Getting a Seat at the Table: How Marketers Uplevel Their Function

It’s a common complaint among marketers that, even though they’d never assume how to do the job of an engineer or product manager, somehow everyone else assumes they could do a marketer’s job.

It’s a dynamic that startup advisor and marketing consultant John Russ at Three Eighty Advisors knows all too well. He’s spent 20 years leading marketing teams at NerdWallet, Zapier, and Coinbase. At Activate Summit, he shared the framework-driven approach he developed to uplevel marketing functions and drive real results.

In this post, we’ll walk through Russ’ framework step-by-step, so you can transform your marketing from an execution-based function to a source of strategic leadership.

Roadblocks Keeping Marketers From Being Changemakers

Marketers aren’t to blame if they aren’t able to secure a seat at the decision-making table of their organization. Instead, Russ points to three major roadblocks that are typically standing in marketers’ way.

• Structural: It’s difficult for a company to provide the marketing team a seat at the table if the table wasn’t designed to include them in the first place. Structural roadblocks within an organization can include marketing leaders reporting to sales rather than the C-suite or not being involved in corporate-level strategic planning.
• Attitudinal: Attitudinal roadblocks are often borne from a top-down attitude that marketing isn’t as valued or as respected compared to other departments. If marketing is seen as merely a cost center rather than a crucial source of revenue generation, then it’s easily outsourced or deprioritized.
• Technical: By not involving marketing in higher-level business decisions, the team’s technical and strategic competencies suffer. Marketers are responsible for understanding customer behavior, so it’s critical that they partner with business development, product management, data analytics, and other teams to avoid technical roadblocks.

So how can marketers overcome these roadblocks and reposition their department as a force to be reckoned with? Russ says it all comes down to the 4 Ps.

The Four Ps of Repositioning Your Marketing Organization

By following the four Ps framework, marketing leaders can both reset the internal conversation around their function and develop their existing talent to create world-class teams that drive real results.

1. Purpose. Working hard is only going to get you so far, as Russ explains. Effort isn’t enough to get a seat at the proverbial table. Marketing must be crystal clear on its purpose by knowing why the team exists and what it stands for. Just like marketing crafts corporate branding, it must also develop the brand of its own function. Once the team is clear on their purpose, then they better determine how they get work done and what tools and strategies they can use to support that work.
2. Permission. Rarely does anyone grant a team permission to make a difference, so marketers must seize that permission for themselves. It’s important for marketing leaders to build confidence in their teams so they can instill confidence within the rest of the company. Part of granting yourself permission means developing a specific point of view on how great work is defined. By defining what “great” means to marketing, the entire team can raise the bar and exceed everyone’s expectations—including their own.
3. Passion. Stellar marketing campaigns aren’t created in a vacuum, they’re the product of a whole fleet of passionate people. Marketing leaders should improve the internal branding of their teams by celebrating achievements early and often—even the smallest of wins. It’s all too easy to drown in the minutia of each and every marketing channel, but don’t forget to champion the people behind the messages the marketing sends.
4. Plan. Marketing teams will never be given room at the table if their leaders don’t plan to make it happen. Make sure you’re tying marketing strategy directly to the core corporate strategy, so everyone at the company knows how the function is impacting the bottom line. Turn that plan into a cascading umbrella of objectives and key results, so each person on the team can understand the role they play in achieving business goals. That said, stay flexible in this planning, and don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Putting the Four Ps Into Action

Marketing as a function exists to serve the customer, both the external and internal. Marketers are trained to focus their attention on external audiences, but they can’t lose sight of their internal customer—other colleagues and decision-makers.

Russ summarized his takeaways by advising that marketers “lead from the front” by offering a well-thought-out point of view that positions the marketing function as a strategic advantage for an organization.

In such a competitive market, companies must adapt quickly, so don’t wait to implement this framework. By putting the four Ps into action—purpose, permission, passion, and planning—your team won’t just get a seat at the table. They’ll be set up to achieve massive success.

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