Successful marketing means working together

Football playoffs are in sight and whether you root for college or pro, the winningest teams work together. The busted play that produced a pick six? Somebody wasn’t paying attention to their play assignment.

It works the same in your credit union. When the marketing and finance departments go their own ways, three and outs are the best you can expect. Yet most decision makers in marketing and finance say they rarely consult others even when working toward shared goals. Many marketers are relegated to the bottom rung of the food chain in their credit unions because they don’t know now (or want) to work with the money person within their organization. Refusal to cooperate is the easiest way to make marketing the lowest priority in an organization.

A recent study from Forrester Consulting confirms what we all know to be true: people and technology are all hindering marketing and finance from making more collaborative decisions.

What would be the top three objectives of finance managers working with marketing departments?

• Measuring the effectiveness of marketing in achieving financially driven goals.
• Connecting marketing with the sales forecast process to help to build pipeline.
• Making marketing more accountable for building valid business cases to support its budget.

By comparison, the marketing respondents in the Forrester study were not that concerned with the ROI of marketing spent or cutting that spending level.

Another recent study asked 190 decision makers (104 in finance roles and 86 in marketing roles) for their response in making decisions. A majority said that making more joint decisions on marketing budgets as well as a gaining a better understanding of each other’s goals and objectives would be more effective in getting the departments to work together.

What can we learn from these two studies? It seems as if the amount of money in the budget is not as important as the measurement of effectiveness that CFOs worry about. Is money being spent on marketing the institution’s goals and is it efficiently reaching the consumer? It is time for marketing to become more strategic and intentional in its teamwork. Having a deep understanding of the organizational goals and working with each leader within the organization ensures success, which in turn, makes marketing successful.

Score!