If you’re an employee, you know that any innovation or change to business processes that you might want to implement will need to be approved by your boss first. If you’re sold on digital marketing, you need to sell it to them too, and that’s not always easy.
The Problem: To a person who isn’t on board with digital, many digital methods can seem abstract, which translates as unreliable and risky.
The Solution: Make sure you have a clear and concise strategy for whatever you are proposing. Have a plan, write it down, make sure it looks real. Use the language they use, and the metrics they want to see. For example, they probably don’t want to see time on site or bounce rate, but they will want to see ROI.
The Problem: Your CEO or manager may have ‘bigger fish to fry’, which will make it easy for them to sideline you, even if just ‘for the moment’.
The Solution: Provide evidence of how your digital strategy can dovetail with the existing marketing strategy, or even better, how it can help you reach important business goals sooner. You might even have an opportunity to address a current business problem. The important thing is to align your project’s goals with the organisation’s goals.
The Problem: A technical conversation causes a technical barrier – i.e. your language might alienate your boss.
The Solution: It most likely isn’t necessary for your decision maker to understand the ins and outs of how analytics works or why content helps with organic rankings – too much information can cause overload and result in procrastination. Keep the conversation top-level, avoid jargon and buzz words, but have the details ready in case they are asked for.
Hot Tips on Selling Digital Marketing to Your Boss
- When trying to get agreement on any kind of new initiative, it’s always a good plan to; “Win their emotions with stories and back up your stories with data”
- While it might be harder for some projects, for example social media, it’s important to try and make it about money (revenue or cost saving) – profit is what a company exists for
- Include competitor information or industry benchmarks – pique their competitiveness
- Talk Benefits not Features
- Show the future, but concentrate on delivery in the present
- Explain how you will mitigate risks
- Let them know what success will look like
- Always provide options – From a big, ‘ideal’ project to a small pilot test.
- Show examples of it working for others
- Start out with free tools to identify possibility before asking for funding for paid tools
For more details, read our complete guide on selling digital marketing to your CEO
