It’s never too late to inject purpose into your brand.
But marketing can’t do it alone, says Jacqueline Babb, marketing consultant and IMC Academic Director at Northwestern University.
Instead, your organization’s purpose needs to reach throughout your company, including stakeholders and decision makers.
Hear how to infuse purpose into your organization with this clip from Jacqueline’s 2023 session at B2B Forum, or read the transcript below.
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And so, if you’re going to go to Happy Hour, and then you’re going to call your CEO or CMO and say, I’m really jazzed about Purpose-Driven Marketing, here are five things I recommend that you do today.
The first is to spend some time with your stakeholders to figure out what your organization’s purpose is.
There are some organizations that were built on purpose. We know that.
But it’s not ever too late to embed purpose in your organization. It is something that can absolutely be done, but it has to be something that’s resonant to your stakeholders. It has to be connected to your business. And it has to be something that you can have a thread run through your entire organization.
And the next thing is to have this really honest conversation with your leadership team about their commitment to purpose.
Because as we saw with Target and we saw the Bud Light, it doesn’t work if it’s inauthentic.
We have to be sure that we are going to defend this purpose, that we are going to embed this purpose in our actions.
It’s not enough to just say we do it. It’s not enough to just give money anymore.
It actually has to be part of the fabric of our organizations—just like it is with Whole Logic—and then decide how you’re going to get your stakeholders involved.
I think this is so important because if you’re doing this work alone and the stakeholders aren’t involved, they won’t feel committed to it the way you are. So make sure that they have a place in this and they have a way to contribute as well.
And then, once you’ve got your strategy going, collect those really great stories of impact and make sure you’re always putting the humans at the center.
It is very tempting to say, “we’ve served this many people, we’ve partnered with that many people, we’ve made this type of impact.”
And that tangibility is important.
It’s particularly important for your C-suite.
But I also think the stories are going to be the thing that resonates with your customers and the public and your vendors and stakeholders outside of your organization.
So be prepared to tell the stories. Find the stories, share the stories, and amplify them.
Then I say, never be satisfied.
These strategies can be incredibly impactful over time if you continually iterate on them, just like we do all of our marketing strategies.
And so constantly evaluate your partners, constantly evaluate your impact, constantly look for opportunities to figure out where you can continue to do this important work and have your values show up in everything that you do.
Published May 14, 2024
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