Guest article: Matt Baldwin, Coast
Every marketing, BD and comms team has been there.
A thought leadership campaign successfully lands, a pitch is won, an event is a triumph, press secured. Clients engage, work follows and partners are congratulated.
The marketing, BD and comms teams, often with barely a nod, quietly move on to the next project and deadline. It is, after all, what we do, day-in, day-out.
But how often does anyone say ‘thank you’ – and really mean it?
Now don’t get this wrong. Marketers and comms professionals don’t expect recognition every time we open a door. And even if we did, professional services would not be the first place to look for it. When billing in six-minute intervals, fee-earning teams are under pressure almost all of the time.
It means that marketing, BD and comms can all too easily be invisible in a firm. Yes, the CMO or comms lead will often sit on, or report into, the management board, but the marketer pounding away on directory submissions, the late-night breakdown following a client event, or the endless reformatting of pitch documents is all but unrecognised.
A (genuine) thank you is long remembered. It goes a very long way.
Thank you means respect – not just for our contributions, but our expertise. It is recognition that marketing, BD and comms are vital functions in today’s professional services firms. It is also recognition of the shared ownership of our work.
Importantly, it is a visible sign of cultural maturity and leadership in action. Whilst fee-earning teams may assume that ‘marketing knows it is appreciated’, culture is built on what is expressed, not what is assumed.
Last year, Coast was invited to join a large global firm at an event for its top tier clients – the largest companies on the planet and many household names. The event closed with its European managing partner thanking the marketing team, by name, in front of those clients. There was warmth in the room.
We see the same when junior marketers push themselves outside of their comfort zone and contribute to the PM Forum’s magazine PM. Those contributions are shared and celebrated across LinkedIn by their firm’s senior fee-earning colleague. It was genuinely impressive to see the UK managing director of a large property consulting firm celebrate the achievements of its marketing apprentice.
These are small signals, but their impact is huge.
Marketers know that brand is defined by what is said about a firm. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are spent every year to help shape that.
But culture is defined internally – not by expensive employer brand programmes but in those ‘thank you’ moments.
There is real power in those two small words. We should use them more.
Matt Baldwin is the joint managing director of Coast, a media relations agency.
