Without senior-level support, projects don’t receive funding, resources don’t get allocated, and things don’t get done. The good news for technology marketers is that in a recent survey conducted with ITSMA members, 83% of the respondents believe that their executive colleagues’ perception of marketing’s impact has increased over the past two years.

The bad news? There’s still plenty of work to be done (particularly with CFOs, sales executives, and line of business managers) to convince senior management that marketing can—and does!—have a significant impact on the business.

This PowerPoint presentation outlines five key steps marketers must take to effectively demonstrate marketing’s value to senior management:

1. Be clear on the business’ goals, context, and objectives
2. Understand the internal stakeholders
3. Define the contribution marketing will make and set objectives
4. Develop the marketing and internal communications plan
5. Measure and communicate marketing’s impact

The briefing also includes insight from BEA’s Vice President of Services Marketing on how BEA’s marketing team worked to build the case internally for a new, data-driven approach to marketing that was designed to turn negative perceptions of the company around. Tips from BEA include:

• Start with aspects of the business you clearly own, such as messaging and positioning, branding, and lead generation
• Be the source of facts, insight, and content—this earns you the right to have an opinion
• Invite sales management, services management, and product management to co-own your success
• Communicate the impact of your efforts in business terms, and with humility