wasn't going to do this here, but if you do want to just do the stakeholder workshop, my marketing Madlibs workshop. I'll have a link in the show notes and you can sign up for it. Right then and there, my friend. All right, let's get back into it.

[00:12:52] Next up. Let's talk about the risks of a lack of stakeholder. Buy-in. 

[00:12:59] Okay. [00:13:00] We've all seen it. We have, we've seen these organizations where there's a big disconnect. Everybody is talking about. The company in a different way. And you're not clear on the why, why does the organization exist in the first place? The how. How do you help your customers differently than everyone else? And the, what what's included. In your support. And your solution for the customer. 

[00:13:35] It happens all the time where you think, well, the entrepreneur. Thinks that it's very clear and maybe it was at one point, maybe it was, but the team has just gotten a lot bigger. And there's, um, There just isn't that cohesion that there was when the team was more concise, small, or even just them. It gets a lot harder when you're adding more people. And more emotions to [00:14:00] play. But here are the risks when you don't bring them all in together to. Work on the messaging together now. Even if you have great messaging now. And then you have been scaling. Your team's a lot bigger. Now you will probably also want to have a workshop with a facilitator. To bring people together. And help them understand the why behind the messaging and marketing strategy. That will get them pulled back in and even asking them their opinions and you know, what they see as people that are boots on the ground out there, because. Your messaging might've been perfect when you are a one person company. And now it might not make sense. And your team will have these insights that you don't have. So. Here's [00:15:00] some struggle things. Um, when stakeholders don't buy in there's inconsistent messaging and it leads to a lot of confusion with customers and prospects. And what does this lead to? It leads to stagnant sales. It leads to longer sale cycles. And it leads to people not trusting your organization, which is a big problem. The number one thing that I do in my marketing strategies is build out a system to. Encourage trust between prospects and the company. I want them. Prospects. To fully buy in and trust the company that they are seeking a solution from. And that's lost when stakeholders don't believe in the message. 

[00:15:48] Uh, lack of support impacting the campaign execution. So let's say you are working on an account-based marketing plan. 

[00:15:58] And you are seeking to [00:16:00] work with a very specific company and it's all hands on deck. You want to land this account? But. Stakeholders. Aren't all buying in on that messaging. And they're talking about it in different ways. They aren't going with your actual campaign assets, your campaign messaging. Big problem with that. And that's gonna make you lose that, that account. And we all know when you do ABM. Account based marketing. If you don't reach your goals, you've lost a lot of money. You need to nail that account. Um, there's a negative impact on brand reputation and credibility. When the stakeholders don't buy in, it's all inconsistent and people don't trust you. And you get missed opportunities because you have a fragmented approach. What might be working for one team isn't working for another. And the reason for that is you guys aren't on the same page on how to talk [00:17:00] about it. And that can be really. Detrimental, especially if you have like marketing PR and sales. All talking about the company in different ways. It's completely fragmented and no one's going to trust you like that.

[00:17:16] Next let's talk about factors affecting buy-in. What is causing issues and what would fix those? So one clear communication of the strategies, rationale and benefits. So let's say you are an entrepreneur and you created your messaging and marketing strategy with an outside consultant before you scaled up and you added a team. Now you have a team. And they have no idea why you've chosen the direction that you have or what the benefits are of it. They need to be involved. So if you have that, it's time to revisit your messaging strategy and bring them in [00:18:00] to make sure that it still makes sense and it still fits for the organization. And if it does, it's a great opportunity for these stakeholders to understand the why behind it, the rationale, the benefits of it. Next addressing concerns and objections. So your stakeholders might fully understand your messaging and your marketing strategy. And think now, not for me. I believe in this. So these workshops are a great time to address concerns and objectives. Um, objections that they have with the strategy as it is today. And actually listened to them because they might have very valid. Reasons behind their objection to it. And it might be time to make a tweak. And then last demonstrating alignment with organization. Goals. So you sit down and you [00:19:00] have a messaging workshop. And you can align it with the goals of today. Your 2023 goals. Because if you created a messaging and marketing strategy in 2020, It's probably looking very, very different today. It is probably evolved without your knowledge. And it's time to revisit it and make sure that it aligns with today's goals.

[00:19:25] Okay, so here are four ways that you can gain stakeholder buy-in. One early involvement and engagement. Of stakeholders and this strategy development. Process. This is why it's the very first thing that I do. So my full strategy is called a strategic story. And it is. Customer avatar. Messaging strategy. Content. And marketing action plan. That's what my full strategic story looks like. But the very first step of that happens [00:20:00] before all of those pieces. And that is the marketing Madlibs workshop where I have stakeholders sit down with me and we have a whole workshop to get them involved and engaged in the process. And they're involved every step of the way. So they are in, they are invested and they are. Fully involved. When we roll it out and it's actually being used because they were part of it. You care a lot more when you're part of the process. Two. Customizing messaging to resonate with different stakeholder interests. So the same messaging needs to be across the entire organization, but there can be some customization based off of. What role that stakeholder is in, for example, Marketing is going to be talking slightly different about the company. Then customer success. Because customer success, they are working directly with current [00:21:00] customers. So they need to talk about, you know, The piece of the funnel that is retention. And so you need to be able to have a messaging strategy that talks about the entire funnel, including the delight and the retention stage of it. 

[00:21:21] Three sharing success, stories and data to demonstrate potential impact. So when you are built, trying to get that stakeholder buy-in. You want to be able to show the reasons why with real life examples? So you can test out some of your strategies and build up success stories to demonstrate the impact. And this would be coming from. The consultants PR point of view. Or it would be coming from the marketing leaders point of view. Because do you have experience to [00:22:00] show them. These are success stories. That I have experienced from going this direction. Make sure that you have them available. So people who aren't in marketing and don't understand. How it works, how. 

[00:22:16] Show them how it works in a way that they're going to understand. You're a marketer, you know exactly how to do this. You need real-world examples, you need stories and you need data. To make it clear. Y your strategy will work for them. Make it as easy as possible for them to be invested. And excited about it.

[00:22:40] To wrap it up. I just want to tell you what one of my clients said to me recently after I ran a marketing Madlibs workshop for them. And then proceeded to they moved on to this strategic story. And they said before working with me and doing this 

[00:23:00] stakeholder workshop. They didn't have any buy-in. They. We're completely disconnected every department within the organization. Just. They didn't really understand. What they were doing. They weren't going in the same direction. They didn't have the same goals and they didn't know how to talk about the business or how to get in front of the right people. But after the marketing Madlibs workshop. They actually feel invested and like they're on the same team and they're moving in the same direction for the first time in a 20 year history. That is the power of getting stakeholders involved early on in the process of creating a marketing or messaging strategy. There is no substitution for it. People are not going to care at all. About the [00:24:00] messaging or marketing strategy. That they're told about. They will care about the one that they were involved in. So even if you have a marketing and messaging strategy right now, But you've grown and you have a team now. That isn't really invested in it. It's time for a workshop and a tweak. It might be time to adjust your messaging and marketing strategy. So everybody is involved and you get new insights and you guys are all running in the same direction to meet those goals. Thank you. Thank you for joining me today on this solo episode. Make sure to go to the show notes page and check out the resources for the marketing Madlibs workshop. And tell your friends about it. Of course. What more ears on tiny marketing. And rate review. And here is [00:25:00] your tiny homework for today. You know, I love to give you some homework. So get out that notebook. Get ready. Get ready for him to write it down. But I want you to do. Is make a list of all of the stakeholders that you think should be involved. In the messaging and marketing strategy. Make that list and start from there. And if you were comfortable, go down to the show notes page and book your marketing Madlibs workshop. The full cost of that workshop. Goes towards your strategic story. So if you decide to move forward and get a full strategy from me. That workshop cost. Poof gone. It's completely moved over to the strategic story. So you get a. Big old discount on the actual strategy. All right. Thank you again. And I will see you next time.