It’s all good and well to come up with a fabulous marketing strategy, but this won’t be much use to you without internal buy-in.
After all, you need the support from the rest of your company in order to execute your strategy well, and working together with your stakeholders is vital.
Stakeholders are the most important figures, and can include anything from engineers to top executives, investors, and even other heads of department. These are the people who need to “buy in” to your strategy in order to support you, whether it be by approving a marketing message, giving you funding, or enabling resources.
The best way to get internal buy-in is by establishing open communication and demonstrating your points directly to the stakeholders, ideally within a set meeting.
But how exactly do you go about this? Below, I’ll take you through a step-by-step process of things to consider to get internal buy-in for your marketing strategy.
1. Determine who your stakeholders are
The first step to getting internal buy-in, of course, is simply identifying who your stakeholders are.
You need to understand their responsibilities, problems, demands, and objectives. Consider their needs across all levels, and map out how these can integrate with your overall marketing process.
Completing a successful marketing project may fall on your shoulders, but it’s not only your responsibility, and you have to identify and cater to the needs and worries of important stakeholders in order to gain their full cooperation.
2. Make your intentions clear
Your proposed strategy can succeed only if all participants agree.
And for that to happen, your intentions need to be clear. What is the purpose of your strategy? How does it meet stakeholder needs? What are the exact steps you’ll follow?
It’s best to assemble all relevant stakeholders and present your information as clearly as possible in order to get the go-ahead, and don’t forget to make the intention of your meeting clear as well.
3. Focus on the most important information
While you want to ensure that you have all the information ready in case it’s required, you don’t have to go over all the specifics when pitching your idea.
Restrict yourself to a single topic or the key points to help focus your stakeholders on what matters most and keep the message moving forward.
After all, you’re here to get their support, and you don’t want to complicate matters unnecessarily or weigh your stakeholders down with unnecessary info or detailed content plans.
4. Focus on the concerns your stakeholders may have
Your marketing strategy may involve many aspects, but it’s important to focus on what matters most to the stakeholders.
They’re unlikely to be interested in your details or marketing activities if they’re not affected by the outcome. So always ask yourself, why does this matter, and why should they care?
For example, you may know why creating an engineering blog is important, but how does it affect your stakeholders or the overall business?
If your stakeholders are affected by the outcome of your strategy, they will be interested in the overall approach and how they can contribute.
5. Involve your audience
A one-sided discussion is one of the fastest ways to lose your audience.
Stakeholders are much more likely to be entertained and get on board with your proposal if you actively involve them in the discussion — provide the facts but encourage them to raise questions and chat about concerns.
When your proposal is sound, a lively debate can frequently work to your advantage and will highlight the necessity of the initiative.
6. Boost your communication using data
Data is among the most effective resources in your persuasive communication toolbox — and it works well both when developing content for engineers and when presenting proposals to your engineering stakeholders.
When data is presented correctly, it can give your proposal more significance and legitimacy. Real data also removes the guesswork, allowing you to avoid arguments or discussions based on partiality and assumptions.
Simply select the most relevant statistical data that accurately represents your claims, and display it in an appealing manner that can be easily understood.
It’s worth remembering, again, that you don’t want to bore your audience with too many details, but a few clear data points or statistics can really help your proposal stand out.
7. Make use of good project planning tools
Coordinating projects between departments can be difficult, so you definitely have to select a convenient project planning tool to help you schedule and accomplish both short-term and long-term goals.
Project management tools also provide you with transparent tracking of project timelines and updates.
It’s important to present this to your stakeholders so that they’re better able to see the potential progress of each strategy discussed.
If all steps are clear, you’re more likely to get better internal buy-in.
Get internal buy-in for your marketing strategy
If you have your stakeholders working with you, you’re much more likely to get their approval to work on successful marketing strategies, with all the tools, resources, and finances required at your disposal.
Contact me if you need any help writing engineering content or refining your content strategy.
Internal Buy-In FAQs
Without internal buy-in, you may run into unnecessary difficulties that can prevent you from achieving your goals. Perhaps you’ll encounter a lack of resources or insufficient collaboration. You can’t succeed without all the necessary tools at your disposal. So, to effectively run your marketing strategies, you’ll need support from other departments and top management.
This may differ depending on your company structure, but generally, you’d need to include senior management as well as finance, sales, product development, and customer service teams.
While getting internal buy-in from top management is your overall goal, you have to start your process long before you even present your best marketing strategies. This is because you need to understand the company’s overall strategies and priorities in order to develop your marketing strategy, and then show how your marketing strategy supports these overall goals.
