Three Tips to Empower Executives with Data to Make Marketing Investments

Your marketing budget is at risk.  

The news keeps getting worse. Businesses are closed, the economy is compromised, the supply chain is fractured, unemployment rates are skyrocketing.

It’s terrible news, and it’s directly affecting your business – your livelihood – as much as it is affecting your life. 

As a marketing agency owner, that’s you. As an agency director or executor, that’s you, too. As a marketing director in a corporate environment … yep, that’s you. 

Jobs are at risk. Projects are on hold. Budgets are slashed. This is the reality for many in the marketing and advertising industry.  

Executives in every industry are grappling with their own unique challenges. Many, if not most, of them are trying to find ways to preserve their cash flow as much as they can. If they are good at what they do – and they generally aren’t where they are if they aren’t good at what they do – they are exhausting every possible option for extending their runway during times like these. Federal help, state help, municipal help, overhead cuts, vendor breaks, subscription pauses, layoffs, furloughs, insurance … and on and on and on.  

Your budget is on that list. It’s on that list about three different times.  

But, as a marketer, you understand the importance of marketing and communications during a time like this. You understand that an organization’s reputation hinges on how that communication is handled. A significant cut in your budget will cause your brand to lose footing in the consumer’s mind and will jeopardize the success of reopening.   

To preserve your budget, you must reach the executive where he/she is. Speak their language – the cash flow, the leads, the opportunities, the forecasts. A good executive might invest where there is a good opportunity for revenue. But a good executive will invest where there is a good forecast for revenue. 

Data will result in the forecast. Forecasting authoritatively will result in the budget.  Tell an executive what they can expect if they invest. Be precise. Use data. 

Here are three ways you can communicate with executives and retain your marketing budget: 

1. Don’t be generic. Don’t dance around the challenges. Be specific with your goals.  

With data, you are empowering the executive to make a wise investment. You aren’t convincing them with your great personality and influence. The data can do the talking. Historical data leads to analytical forecasts. Analytical forecasts will lead to investment, even in uncertain times.  

2. Show the data that led to the KPIs. Be specific about the numbers. 

A plan with data puts the power in the hands of the decision-maker. You want to provide the executive with that power. But none of that can happen without a strategy behind your data storytelling. You must connect the right data sources. You must look at the trends and the correlations. You must make scientific forecasts. 

3. Explain how you can reach the results. Be specific with what the executive can expect to see. You are the expert. 

A smart executive will invest in a marketing plan that includes KPIs, specific goals, and a reasoned approach to expected results. That doesn’t happen without a measurement strategy with historical data. And that doesn’t happen without data analysts to help you.  

Specificity is key with all these tips. When you are specific, the decision for appropriate investment becomes clear for the executive. 

That’s how you can keep your marketing budget. Need more support? That’s where OROS Analytics comes in. Whether it’s helping you determine a better measurement strategy, designing your marketing to be more measurable, or providing full-scale analytics solutions, we would love to help.