Marketers in large organizations often deliver great work that falls through the cracks. Between juggling market research, campaign ideation, and collaborative projects, it can be challenging to take a step back and reflect on just how much work you've done — much less on communicating those accomplishments to marketing executives.
But that doesn't mean that you should let your efforts fall silent. You can communicate your impact to the marketing team in more ways than one. In this post, we'll discuss the different ways to gain visibility from your CMO in various marketing roles and provide you with key practices to ensure you're on their radar.
How to Gain Marketing Executive Attention
Gaining Visibility as a Marketing Manager
When deciding which marketing KPIs to focus on — whether you're a marketing leader or individual contributor looking for buy-in — you'll want to consider which metrics will directly connect to your organization's broader goals.
According to our State of Marketing Trends Report, SEO metrics are the most important to marketing leaders going into 2023. To better stand out to marketing executives, you can present them with data focused on SEO-oriented KPIs, including:
- Sales, leads, and conversion rates
- Total monthly visitors
- Traffic from social media
- New vs. Returning visitors
- Click-through rate
A strategy led by SEO focuses on audience growth and brand awareness. Let your leadership know you're focused on growing better and have the numbers to back up that success. In other words, make it apparent that your assignments and contributions are tied to those goals.
If you want to take it a step further, you can voice your innovative ideas to leadership — as long as you know how to back them up. Even your CMO will be open to a coffee chat or one-on-one with you if you have a well-thought-out plan that ties back to business goals and outcomes. After all, showing initiative will help you to stand out amongst your peers.
Gaining Visibility as a People Manager
The number of people working remotely at least once per week has grown 400% in the past decade, and marketing leaders have struggled with this transition. As a people manager, the best way to gain visibility from your CMO is to show your leadership skills through your star-studded team — no matter if they're in-house, fully remote, or hybrid.
Unlike individual contributors, your success as a people manager is measured more by how well you've guided your team to reach KPIs consistently. So think of how you inspire your team to do their best, showing marketing executives that you're a willing and capable leader.
Adapt and see your validation in your team's results rather than personal gratification. Highlight the influence of your team members, their successes, and how their cooperation under your guidance has helped the org.
Gaining Visibility as an Internal Communications (IC) Manager
According to our Marketing Executive Leadership Survey, 72% of marketing leaders agree that their marketing org planning has been more difficult since the rise of asynchronous work and communication post-COVID. Your CMO and leadership team is not only well aware of these struggles, they're looking to internal communications managers to relay the plans and productivity of each team.
Not only does IC help you promote brand values and vision to get employees engaged, but they also serve as a direct link to employee events, webinars, and other spaces where employees can feel involved and invested in the company. Engaged employees have a personal stake in your company's success — and to increase your visibility in this role to leadership, you need to create organizational changes that:
- Improve productivity without increasing stress.
- Make clear connections between cross-functional teams and campaigns.
- Clarify goal alignment across the organization.
Gaining Visibility as a Content Specialist
Our Executive Marketing Leadership Survey found that over 500 leaders believe content marketing is a critical aspect of any marketing strategy — and it's only becoming increasingly important since field marketing has declined significantly during 2020. In fact, over 19% of marketing leaders wish their teams invested more in content marketing.
Marketing executives are looking for more input from content specialists to show the qualities of industry thought leaders that can capture the attention of prospects from different channels. They're looking for skilled content specialists who are expert storytellers, possess excellent consumer and content trends knowledge, and have the data to prove it.
When addressing your marketing team and CMO, emphasize how you and your team develop content strategies that resonate — and show the results of those strategies in terms of generated leads and conversions. Content specialists play a role in all stages of content development, from ideation to execution to implementation. Make sure to take credit where it's due in your next big video, podcast, or blog post.
In review, marketers in every facet of the industry can get visibility by focusing on four overarching principles:
Gaining Visibility in Marketing Best Practices
- Take accountability for any projects you've spearheaded during marketing meetings.
- Relay the impact of your work clearly and concisely — CMOs are focused on the results, so tell them how the org will benefit from it.
- Make your team's key KPI sheets easy to track and interpret internally.
- Use innovative thinking beyond your typical marketing strategy — explore new channels or strategies.
In marketing, it's a team effort to generate leads for a business — but ultimately, it's up to you to prioritize your professional advancement. To better position yourself for success, make sure your marketing leaders know your name, see your impact, and notice just how much of an integral team member you are to the business.
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