Why this idea means business : We explore how marketing needs other functions to get things done. Learn how to explain marketing in simple, motivating ways so non-marketers help rather than hinder you. Read this for ideas on how to explain marketing to non-marketers.
Marketers spend a lot of time talking about how to communicate with customers.
Endless hours discussing segmentation research and brand positioning. Whether this word or that word will ‘convey the brand essence‘ and ‘articulate the brand personality‘.
Seriously, only marketers use words like “convey” and “articulate” when they could just say “show”. No wonder, many non-marketers ignore what marketers say. Bunch of jargon-spouting jabberers, right?
How do you explain marketing to non-marketers?
Thankfully, not all marketers like that. The good ones know the value of being able to explain marketing to non-marketers. You know, the rest of the business who sell, manufacture, handle customer service, pay the bills and make sure we’re all safe and happy in our business lives.
And in particular, the ones who have to approve your creative work before it goes out the door. You won’t get very far if you can’t explain marketing to them.
We’ve sat in many cringey cross-functional meetings and company town halls where marketers stand up and talk ‘marketing’.
Brand awareness gains, emotional benefits, service propositions. You know the sort of thing, right?
Tools of the marketing trade. But to everyone else, mostly meaningless waffle. Watch the audience when marketers talk like this. Within about 5 minutes they’re yawning, and wondering how long the marketing windbag is going to go on for.
Like an artist talking about the brush they use, nobody else cares. To avoid this, you have to explain marketing in a way that shows what’s in it for them.
Most marketing is only interesting to other marketers
When marketers talk about marketing, they usually do it to make it interesting to other marketers i.e. not ‘normal’ people (!).
Why can’t marketers apply their marketing skills to internal audiences? Why aren’t they better at marketing to non-marketers? What is it someone from functions like finance, supply chain, HR, IT or sales wants to hear from marketing?
Well, have you ever asked them?
What we’ve seen work best in engaging audiences of non-marketers are topics they can relate to.
The best way to explain marketing to non-marketers is to make it relevant to them. Appeal to their emotions and their instincts.
The 3 marketing topics which usually work best for this are advertising, innovation and insights.
Advertising
Show them your new advertising campaign. They’re customers too. Everyone likes being among the first to see a new advert. It makes them feel like they’re part of a special ‘insiders’ club.
For the amount of time and money advertising costs, it’ll probably tell a better story than you can.
After you show the advert, share the thinking behind it. Show what you learned evaluating the creative idea. Talk about how you’re going to measure the advertising impact on sales and profits. These are interesting and relevant for non-marketers.
Innovation
Non-marketers will also be interested in marketing innovation i.e. new products and services. New stuff is interesting.
Just don’t drone on too much about everything that had to happen before the launch. Innovation sounds great, but people don’t want to hear the tough reality behind it.
If other functions helped you launch it, make sure to thank them publicly. And if it’s something people can see, touch, taste, listen to, or smell, let them experience that. Sensory experiences are interesting.
Insights
If your market research or insight is something which talks about a behaviour everyone can recognise, then that’s interesting. It creates an instant and instinctive connection with your audience.
“Hey, you know how people can’t seem to walk down the street without being glued to their mobile phones?” or “Hey, have you noticed that all ‘healthy’ brands tend to come in green-coloured packaging?”
Non-marketers can recognise the reality behind these ideas. Showing how you then used that insight in your marketing planning helps bring your marketing thinking to life. (See also our opportunities in online behaviours article for more examples).
How to make it interesting - tell a story
And finally, it’s not just the topic you choose, but how you communicate it.
If you can tell a good story with drama, a funny incident or something memorable that happened, use that. Marketers should be good at engaging emotions through great storytelling.
Stories add a lot of value. They’re easy to understand, easy to remember and easy to talk about.
How to make it NOT interesting - 3 topics to avoid
So, if that’s what you should do to explain marketing, what sort of things should you avoid?
There are some things marketers love doing and talking about, but they are like kryptonite when it comes to marketing to non-marketers.
So, here’s our avoid-at-all-costs top 3 topics.
Topics you should only talk about if you aim to bore people to death. That’s usually not your aim. Leave that to finance ;-)
Marketing conceptual frameworks
Marketers all love a good matrix (like the Ansoff matrix, for example), and showing flow charts and process maps. But they’re dull as dishwater for almost everyone else.
It’s like the mechanic showing you a diagram of how your car engine works. It’s logical but you don’t care. You just want to know that it works.
So best to avoid conceptual frameworks when talking to non-marketers. They want to see the outcomes, not the process.
Brand equity measurement
For most non-marketers, the brand is ‘doing well‘ or ‘not doing well‘ is about as much as they’ll care.
When you talk about ‘brand awareness has gone up by 2 points‘ or ‘our intent score is showing good progress‘, nobody really cares. Avoid getting deep into brand equity or imagery statements. They’re only of interest to other marketers.
Marketing methodology
Market research agencies are particularly guilty of this. Using the first 20% of a presentation to talk about methodology is guaranteed to kill attention.
Nobody cares there were 1,000 people in the survey.
Nobody cares what the recruitment selection criteria were and how the results were double-blind analysed. Confidence intervals? Boring!
This sort of behaviour from market researchers drives you crazy.
Nope, non-marketers only want to hear what the outcome was. And what you’re going to do with it.
We’re not saying these aren’t important topics. Just they’re not worth discussing outside marketing. Those other teams have their own concerns. This sort of stuff, they don’t care.
So, you're asked to explain marketing at a meeting ...
So what would be our top tips if you have to explain something in marketing to the rest of the business?
Highlight the brand goal
Your brand should have a clear goal. Make sure you say how what you’re doing delivers against that goal. Show the brand activation delivers against the goal.
More sales? Deliver your brand purpose? Lots of happy customers? Whatever it is, remind people why the brand exists. Show them the progress you’re making together.
Keep it simple, short and honest
If you have someone from another non-marketing function you trust to give you honest feedback, run your presentation past them first.
Make a point of asking for feedback. Ask what they remember from your practice run, and then focus on amplifying that.
And remember, most people have an attention span of about 20 minutes. You don’t want to be going much longer than that. (Why do think Ted talks are all 18 minutes long?). The more concise you are, the more your audience will love what you have to say.
Conclusion - Be clear what you want from non-marketers
Most importantly, always finish with a call to action. What do you want people to do with the information you’ve shared?
Do you want them to tell others about it? Do you want them to do something specific? Should they go on social media and share, for example?
If there’s no action, there’s no real point.
So use these lessons to help you overcome barriers to marketing. (Ditto with e-Commerce barriers).
Doing these things reduces the impression the marketing team is full of self-absorbed, jargon-babbling idiots. And that’s a good thing to aim for when marketing to non-marketers.
Read our how to be a better marketer article for more on this. Or get in touch if you need help to explain marketing to non-marketers.
Photo credits
Bus stop : Photo by Jay Clark on Unsplash
Business meeting : Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash
Woman presenting on stage : Photo by Product School on Unsplash
Billboard (adapted) : Photo by Kate Trysh on Unsplash
Person holding light bulb : Photo by Fachy Marín on Unsplash
Bored lady in front of computer : Photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash
Heart pin button : Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
The article is very clear and direct to the point, mktg is quite important for everyone in the organization, if mktg message is clear, engagement will be different and converting ideas into actions would be doable
Thanks for the constructive comment, much appreciated
I don’t think much of the skill of a marketer who can’t market Marketing to their own company…?
Agreed, skilled marketers know how to market to their internal customers too. But it’s a surprisingly common blindspot, especially in bigger companies.