Let’s face it; in an era where marketing and advertising budgets are diminishing, the decision makers in your organisation might not be receptive to the idea of adventurous initiatives that are going to require capital outlay. On the flip side, you’re down there on the ground, watching your competitors adopt highly successful online strategies. The fact is that you need to convince the company directors that eMarketing is not airy fairy new fangled nonsense.

Few things convince like evidence of a return on investment. (Image by Scott Maxwell )

The solution to this dilemma lies in putting together the perfect pitch; one which will not only convince your board that eMarketing is the new black, but also ensure that you’re the one who gets the credit when your company starts to reap the returns. Of course, the question remains, how do you pitch an unfamiliar concept to a board, many of whom might still be struggling with the concept of email, let alone Social Media?  It’s far from rocket science, but worth thinking through at any rate.

1. Explain your ideas in simple terms

Once you’ve worked your way through the finer nuances of a problem or indeed a solution, it is often easy to assume knowledge in others that you took some time to absorb. When you’re pitching, this can be fatal because your audience is operating from a fundamentally different frame of reference. What this means is that you need to start by bridging that gap in simple terms and retracing the steps to your conclusion in a structured way. This will ensure that when you get to the conclusion of your pitch, that people will have enough information to ask pertinent questions and enough understanding to make an informed decision. This means cutting out the jargon and explaining the key terms and concepts to ensure that your audience doesn’t switch off because your thought process is over their heads.

2. Use real-life case studies

Nothing sells your idea as well as examples that prove that a similar tactic has worked for another brand. This doesn’t mean that your ideas need to rehash other campaigns in an effort to prove their worth. You can, for example, demonstrate the efficacy of email marketing as a whole using a case study, but be proposing a fundamentally different approach to the same tactic. By the same token though, it is important to have thought through in advance what makes your idea different and why its inimitability will make it more effective than your case study example and not less so.

3. Demonstrate return on investment

I lied in my previous point. The most effective selling tool is, in fact, return on investment. Actually, it wasn’t entirely a lie – you’d be a fool to use a case study that showed anything other than a fantastic ROI. Companies, despite what their other goals might be, aim ultimately to make money and are not likely to plough their resources into an idea unless they are certain that it will generate (either directly or indirectly) enough revenue to justify the spend. In your favour there is the fact that eMarketing is often cheaper than traditional advertising, and because of its measurability offers great opportunity to illustrate return on investment.

4. Know your subject matter backwards, forwards and inside out

You might not be an eMarketing professional (in fact you probably aren’t) but you need to do your homework. It’s not enough to assume that because you know more than the people you are pitching to, that you know enough. They are high up in the company because as managers they ask the right questions, and the right questions are also the tough questions. Not only do you need to have the right answers to those questions, but you also need to know enough to ensure that you buy completely into the idea that you are selling them. Knowing some background to the tactics you’re suggesting, as well as having some idea of the market, what your competitors are doing and what the future trends are set to be will only help your case, while making you seem bright and shiny in the board’s eyes. It’s win-win really.

5.  Present yourself professionally

I have a boss (Rob – cough – Rob) who says that our clients hire us for our smart minds and not for our smart pants (he’s a ginger though so maybe it’s a case of knowing when to stop trying). Admittedly, he makes a good point.  Nonetheless, you need the people you’re trying to win over to take you seriously and if you feel you can command respect wearing your sheepskin slippers and stripy pyjama pants, then so be it. Truth be told, I might slop around the office in my ugg boots and my K-Way fleece, but I wouldn’t try to pitch an idea to Rob, Janine or Craig like that. For me, being professional means not pitching in that shirt you picked up that one time you went to Hooters or the brown one that says “Save the trees, wipe your ass with an owl” (even if you are a dirty hippy and proud of it).

6. Understand your audience

Knowing who you are pitching to offers an excellent opportunity for you to present your idea in a way they will understand, absorb and ultimately buy into. People learn information in different ways: some like to see the bigger picture, while others prefer ideas to be compartmentalised so that the processes behind them become evident.  One suggestion is to speak to other people who have pitched unfamiliar ideas to your board and apply their knowledge to your own meeting with them.

So there you have it – 6 tips to help you convince your board that however scary and unfamiliar it may be, your eMarketing idea is awesome and will allow a healthy return without costing the earth.