30-second summary:
SEOs and search marketing managers often struggle to convey value to the board, which hampers funding and support for relevant strategy implementation. There are three aspects you need to balance to win over C-suite
Your best ideas aren’t worth a dime without funding. What’s the key to financing? Executive buy-in! To understand how to get buy-in, you must know your audience: the mighty C-suite. Executives are busy, stressed, and care about three things and three things only – 1. Market share 2. Revenue 3. Talent. They want to know if the company captures more of the market, makes more money, and has the right people. Mind you, a healthy team and culture are part of talent.
So, whatever you need funding for must direct line to one of these three factors. Only a few projects can live outside of these and provide enough strategic value to be considered. Everything else gets a friendly nod and then collects dust in backlog hell. Relevance is important! But your success will also depend on solid storytelling. Think about it like the packaging. A sports car needs an excellent chassis, an iPhone needs a classy box, and your presentation requires a capturing narrative.
Designing a narrative
Stories are how we retain information. I’m not going to give you the whole spiel about how humans told stories around fire camps and painted the walls of caves. Our brains still connect information with stories because they trigger emotions. We imagine ourselves to be part of the narrative. It even starts certain parts of the brain – as if we were really in it! Storytelling has two key components: a problem and a solution. The problem needs to be significant, timely, and relevant. You don’t want to cut the problem definition short, but take your time showing the root issue, its magnitude, and
how it is connected to other problems. This is called issue framing. Ultimately, your audience should think, “We must take care of this right now! Emphasize the problem with data or a strong construct of reasoning. The executives should see the issue in one paragraph or slide without too much explanation. This is an important data visualization challenge. Problems often come down to a simple display, something not trending in the right direction, or being too small/large compared to something else. Seek to connect the issue to a larger goal of the organization or an existing problem.
This is easier to grasp than dealing with a completely new situation. Plus, connecting your case with another one has a carry-over effect of relevance. Suddenly, your point is top of mind. The solution to the problem can be a set of prioritized actions or an outcome. Just like the problem, keep the explanation simple. “Here are three things we’re going to do about it.” Show the time horizon and resources you need to solve the problem. You should be able to show one to three metrics to measure progress against the solution to give everyone an understanding of success. This is how data and storytelling play together to lead up to a coherent narrative.
