Marketing and Communications as One Growth System

Clay: Don't underestimate the strategic value of your communications partners. They aren't your competition; they're your strategic weapon.

Julia: Often, awards and recognition are part of a PR strategy. If communications and demand — and really that's the CMO's job — is to bring them together, can look at that recognition with different perspectives. It can often multiply the impact.

Marni: Undoubtedly, it's having a consistent, unmistakable brand voice across every channel.

Drew: Hello, Renegade Marketers! If this is your first time listening, welcome. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. You're about to listen to a recording from CMO Huddle Studio, our live show featuring the flocking awesome B2B marketing leaders of CMO Huddles. In this episode, Clay Helm, Julia Goebel, and Marni Puente talk about what happens when marketing and communications stop operating in parallel and start working as one team. They get into shared metrics, clear ownership, and the value of a single voice across customer, employees, and the market. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. You'll be supporting our quest to be the number one B2B marketing podcast. All right, let's dive in.

Narrator: Welcome to Renegade Marketers Unite, possibly the best weekly podcast for CMOs and everyone else looking for innovative ways to transform their brand, drive demand, and just plain cut through, proving that B2B does not mean boring to business. Here's your host and chief marketing renegade, Drew Neisser.

Drew: Welcome to CMO Huddle Studio, the live streaming show dedicated to inspiring B2B awesomeness. I'm your host, Drew Neisser, live from my home studio in New York City, and today we're tackling a deceptively simple challenge: integrating marketing and communications. On paper, it sounds obvious, but in practice, it's often a turf battle. This is particularly true at larger companies. You've got comms focused on mitigating risk, while marketing is pursuing to maximize opportunity and stand out, and their risk profiles are often so different that they struggle to see eye to eye. And in a world with tighter resources and rising AI leverage, the cost of misalignment has never been higher, or the upside of true integration more powerful. So today we're digging into how CMOs can turn this tension into a seamless partnership that actually amplifies impact. We're going to start first with Clay Helm, who's a fractional chief communications officer, who's joining the show for the very first time. Hello, Clay, and welcome.

Clay: Great to see you.

Drew: Nice to see you. How are you, and where are you this fine day?

Clay: I'm doing really well. I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Drew: Cool. All right. Well, let's get into this. And I know you sat on the comms side of this conversation, especially at IBM, and you helped bring product marketing and communications under one organization a couple of years ago. Talk a little bit about the process behind it and what mattered early to make that integration hum.

Clay: Yeah, so about three years ago, I was part of a team that brought together two really large marketing and communications organizations that had previously separately reported to the CEO, and I would say the number one thing — and I've been leading communications for a large unit of IBM, the consulting business unit, which is around 160,000 employees and around a 20 billion dollar business — and you know, the number one thing that was a learning curve for me and all of the communications leaders was we needed to really come up to speed very quickly on the world of far more performance metrics. We needed to get conversant in pipeline and pipeline progression and be daily immersing ourselves in that data and what it means, you know, how the different levers of marketing and communications affect that. Whereas I would say, as a communications leader, I definitely cared a lot about data and measuring what matters, but I was often looking, you know, at the start of a campaign or at the conclusion of a project to understand the impact versus that daily, weekly pulse on the business, because I was suddenly part of those sales and marketing conversations that I previously was not a part of. And I would just add, too, a big change just personally was the difference from reporting to the chief communications officer, who was there as a guide and a coach when I needed him, but then I was suddenly reporting to a CMO who was new to the role and had never had communications in her purview before. So she had a very collaborative management style, was empowering, but super curious and wanted to learn about communications. So she was a lot more hands-on than my prior manager. So that was also just an adjustment personally.

Drew: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot going on. I want to talk about this because I think the point about the metrics is at the core of this thing. I think often, and you can correct me on this, when comms is out over here, they're kind of living in their own bubble, and they don't necessarily — they have their own sort of goals, right? We've got certain projects and so forth. And again, maybe it would help just to define what is the typical purview of comms, so that people can understand the difference. Because, I mean, pipeline's way over here, and that's building a funnel, but comms sort of lives really above the funnel.

Clay: Well, you know, I view comms as, you know, really — I mean, it's critical throughout any stage of a client's journey. But, you know, when I was solely in communications, I was always thinking about, okay, awareness, understanding — how do our audiences learn about us? How do they understand our strategy? And let's say if they're a customer who, you know, is already in the club, how do I help them feel connected and feel good about making that choice to do business with us? But in marketing, you know, I cared about every stage of the journey, not just that beginning, and kind of that retention and satisfaction aspect. So that's really what changed. You know, it suddenly was my job to care very much about, okay, what was the thing that was going to move on that journey? And, you know, are our salespeople enabled to do that? In an enterprise sales world, it's very high touch. There are people involved in this process, not just digital. So that was really the change. And it's true, you know — it was like, what do I need to be successful in communications? It's suddenly very different. It's okay, what does the entire business need to be successful?

Drew: And did you find you were able to, as a result of suddenly being accountable from top to bottom, or at least understanding those things — did you find that that somehow or other had an impact on the way you not just thought about comms, but the way you executed comms? So that in some ways, it kind of was a little more integrated into the business of acquisition and retention.

Clay: You know, I really became accountable for brand through demand, and I think I thought about — you know, this is a little bit different direction — but I thought about the cultural inclusion on my team in different ways. It was interesting, you know, my own team gave me feedback initially as I was managing leading product marketers. Hey, Clay, you know, you often call on communications first in the meeting, and you go to the people that you know, or the topics that you know. But conversely, my marketing peers, who were then leading, you know, communicators on their team — the comms folks often felt like, oh, well, we were last on the agenda, or like an afterthought. So I think really being inclusive in leadership, and treating — you know, really thinking about the organization — it's marketing and communications. They both have really important roles to play. That was just a difference too, as we brought culturally these two different teams together.

Drew: Yeah, and it is a clash of cultures. I mean, I've met a lot of comms people, and I have this weird sort of sense of risk aversion, like, okay, we could put this press release out, but here are the issues. We could give this speech, but here are the issues. Whereas in marketing, there's just, you know, a lot of marketers recognize that risk is part of the business of cutting through. And so, did you find that as well, that they're just coming from a different place?

Clay: That really hasn't been my experience. You know, maybe it's because I've worked for, you know, technology industries my whole life, where high growth and striving for double-digit growth is the name of the game. So it might have been different if I was at a highly regulated pharmaceutical company or a financial services company. But in tech, I would say typically marketing and communications usually want the same things. They may have different ideas about how to get there. But my whole career has been focused on how to help companies grow or navigate major transitions. So as a communicator, certainly I would point out the reputational risks if I see that happening, but if anything, I think more often I'm in lockstep with marketing in terms of trying to negotiate with legal that we can really use the language that is going to appeal and connect with our customers or our buyers, rather than being super conservative, not overpromising — so that the claims process with legal, negotiating that, whether it's for advertising copy or a press announcement — I mean, usually marketing and comms are in the same camp on that.

Drew: Right. Okay. So let's just sort of, as we think about this — I mean, it feels like the easiest thing to do is to just put them in the same department. Is that a fair assumption? Because otherwise, they're sort of operating differently.

Clay: Well, I think it depends. It depends on the needs of the business. Honestly, I've seen both work. I've sat inside marketing organizations, and I've sat outside. I think it can get really weird if communications is reporting into HR or something like that — that happens sometimes. But really, I mean, communications is serving multiple audiences, right? There's employees, there's investors, and of course there's customers. But honestly, I think, at a smaller company especially, it works really well to have marketing and comms together, because as long as the CMO understands, hey, we also have a duty to serve these other audiences — our business partners, and the list goes on and on — as long as you can address the needs of those audiences as well as your buyers, I think it's a really great partnership.

Drew: Awesome. All right, with that, let's bring on Julia Goebel, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Alight Solutions, and an industry expert who's graced our stage before to delve into many topics, including quick wins, being itchy, and being a chief collaboration officer. So, hello, Julia. Wonderful to see you again.

Julia: Yes, hi, Drew. Good to see you.

Drew: How are you? And where are you this wonderful day?

Julia: I'm very well. It's great to be back, and thanks for having me in the studio. I'm in one of our Chicago offices, Alight Solutions.

Drew: I love it. So, so you heard a little bit about Clay — what Clay was saying about this integration. So, for you, because you've been at large companies and small companies and so forth, what is the key sort of to getting these two — first of all, is it structurally to get them to operate as one team? Or sort of, how does the leader, even if they are separate entities, sort of keep the friction out of the process?

Julia: Yeah, you know, I think first is recognizing each unique team and the lens that they bring. And I thought Clay did an excellent job speaking to this. You know, I come to marketing after almost a decade in the agency space, in which we think a great deal about audiences, marketing, communication, segmenting. And so when I came client side, as you would say — if you had an agency background, I brought that perspective, and I appreciated the different disciplines. It was a few years before I had a communications business area reporting to me, and so by that time I had become, I would say, a more fully centered marketer. And so, when I inherited communications, it was exciting to me. But I learned a few things very quickly as a leader, and often you learn on the fly, or you learn through experience. One of the things that I learned was we had a highly functioning communications team, and as a result, I trusted and let them run along the guide rails we discussed, but to continue operating while I focused on an area of the marketing organization that was in some great need, and that was demand and digital. And what I learned through my actions and behaviors was I need to recognize and share with communications the reason I'm dedicating attention here, and perhaps not as focused as you might think on your area, is because you are operating well. You are running well. We have a small kitchen fire going on in this room. In your room, it's going very well. You're gathering the headlines. You have the media relations strategy in place, you're earning the media that we had hoped. And so I didn't realize, but I quickly learned my actions were showing communications was less important, when it was far from the case.

Drew: Right, interesting. So in that case, it's like they're saying no attention means you don't care, when no attention means just keep doing what you're doing — it's working. I got problems over here.

Julia: So I made a point to demonstrate that with that feedback.

Drew: So that's one sort of key thing that you talked about, and I'm wondering, because you said three, if there are others that we can go through.

Julia: Sure. You know, it also is important to recognize what they bring to one another. So, for example, often awards and recognition are part of a PR strategy, and when those are won or garnered, or soon to be announced, you need to make sure your demand team, or your nurture marketing strategy, or your client services organization — whatever customer-facing team you have, or prospect development team you have — you want to make sure they're aware as well, because it might make excellent fodder for a competitive takedown strategy. If you have been recognized by Gartner or NelsonHall, or any number of the third-party consultants that measure an industry, then it's a wonderful piece of information to take into your demand, your segmentation, or your targeting strategy. So, if communications and demand — and really that's the CMO's job — is to bring them together, can look at that recognition with different perspectives. It can often multiply the impact.

Drew: Interesting. So, do you see these functions — I mean, it's sort of interesting with it, as we look at marketing and reorgs and all the things that we're examining because of AI — are these disciplines gonna... Because we know that PR has a big impact on, you know, search engine optimization, and I mean LLM optimization, and we know that demand creates news — you get a new customer, that's good for the comms team. Are these lines going to get blurred more and more and more?

Julia: Well, I think some of the differences matter — keeping some of that distinction independent matters. We know that the third-party headlines, the credibility, is absolutely what feeds the LLMs. We know that having deep case studies, examples of recognition, or headlines certainly — you know, tier-one media — all of that is beneficial for your LLM, AEO, SEO strategy. That's where your digital team comes in, to make sure that those can be cleanly highlighted and easily accessed. And that science is evolving all the time. So it's really important that a digital team is mindful of how things are changing, and you're just insanely curious about how to best highlight that news. The other piece is that while the time to creation is becoming a little bit faster, right — our first drafts can be much more quickly produced with the support of AI — we know that you need the human in the loop to refine it, to take it to the next level, and so on. And so, I remain really confident about where we are headed and where some of that specialty distinction matters. Now, will it mean that you can have a dozen people in one area where you might be able to have, you know, perhaps eight really effective? That remains the CMO's dilemma — how do we best support the team with the strategy, and become as fiscally responsible as we can.

Drew: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, as you were talking, I kept thinking the word social proof, and that's really what comms in many ways does. You get the awards, you get the Gartners, but probably help with customer stories and so forth. So, we know social proof really matters — still matters. But I guess, it's really, really important. What I was wondering is — it's funny if you think about the importance of integration across sales, marketing, customer success. They're all coming from different places and have different measures and so forth, and they don't always respect each other because they don't understand the roles that they play, right? And so you look at a salesperson, and the salesperson is going, "I'm out there killing, right? That's it. I lived, and I'm scored based on revenue. You're scored on what — getting a Gartner thing? Yeah, that's important, but is that revenue?" And so, how have you worked to sort of help these teams understand the contribution to where we're going overall?

Julia: It's really important, right? And I often say, let's start with empathy. So, you know, we know that the different roles may be aligned with different objectives. There may even be, as you noted, different compensation structures. I often tell marketing and communications colleagues that when you are in sales, a good half of your compensation is at risk every year, and you will lose more than you win. If you're winning three out of ten proposals, three out of ten contracts that you send, that's a .300 batting average, which is pretty good, quite honestly. And a 30% conversion rate and close rate would be something that I think many would look at and say, you know, that's a strong number. But at the same time, marketing is often compensated on a flat-fee basis, right? There's a base, perhaps there's a bonus opportunity. Some companies will have options or incentives in the loop. What I try to do is ensure that marketers understand the challenges of sales, so they can be at least conversant in that. I think it's also really important that when we're coming to sales teams, we're credible. And one of the things that I think is important for marketers and communicators to know is a seller's number one commodity, their most scarce resource, is their time. And so when you are coming to a team of sales professionals, make it as effective and clear as possible. Make sure you come away with them — think of them as a target audience as well. What's the next most important action you want your sales partner to take? So it's incumbent upon marketers to meet the audience wherever they are. And I feel that sales and marketing are moving closer than ever in that durability, and also we need to continue to work hard to make sure those partnerships are as strong as we need them to be.

Drew: Yeah, it's fascinating, and I ultimately do wonder if — and I know that in some cases folks are having combined — that marketing's bonuses are also dependent on revenue, and that — which is very tricky, right? Because it's really, really hard. But anyway, we'll come back to all of those things. We're going to move on and welcome Marni Puente, chief marketing and communications officer at SAIC, and a returning guest who's previously appeared on the show to discuss growing high-performing teams and positioning as a growth engine. Hello, Marni. How are you? And where are you this fine day?

Marni: Hi, Drew. Great to be here. I am actually in Washington, D.C. today.

Drew: Yeah, it kind of looks like you might even be in a hotel room.

Marni: I am. I am — work travel.

Drew: Yes. Well, you know, we Huddles — we can do this from anywhere. It's the beauty of the world of remote. All right. Well, let's dive into the topic at SAIC. I know you oversee both marketing and communications. What decisions get better and faster when you're leading, when one leader owns both of those?

Marni: Yeah, and it's interesting, because it's only been in the last few months that communications has actually come under me. I was hired as a CMO and then recently acquired communications. So it's kind of thinking through even before and after. And I think there's three main areas, Drew, that I see where decisions are getting made better and faster as one unified team, and I sort of bucket those under — one, the big one is unified strategy and brand alignment, right? Because both communications and marketing play such an important role in the brand. One, from sort of a proactive standpoint, as we think about marketing and brand and storytelling, and even the color palette and all of that, as well as communications from a brand standpoint — they play a very strong role in terms of brand reputation. And so I think that unified strategy and brand alignment really enables us, under one leader, to have a more cohesive strategy that strengthens employee and customer experience. So let me—

Drew: Let me stop and just dig on that just a little bit. Yeah, by definition, when you have two leaders, they can easily have two strategies, and that's why there's that constant conflict. So obviously that goes away when there's just one. Okay, so what was the second area that you saw some value or things getting better and faster?

Marni: I think under one leader, the culture, the collaboration, and just leadership excellence gets better, as well as efficiency and just execution across the enterprise. And so that is one area. And then you think about shared resources, streamlined processes, etc. So that certainly is much easier when marketing and communications are combined under one leader.

Drew: You know, and hearing you talk about it — it's funny, because we just had a huddle today on this conversation of the future of marketing org design, and a lot of folks are seeing their comms and their content people sort of coming together a little bit as we streamline things. So this notion of having them under one leader feels like that's just part of the future, because, again, I think these roles might get consolidated as well.

Marni: A hundred percent. We think about — and we know this well in marketing campaigns — really, the beauty of it is having a fully integrated marketing and communications campaign, and communications plays a vital role in that. So, when it's under one leader, it's just easier, right, to approach it as one unified team, one unified voice.

Drew: Yeah, and it all — I mean, the reality, at least in my simplistic brain here, is separating them creates an artificial divide. In terms of specific expertise, I often think about comms as defense, where marketing is offense, and—

Marni: Yes.

Drew: Right. And I think that you need a little bit of both, and having it on the same team just sort of makes it easier to have consistent, probably bigger, impact.

Marni: Absolutely, and even earned and paid media go hand in hand, right? So when they're separated, there's a challenge there. You've got to have that combined, integrated campaign that takes into account both.

Drew: So, are there any areas that, when you looked at this combo and brought them together, you now have to be a little more sensitive, perhaps, to the folks in your comms area? I'm just curious about that, because they were used to being a separate function. So how did you make sure that they felt like they were not second-class citizens on the marketing team?

Marni: It's such a great question, and something that's so important to me, because I will admit I consider myself a black belt in marketing. I have a fairly robust communications background, but marketing is my major, if you will. And I always want the communications team to understand how valued they are, because you can't do one without the other. It's sort of like peanut butter and jelly, right? The earned media complements what we're doing from a paid perspective, etc. And so, one of the things I started early on as a combined team, because it's really important to me, is the culture. So, bringing my newly combined marketing communications leadership team together — and now this is kind of trickling down to all levels of the organization — we put together a culture playbook that outlines here's our core values as a combined team, here's where we're going to focus, here's what we're going to do, here's what we're not going to do, so that we're all on the same page. So we have a leadership playbook, and I think that is making them feel a part of it and their voices heard.

Also, what has been so wonderful about a combined organization is, you know, it used to be — and not just at SAIC, other places I've worked — where it is not combined, you'll have kind of communications running with byline articles and op-eds, etc., content, and you'll have marketing campaigns, and they're not always brought together. It's very, very important to me that communications is brought in early on. They're keeping a pulse on media sentiment, hot topics, etc. And at the end of the day, when we're building thought leadership and content we want to go to market with, it's really important to have their input early on. They're a vital stakeholder in all of this, so that it isn't just marketing saying, "Okay, we're going to hand this over the fence now, you go and pitch it." It's very much a combined, integrated effort.

Drew: And I'm imagining that because of AI search, or as folks are calling it predominantly GEO, it's even more important. And I suspect if there are some holdouts out there, because of GEO and the intersection of PR and marketing and being discovered on an LLM, it feels like they have to come together.

Marni: They have to, yeah. You know, that was actually when I was saying that there were three pillars — one was around insights and market impact — and you just hit the nail on the head. It's that coordinated AI adoption, integrated data, unified measurement, as we think about moving from SEO to GEO. You're spot on, and I think this alignment drives stronger ROI and greater market impact.

Drew: Marni, you've been a huddler for a couple of years. I'm wondering if you could share a specific example of how CMO Huddles has helped you.

Marni: I like to refer to you as the B2B CMO whisperer, which is 100% true, and I think just being able to tap into you for counsel and guidance and your network — networking always comes up. I think any huddler you talk to, it's lonely sometimes at the top, right? And being able to understand whether they're in your direct industry or not — but B2B is unique in and of its own — so being able to learn from each other. And I'll give you an example that's actually very pertinent to what we're talking about today. This was even before I took on the role of both CMO and CCO. You had put me in touch with someone who has that dual role. This was probably about a year ago. We had a really good conversation, and it helped me think about how to approach an integrated function and operate effectively in this combined role. So that's one example that was just really valuable — that sort of peer advisor, if you will, that I would not have met without the network.

Drew: No, that's great. I really appreciate that, and that you take the time. And the ideal scenario there is that that half an hour with that particular CMO saved you a lot of time and angst, and gave you some confidence that you could move forward.

Marni: Absolutely.

Drew: Julia, you've been with Huddles for quite a while. I'm curious if you could share a specific example of how CMO Huddles has helped you?

Julia: Absolutely. I think I might be on my fifth anniversary, but who's counting? One of the things that I love about CMO Huddles: there is not a challenge under the sun that someone in our community hasn't solved. And when I have something that I need to think through, that I need to consider, I like to come to the community and identify. And you are excellent at connecting in a small group, or in one-on-ones, when I have a question or want to think through something large. We, as CMOs, don't have peers in our organization, but we have a lot of peers in CMO Huddles.

Drew: I love it. Yes, and thank you for — fifth! You should have gotten, or you're about to get, your fifth anniversary glass. All right. Let's see. Well, Clay, you've been with our transition team for a while as you set up your own business. I'm curious how that has worked for you.

Clay: Well, you know, after 25 years inside large corporations, it's been fantastic to have a community of other senior leaders across B2B to draw from. And for me, I just really value the learning that comes with being part of CMO Huddles. And I just want to call out one book in particular, as I launch my own business, that has been really helpful. We got to hear directly from the author himself, David C. Baker. His book, The Business of Expertise, really helped me because, while I've got lots of years as a marketer and communicator, I'm new to running my own business and what's involved in creating offerings of my own. So, thank you so much for the guidance as I launch my new business.

Drew: I love it. If you are a B2B marketing leader who wants to join, build a strong peer network, gain recognition as a thought leader, and get your very own stress penguin, join us at CMOHuddles.com.

Okay, we kind of mentioned AI a little bit, but I feel like we've got to get into this a little more and talk about the role it could play in integrating marketing and comms, and solving some of the problems we used to have when these departments were way over here doing their own thing. And I'm curious — I know we've covered a bit, but I'd love to go back into it. Julia, you started talking about how maybe it'll make it easier, you'll need fewer people because you'll be more efficient. But I'm wondering if we can go beyond that.

Julia: Well, I think that is often the belief, right? "AI can do this, why do we need X number of people?" is a conversation that I know many marketers have faced. I often say it will help us shorten the loop, perhaps on development. It might help us, as I mentioned earlier, create a decent first draft. But we have to identify and go back to our basics: what is our brand, audience, what do we want them to do, think, feel? We can build a pretty great agent, but we still need to tune it, and that takes expertise. The second piece is, particularly in complex organizations, we have lots of different audiences to consider. You can't make an agent for everything, but you can give it a good go.

So, I often tell my team — and this is pretty simple — the bots aren't coming for your job, but somebody using the agents, using the bots well, is possibly going to edge you out. So be conversant, be fluent, play, try, be curious. And we at Alight are bringing AI into every department. Many departments, marketing included, are ahead of the curve, as I see it, with some of our company peers out in the industry. But we also know that we're competing against the last-best consumer experience. So, as we think of our participants, our end users in a B2B-to-C environment, it really matters that we are reaching their last-best consumer experience.

Drew: Yeah, interesting. And, the more conversations I have with CMOs in the last month, the question is always: what's the org going to look like next year? And I think that's a fascinating one. I don't think anybody has an answer yet, but I'll tell you, by the time of the Super Huddle, we'll have formed a task force on that. I do hope that we have hypotheses, and it's going to be the smaller companies that are going to implement the new sort of structure, and then the larger companies will figure out how to get there. But I do think it's a moment. Marni, when it comes to AI in this — specifically when we're talking about integrating marketing and comms — are you seeing any natural wins?

Marni: Yeah, we're still in early stages, as you know. I like to say that marketing, at least when I started about two years ago, was a startup in a Fortune 500 company, just given that it was primarily focused on comms, and there wasn't a lot of marketing. So, one of the things, as you know, is I really set out to build an AI-first marketing function, and now, bringing in communications, we're fully realizing the value of that, right? And as I mentioned before, being able to coordinate adoption across the entire function — not just marketing, but comms as well — as we think about things, you know, we talked about SEO and GEO, as we think about KPIs. And it's really important, because I think under one leader — as you know all too well — AI is changing, as CMOs, how we think about everything from operating model to KPIs to the talent we bring on board. So now I can think about that holistically across both the marketing and communications function, versus siloed and just marketing. So I think there's much greater synergy, combination of resources, efficiency gained, etc., under one leader, and leveraging AI across all of those specific areas that encompass marketing communications.

Drew: You use the term "AI first," and I'm curious what that looks like. And maybe, is there an example of how AI has changed the way you're doing some aspect of marketing and comms, and what that looks like?

Marni: Yeah, so I often go to — especially with limited resources and budget, we live, you know, government contracting, right, an industry that's undergone some budget cuts, etc. — thinking through: my first go-to is, can this be automated, or can we use AI? And when we start to think about that, that's what I mean by AI first. Like, okay, as we look at these, what do we need the human to handle — purely the human — and what can be handled by AI and automation, to take off of their plate, right? And so I think that's what I mean by AI first.

And building — that's one piece of it. The other is, as I continue to build and evolve both the marketing communications function, AI first again — what does that operating model look like? How do our KPIs have to shift? What does recruitment look like, because it's very different, right, than before, with AI? And so AI first is really the way we go about — I think, as leaders, CMOs slash CCOs — thinking about transforming our functions and making sure we have the right talent, the right operating model, and that we're measuring the right things in this new world.

Drew: Yeah, all three are really tricky, right? Because, I mean, on the right talent — it's early days. Do you have an AI ops person? The measurement is another one. I mean, I've been joking lately in these conversations: does anybody know what the ROI of Salesforce is? Because, in many ways, everybody has a CRM that they just say, "Well, this is the cost of doing business." And increasingly, that's kind of AI — it touches so many things. But anyway, it's interesting, and there will be a lot of progress in terms of — yes, you can increase productivity. And I did talk to a CMO recently who was getting 3x revenue — driving three times the revenue with a team that was half the size — as a result of that. So I do think there are going to be some big wins out there right now. Everybody's really struggling with measurement.

Marni: Yeah, I think that is hard, and also, because, like you said, it's early days and it's evolving so quickly. But I do think we're going to see a lot of change. It's just an area to — you know, I think it was Shelly Palmer who said — who I know is a friend of mine and yours — who said, you know, he goes to bed at night and he feels like he's light-years behind, because it's moving so quickly. Right, trying to stay on top of it is a challenge.

Drew: Oh no, it's ridiculous! I was just reading a post about the latest version of Colada, and it's like — and I think someone in the industry said, "You know what? They could really do us a favor if they would just slow down, give us three minutes — between, three months, please, between each iteration — so that we can catch up." We'd all see it better.

Okay, so one of the questions — I mean, Clay, we can keep going on AI if you want, or I wanted to move on to this other question, which is: it feels like the easiest way to integrate them is to have them report to the same person. That's kind of the conclusion I'm reaching. But I'm going to put this on Clay: when they're not reporting to the same person, what's the best-case scenario for integration?

Clay: Well, I think the best-case scenario is, you know, the Chief Comms Officer and the Chief Marketing Officer need to build a really strong partnership and a close relationship, and not treat one another as competitors. Because, you know, if your org chart is showing up to your buyer, you're failing. I just think it works so much better when your partners — when it's about helping one another be successful and not worrying about who's getting credit — and it's really about showing up as one team. So it kind of comes down to personalities and the people involved, and are they willing to treat each other as a team or as competition internally? But I think infighting doesn't serve anybody well, certainly not the customer.

Drew: No, and you know, there are some CEOs who do pit the two people against each other, and that gets really complicated. And obviously, that's not good behavior. But I also see they are competing for the CEO's time, and that is a natural source of friction, which is why it's so much easier when it's just one person that's, you know, rewarding to the CEO, and then the functions are together. But it's an imperfect world. So, to make it work, as you're saying, to make it work when there's separate functions — and, by the way, what is the rationalization for them? You know, I guess if it was an IBM, and it's a huge company, and there are huge investor relations programs, and few — then you really need it, perhaps you need that level in the C-suite. But are there other reasons why they should be separate?

Clay: I mean, I think it really comes down to — sometimes it's really, you know, is the employee audience being given enough weight? For example, because employee communications, in itself — I mean, you know, similar to Marni, I was part of a huge services business. Our people were our product. How they showed up every day in the market was a representation of our brand. You know, that's true for every company, but especially when you're providing services. So employee communication was of huge strategic importance. And one thing that, as I grew in my career and took on — you know, most of my career had been in external comms, where I was always very tightly aligned with marketing — but then, when I took on employee communications, I realized, wow, inside the C-suite, that's actually valued much more than the story I got in the Wall Street Journal. They care a lot more: are the employees acting on the strategy, are they aligned, are they engaged? So it was interesting, the conversation, and my role as counselor to the CEO did change a lot when I took on employee comms as well as external comms. So I do think, in a company where that's paramount, it could make the case of, hey, does this have enough attention? It's not a matter of it needing to be separate from marketing, but does that audience merit enough attention? That would be an example of a time where you want senior leadership.

Drew: I've seen, in many, many cases, where employee comms go through HR — which is not a disaster, but you're not getting great communicators. You're talking, again — you talk about risk aversion — and you're certainly not getting any kind of integrated story. So grabbing that seems to be one of those things that... I don't know, Julia or Marni, if you've been in that position where HR did run employee comms?

Julia: Well, I'm smiling, because I've had a different experience. You know, Alight Solutions — among one of our most valued customers is the CHRO — and so I have found an incredible partnership with our HR team, in that we have very clear line of sight on key announcements, key initiatives, how will this read to different geographies. A very specific example of that is Alight in North America has a hybrid workforce approach, and remote work is a privilege, and we ask that people come on camera and participate. And if you are here in office, please go to the office and engage from time to time. It's very different than some of our global teams, who are required to be in the office five days a week. And so, a very thoughtful message written for the North American team about how to show up in remote work would read tone-deaf to an audience that goes in every day. And so, that's an important example of how aligning and understanding the business and the HR imperative is necessary. Not every team's the same, but it's really valuable to make sure your internal comms team — whether embedded in marketing communications, or embedded in the people team or the HR team — is that there's a dotted line and hard line, right? A lot of connection.

Drew: Yeah, I mean, the key word being integrated — that we're working together as a team to communicate to employees. It's funny — I, admittedly, talk to CMOs more than I do any other role, and so I do have a bias on this topic, and so I'm trying to step back and hear you. So, appreciate that. I'm sure there are some CHROs who are unbelievably good communicators, but I also know that the ones that have stood out to me is when the CMO writes a weekly newsletter to the employees about things, and I've seen that work as a really big culture builder. So, and I think CMOs — CHROs might struggle to have that same sort of creative skill, but who knows, I don't know.

All right, enough of that — that's my problem, not yours. So let's talk about this ideal state of integration, and when they're operating as one, what does this look like when marketing and comms are working together in sync, and how do you know, as a leader of that group, how do you know that it's working?

Marni: I think, undoubtedly, it's having a consistent, unmistakable brand voice across every channel, and that channel can be internal communications, right — what we're saying to employees, what we're saying externally, what we're saying to our customers, what we're saying to the media, etc. But that one voice — and I think that's so important — and that's why, if we have all this fragmented messaging and we don't come together and define what that is, that's where we run into challenges, that inconsistency. And then that one voice has to align through campaigns, PR, internal messaging, executive comms — but all reinforcing the same narrative.

Drew: Yeah, and it's so interesting — we had Ann Morris, author of Move Fast and Fix Things, who's just a brilliant author, writer, consultant, talking about the need not just for consistency, but sort of repetitive consistency, even from an internal standpoint as well as an external standpoint.

Marni: Yeah, Drew, I think the latest — and it's always changing — but the latest, at least what me and my team follow, is that a customer, someone, has to hear something 12 times for it to stick. And if you think about that, that's true for anyone. So whether it's employees or customers or shareholders or what have you, it's got to be consistent. And that's where marketing and communications have to come together and ensure there's consistency in that message. Of course, it's going to be as tailored as it should be per audience, but the core message has to remain the same.

Julia: For me, it's working when the team independently collaborates. So, one example would be: the demand team is looking for some interesting information to add to a nurture campaign, or to add to the next program. They come to the comms team and say, "Hey, what are you working on? Anything cooking?" And the same would be true in reverse: "We're slated to win Fortune's Most Innovative Company list award — do you want to use that in your outreach to prospects and to client upsell?" So that kind of cross-pollination that happens organically, and not because it's reminded and nudged, tells me that things are really starting to happen the way we hope.

Drew: Yeah, that's so interesting, because, in order for that to work, they actually have to think, "Oh, we should ask them," right? Which means they must have had a positive experience before, because you don't ask someone for help if they didn't do a good job before. Any other signals, Clay, that marketing leaders could look for to know that it's working, or I guess you could say that it's broken?

Clay: Yeah, I mean, I'll build on what Marni touched on, about that single brand voice, the tone, and how that shows up — you know, in any touch point. You know, that's what you see on the outside. On the inside, I mean, I think it's great to see that early alignment on messaging — customer messaging — before anything does go to market. So that, like, are you aligned on the key messages that are going to inform everything, like, whether it's a press announcement or copy in 10 different types of marketing assets. So I think, you know, getting whoever's creating it — let's say it's a product marketer — that they're sharing those key messages with the comms team for feedback and input. And, of course, the comms team can't wait to take those and run with them and make all kinds of fantastic stories out of them. So, but I think, are you talking to each other early on, before the work gets in play? I think that's really key to a healthy collaboration.

Drew: Got it. Okay, we're now moving on to a final takeaway. So, you guys have been listening to this conversation, you heard each other talk. One key takeaway from today's conversation you want fellow marketing leaders to hold onto when it comes to integrating marketing and comms, Julia?

Julia: Yeah, I'd say it's honor the strengths. Right, each of the disciplines of marketing and communications brings different strengths. If we can remember to honor those and hold out, it will help us ensure that the work product is coming across in the voice that we hope. I love Marni's point about ensuring brand consistency and how those messages cascade into different audience customization — that's really important. So those lenses, whether investor to employee to buyer to influencer, are very important, and it'll come across if we can all have a core starting point.

Drew: Yeah, and I mean, this does go back to the point that you made about the need to lead with empathy but honor the strengths — I just want to honor the strengths of your associates. And that is really such a sometimes hard thing to do, because you just sort of get caught in your own bubble and think what you do is really, really important. And it's a lot about human decency and respect for what they do. And what's interesting is, when you do honor the strengths, then maybe you get that cross-collaboration where they're actually asking, because they know that they have goodness to share. Clay, your key takeaway?

Clay: You know, don't underestimate the strategic value of your communications partners on your team. You know, they aren't your competition — they're your strategic weapon.

Drew: And I love it. Spoken like a true comms person at heart.

Marni: Yes, exactly. I would say best-case scenario, it's great to have them merged under one leader. Like I said, I've worked in both — it's certainly a lot easier and more efficient when it is. If that's not the case, it is absolutely imperative that you and your communications counterpart are on the same page in terms of understanding what the swim lanes are, understanding who is responsible for what — so that defined decision matrix. So then, when the situation — the stakes are high, crisis, what have you, speed to market — that is all accelerated, because you've already defined who's responsible for what. And collaboration, at the end of the day, having mutual respect and collaboration, and that the teams do as well.

Drew: To me, it also says, when you do have the reporting structure like that, that they are a combined thing, right? That they are not separate things, that they are peas in a pod of a collective go-to-market strategy. So, anyway, that's where I am seeing things right now. And if you are a CMO who happens to have a separate comms director in a separate CCO, as Clay suggested — yeah, why don't you guys go out to lunch right away, or get some breakfast, or get some quality time, break some bread together, something like that.

All right, thank you, folks — Marni, Clay, Julia — you're all great sports. Thank you, audience, for staying with us.

 

To hear more conversations like this one and submit your questions while we're live, join us on the next CMO Huddle Studio. We stream to my LinkedIn profile. That's Drew Neisser, every other week.

Show Credits

Renegade Marketers Unite is written and directed by Drew Neisser. Hey, that's me! This show is produced by Melissa Caffrey, Laura Parkyn, and Ishar Cuevas. The music is by the amazing Burns Twins and the intro Voice Over is Linda Cornelius. To find the transcripts of all episodes, suggest future guests, or learn more about B2B branding, CMO Huddles, or my CMO coaching service, check out renegade.com. I'm your host, Drew Neisser. And until next time, keep those Renegade thinking caps on and strong!