What’s the best way to make the case for marketing investment?

Marketers must learn to communicate their strategy to key internal stakeholders effectively if they want to prove the business case for marketing. This is according to EY’s UK CMO Rebecca Hirst, who joined marketing leaders from NatWest Group, Camelot and SAS for Marketing Week’s Currency of Effectiveness series, part of the Festival of Marketing, earlier this year. “Scrutiny comes on the [marketing] budget when people don’t understand the strategy,” Hirst said.

Elsewhere in the session, hosted by Marketing Week columnist and director of Passionbrand, Helen Edwards, NatWest CMO Margaret Jobling discussed how she takes a zero base approach to her marketing budget, building “bottom up”. “So, what do we need to keep the lights on? What’s the new stuff that we’re trying to do? And then what’s the price tag of that?” she said.

‘Nobody likes to feel stupid’: Marketers on how best to communicate with stakeholders to secure investment

When it comes to communicating marketing’s job to the wider business, it’s often best to hold back on throwing around marketing jargon, according to Rachel Moss, head of marketing at Camelot, the current National Lottery operator. “Quite often the people we interact with don’t have commercial backgrounds, so you can’t assume the language of marketing,” she explained.

The panelists also discussed the relationship between marketing and finance, which metrics marketing should be communicating to demonstrate results, as well as how to rebuild brand health.

Watch the video above for the full discussion.

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