3 Ways Marketers Can Fix Their Relationship with Finance [Infographic]

Sam Melnick — September 13, 2017 Follow @SamMelnick

— September 13, 2017

Like no other time in the history of the marketing profession have we faced a constant need to understand what is working, what is not, and how our actions are driving business impact.

Marketing must now look at their organization more like a business and no longer a function. In short, they must make every dollar count to maximize their team’s performance and prove their impact. This discipline is Marketing Performance Management (MPM).

One key component of MPM is the relationship between marketing and finance.

Where do you sit on the maturity spectrum?

Your relationship with Finance is somewhere on the following spectrum of Marketing Performance Maturity.

Note: This model was created from interviews with successful marketers at a variety of industries and company types.

1. Static: Marketing’s collaboration with finance and sales is practically non-existent.

2. Transitional: Departments have publicly acknowledged a gap. Discussions around better processes and alignment are occurring. Joint execution has not begun.

3. Progressive: A joint project is in flight to connect data from marketing investment, sales results, and marketing results. Groups meet on a regular basis.

4. Proactive: A “golden hand- shake” around pipeline delivered exists between marketing, sales, and finance. The groups often collaborate with an end goal of driving revenue.

5. Optimized: Finance is a trusted strategic partner to marketing and sales. Departments are aligned on market expectations and work to create predictable expenses and revenue.

At this final stage of maturity, “optimized” companies tend to expect budget increases (no surprise given the strong relationship between these two teams) and are more likely to experience strong revenue growth. In our study, 57% of organizations that are expecting 25%+ revenue growth report that Marketing and Finance often or always work well together on investment tracking and measurements. In comparison, only 20% of companies expecting at or negative growth report the same.

That means high-performing Marketing teams are 3X more likely to forge a strong alliance with their Financial colleagues.

Work to be done.

But the study showed only 14% of Marketing organizations today see Finance as a trusted strategic partner.

Marketers have much to gain when they align with the Finance organization, but members of the two departments don’t always know how to work together.

To help, our team created this infographic featuring the top 3 things marketers can do to fix their relationship with finance. We hope you put these practices into place at your organization to break down internal walls, and forge new possibilities with your counterparts in Finance.

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