Marketers in complex industries like institutional finance have many inner demons to wrestle.
Here’s what I mean. The conventional expectation is that marketers need to straddle the line between the client and the industry. They aspire to bring relevant trends, client insights, and industry knowledge to the table.
But the reality is more nuanced than that. Just saying the words doesn’t help. Marketers need to offer credible understanding of how clients make decisions, beyond just invoking the word “clients.” They need to be able to challenge stakeholders. Generic questions just detract from credibility.
As a result, the business treats marketers like order-takers, or think of marketing as the “make it pretty” department. Discussions devolve into “I want” or “I don’t like” because they can’t even conceive of marketers as strategic peers.
Business stakeholders also often won’t prioritize educating marketers because they don’t believe it’s worth the effort with internal support resources. And they have a hard time believing anything has changed.
However, deep understanding of the industry and challenging questions can improve the odds in marketers’ fight with inner demons.
One of my favorite situations is when I play the part of a marketer and ask business leaders incisive questions. Some can even be quite simple. Why does that matter? How is what you are saying different from…? Others require specific facts about markets, technology, regulation, or business ecosystems.
The fun part is the surprise on leaders’ faces, the “why has no one ever asked me that before?” reaction.
When marketers come up to that level, the whole nature of the conversation changes. And the relationship shifts from tactical orders to strategic collaboration, such as improving product-market fit or developing messaging that makes a difference
