How to increase internal buy in for your marketing campaigns

One of the many reasons why marketing campaigns fail is due to a lack of internal buy in.

For campaigns to truly succeed you need everyone on board, especially your sales team. Without this support your marketing strategy will struggle to take off.

What is internal buy in?

When we talk about internal buy in, we mean whether the rest of the company “buys in” to the ideas and the marketing campaigns. Do they support the strategy, and do they believe in the marketing plan?

Internal buy in means that internally your teams believe in your campaigns or at least trust and are invested in the ideas and plans.

Nowadays, a lot of representatives oversee purchasing decisions and so you may need to approach a variety of heads, directors, and managers. Internal buy in is all about those decision makers buying in to your ideas and your marketing plan enough that they will encourage others to support the plans to help your marketing campaigns become more successful.

For many companies, each team and department are separate from each other, the sales team sometimes set themselves apart and can look at marketing as if they are “copy and pasters”, which as we know is far from the truth.

However, for internal buy in you need all departments to come together to agree on the marketing campaign as each department needs to support it, especially sales.

Therefore, in this post we will discuss ways in which you can increase your internal buy in for your marketing campaigns to help you succeed.

Communication, communication, communication

This tip is so important we had to repeat it three times. Communication is key to the success of any marketing campaign, and this is the same for increasing internal buy in.

Make sure when you speak to each department and manager that you communicate clearly and succinctly what your plans and ideas are. The clearer you are, the less confused they will be and the more likely they are to buy in to your marketing campaign.

If you can, get all the decision makers in one room (virtual or physical) and start off the meeting by explaining why you are there and what you are going to be talking about This will ensure they are prepared and ready to listen to what you have to say.

Don’t go into too much detail

When it comes to presenting don’t get caught up in the detail. Your decision makers and stakeholders want to know the basics; what it is, how is it going to be achieved, who will be involved, why are we doing it and where it will be promoted, posted etc?

Going into an expanse of detail will not only potentially confuse your stakeholders but you could find they become disengaged and less likely to listen as much to the rest of the presentation.

If they want to find out further detail, they will ask, but for the meeting keep it simple with mostly the essential information.

Engage your audience

This is linked to our previous tip but make sure your stake holders/decision makers are engaged. When you hold a meeting with them don’t simply spend the whole time talking at them.

They are more likely to be actively listening and considering your proposal if you are engaging with them and if they are a part of the meeting. Hold a Q & A at the end, ask questions to them during the presentation and listen to their replies.

Giving them a chance to be in the spotlight for a bit will not only help increase your chance of buy-in but you can address any concerns or queries early on which will work in your favour.

Use stats to bulk out your case

We love a good statistic, and you know who else loves them? That’s right, stakeholders. Using a strong statistic or data to back up your marketing campaign will help improve your chances of internal buy in.

If you can prove through data, why they should invest in your marketing campaign through a trustworthy source you will increase your chances immensely. After all, stakeholders and decision makers want proof that your idea has a good chance of success.

By providing a statistic or two that gives this proof you can offer them more reassurance and reason to buy into you and the campaign.

Provide information relevant to them

Consider who you will be talking to, what they will want to know and how this marketing campaign will impact them? These are the points you need to consider.

At the end of the day your stakeholders/decision makers want to know the facts, but they also want to know how it will affect them and their team and what they will need to do.

If you consider these points, you can pre-empt questions and include these in any presentation. This will also help increase the chance of internal buy in for your marketing campaign as they will feel like you have put a lot of thought into this and considered all teams not just marketing.

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