Communicating with Your Marketing Team about Independent Marketing Reports
We at RISE always advocate total transparency between leaders and their marketers. While it is true that some marketers are wary of independent third party reporting, we find that A-Players don’t shy from accountability. Even good marketers are often tempted to “float” the best looking data to the top and hide poor performance in more critical areas. To make wise decisions, you are best protected when you separate marketing operations and reporting.
In truth, the career marketer is well aware of how much of their actual marketing time is typically lost to reporting demands and chasing down moving goal posts. Clear KPIs and independent reporting free up marketers to actually market, while clarifying for them which priorities are being measured by the C-suite so everyone is literally on the same DataCloud “page.” Not only will you save significant team hours with this low-cost subscription, you may likely find your team happily welcomes the freedom from the tedium of reporting.
In addition, we frequently are able to validate to leadership where external factors outside the marketer’s control are coming into play—often these very real factors may be seen as an “excuse” when coming from within. The vast majority of marketers we measure see us an an ally, resource, and partner.
Most CEOs will need to work with their existing marketing teams to provide RISE the needed access for Analytics. Even if not, you should note that anyone with access to a platform will generally still be able to see who else has access. It is increasingly common for multiple agencies and/or staff members to have access to such properties. It’s true it may be a red flag if there is significant pushback, but there’s no need to jump to this conclusion.
One final note, RISE is a rather unique marketing firm in that we are focused heavily on training, mentorship, and content production for internal marketers. While we do offer full-service marketing programs, we are extremely non-competitive and have worked collaboratively as a fellow team member with many agencies and internal staff members as an extension of our clients’ organizations.
As a result of our “trailguide” approach, we are not typically a competitive threat to any internal generalist or external agency who is actively managing the full spectrum of digital and traditional campaigns, and it rarely takes long for any internal marketer or sister agency to recognize this and work with us to create a win-win relationship.