Whether the title is CMO, VP or Marketing Director, the lead marketer at a company has a large, and sometimes seemingly insurmountable job. In fact, the average tenure of a marketing lead continues to slide year over year.

In his September 23, 2022 blog post about this very topic, Seth Godin writes: “The problem lies in what people think “marketing” is. Marketing isn’t paying for ads, changing the logo or building a social media presence. Marketing is product design, customer service, pricing, customer delight and creating and living a remarkable story. Marketing is creating the conditions for the network effect. And yet, the typical CMO isn’t in charge of ANY of those things.”

So, what’s a good marketer to do? Make friends.

Building the Brand by Building Relationships 

A good marketing leader can’t operate in a silo. They need to develop key relationships in other functional areas. By focusing on relationship building early in your tenure, you can help to improve processes, integrate messaging and develop a more full brand experience for your audience. Plus, you’ll gain insights for your team to help build and optimize the marketing strategy. 

In a smaller organization, some of your key partners may be consultants, agencies or outside resources. In a larger organization, they may be peers leading other operational units or roles embedded in other teams. In either case, there are a few key categories of roles that marketing should look to connect with.

CMO’s Key Partners:

1. Head of Sales/ Sales Lead 
2. Head of Customer Service 
3. CHRO/ VP of Human Resources 
4. Chief DEI Officer/ VP
5. CFO/ Head of Finance 

Building the Brand Experience with Sales and Customer Service

This one may be the most obvious. No one knows your customers, your audience, better than those who interact with them on a daily basis. By partnering with the head of the sales and/or customers service team, the marketing lead can work to create a rapport and a sense of camaraderie between the two areas where there can sometimes be tension. Marketers should listen to and respect the expertise of those who work regularly to close deals or solve problems so they can work on better promoting the experience or product. Together, marketing and sales can engage with research about customers, examine the brand experience, identify trending concerns or issues, and build customer loyalty.

Looking for Authenticity and Employee Advocacy with HR

When employees are happy or feel more connected to their work, they provide better service or produce higher quality results. While a CMO can’t change the working conditions, they can come to understand them and get the pulse of employee sentiment by building a relationship with the head of HR and their team. In the best case scenario, the relationship will be two-way – with information sharing and ideas flowing bilaterally. Together, a CMO and CHRO can build an employee advocacy program, for instance, that brings in new customers and referrals while empowering staff to use their voices to represent the brand and feel more invested in the work.

Improving Equity, Ensuring Values with DEI

In order to create marketing campaigns and materials that speak to your brand’s values, authentically reflect your current audiences and invite new audiences and consumers to engage with your service or product, the marketing team needs to be educated in issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. The CMO should engage with the Chief DEI Officer to identify resources, training programs or other tools to help their marketing team members create and evaluate campaigns and tactics with a critical lens. This is ongoing and evolving work, so a meaningful relationship between these areas of an operation is critical. 

Making the Investment with Finance 

Last but not least is for the CMO and CFO to become BFFs. Or, as Forbes calls them, “the new power couple.” Sometimes, it can seem like the goals of these two roles and their functional areas collide. But in truth, both are interested in investing in long term growth for the organization and making strategic choices that will have lasting effects (whether that be on consumer sentiment or the bottom line). Just as with any relationship, learning to speak each other’s language, identify motivators and challenges, and thinking about how you might be able help one another reach shared goals is key. And with a good partner in finance, you’ll likely have an easier time persuading leadership to invest in a new strategy.