Most Marketing folks understand how they should operate in social media spaces. For instance:
- One should seek to engage customers instead of just “selling” to them.
- Listening is just as important as “talking.”
- Relationships with customers are cultivated, hopefully, before problems occur.
- Relationships take time and effort to develop. It’s a crock pot rather than a microwave.
What if those in Marketing were to approach their relationship with their corporate IT counterparts with the same ideas in mind? Perhaps this would be a great way to foster better collaboration with them. Let’s delve in a little on how that might work.
Engage, Don’t “Sell”
As pointed out in my recent article “Agile Teams Redux,” your IT Department has a whole different set of goals and priorities which may be vastly different from yours. This isn’t selfishness on their part, but rather it stems from their unique role in the enterprise. They need to support all departments and thus need to spread their resources around.
If you come to them only when you need something done and try to “sell” them on why your project is more important than the others, your arguments may fall on deaf ears. But, if you engage them over time, bringing them in on your future plans as you work them out you might be able to get them to buy in to how you envision them helping out. This can be as simple as an email where you write something to the effect of “Hey, this is what we’re doing over the next few months. Let’s sit down and talk about how best to approach the online parts of it.” Bring them in as partners, not just “supporters” and do it early and often.
Listen
In any relationship, listening is just as important (if not more important) than talking. Listen to what your IT folks have to say about those things they are trained and experienced with. They may be a bunch of geeks, but they certainly know more than a thing or two about their end of the business. Absorb as much as you can. You may not get into the technical detail of what they do, but you certainly can get concepts. If you’re going to delve into online and social, it’s certainly important you at least understand the basics.
Also, listen and try to understand their position on scheduling and priorities. You’re not their only customer and there is a lot going on you probably don’t know about. Try to be flexible enough in your timelines to allow them to work on other projects so they can devote more attention to yours when it comes time to work on them.
Cultivate Relationships
Your IT folks are, no doubt and like you, stretched to the limit supporting the entire organization. You can’t just “pop in” every so often, dump a bunch of work on them and expect them to be wholehearted supporters. You also can’t just jump on then when there is a problem. Again, it’s important you help make them partners in your efforts. Bring them on board at the earliest possible moment. If your IT folks get the impression they’re just an afterthought, you will end up being an afterthought to them.
You might need to find one person in the IT group who “gets” marketing and ask them to be your champion. It would be great if this person was an “official” liaison. If you can’t get inside yourself, having an advocate who can see your side of the issue and speak the language of IT may be the best thing for you. You might also cultivate your own Marketing Technologist to help you in this effort. Again, the idea is that this person speaks the other’s language and understands more of what they are going through. Empathy can go a long way in helping foster good relationships.
This Takes Time
Developing good rapport and a good relationship between Marketing and IT is going to take time. In these days of “hurry up and get it done” we often expect to have quick, surface relationships with those around us – “An inch deep and a mile wide” as one of my friends likes to put it. But, if you’re going to have a real working relationship with people you need to get a little deeper.
Last year I wrote some tips to help IT and Marketing folks work better together. Check out that article and see if some of those suggestions won’t work for you.
Don’t expect this to happen overnight. While it’s possible you can hit upon something and make things go good quickly, more than likely this is going to take some time. That’s OK – you want to do it right. Just like in cooking: a microwave may be fast, but slower cooking makes the resulting meal taste a whole lot better.
Please feel free to share your tips on how you’ve developed relationships between Marketing and IT in the comments.
