Is your organization’s marketing effective? It depends on whom you ask.
C-level executives and lower-ranking marketing employees often hold disparate views of their company’s marketing. Here’s the surprising result of a recent survey from HubSpot. Top-level leaders tend to view company marketing through rose-colored glasses; marketing managers and other marketers hold dimmer views of their company’s marketing effectiveness.
The most recent State Of Inbound report reveals that:
- 69% of C-level executives believe their organization’s marketing strategy is effective, but only 55% of marketers agree.
- 31% of C-level executives say marketing and sales teams are tightly aligned; only 17% of managers agree.
- 45% of sales reps say they spend over an hour performing manual data entry, yet only 21% of executives said this is so.
The emerging corporate chasm between executives and their employees may lead to misalignments that can impact everything from employee retention to customer satisfaction, according to HubSpot.
Possible Disconnect Between Vision and Execution
“When we unpacked the data, we found that the executives who set the vision for their companies have very different perspectives on the state of their business, compared to individual contributors tasked with executing on that vision,” said Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot, in the report. “Executives need a better understanding of the day-to-day challenges employees face, and employees need to communicate more clearly the roadblocks in the way of success.”
The significant disconnect between leaders who set the vision for their businesses and sales and marketing departments who execute strategies was one the main findings of the research, said HubSpot Asia-Pacific head of marketing, James Gilbert. “Ensuring teams have a cohesive view on strategy across the business is key for company growth,” he said
Possible Causes of Different Views
The disparate views could mean that senior level executives are getting results that they do not share with their staff — leading others to believe the strategy is not effective, comments Wendy Marx, president of PR agency Marx Communications. On the other hand, it could mean that the strategy is not meeting established goals, but that the C-level executives are unaware of it.
“Whatever the case, this disconnect needs to be addressed. It is crucial for the whole team — from C-level to marketer — be on the same page when it comes to its marketing strategy, and how it works, Marx asserts in Business 2 Community. “Without clear communication and alignment, a company will struggle to build strong and lasting relationships with its customers.”
That 14-point difference of opinion over marketing effectiveness should not be ignored, agreed Adam Rowe, a senior writer at Tech. Co. “Executives should address the gap by investing more in their marketing divisions, or risk seeing that marketer pessimism manifest in a sales slump,” Rowe warns.
Bottom Line: A disconnect between C-level executives and lower-level marketers surprised industry observers. Disparate opinions about their company’s marketing strategies could harm sales and company morale, they warn. Sharing of company goals, progress to those goals, increased communication and transparency could alleviate much of that disconnect.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
