How marketers gain the ear of upper management

How can marketers earn a voice among upper management? Brooke Mathes-Yep, Vice President of Corporate Marketing for NCI Building Systems talks to Savage's Robin Tooms about how she earned a place at the table.

Robin: Hello, and welcome to this edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies. I’m Robin Tooms, vice president of strategy at Savage, and my guest today is Brooke Mathes-Yep, vice president of corporate marketing for NCI Building Systems. Brooke, I’m so glad you’re at the show.

Brooke: Thanks, Robin. It’s a real pleasure to be here.

Robin: Well, I am glad that you’re here as well because you have something that all marketers face, which is how do you get a proverbial seat at the table when you’re a marketer like us. So you’ve accomplished that now, at least I think, so tell us what your secret is.

Brooke: Well, Robin, I think that getting that seat at the table is one of the most important things that marketers can do. It can be a challenge because often times, marketing is in a silo, kind of doing their own thing, but what I would do is encourage marketers to align with the over-arching goals of their organization to get involved and to understand what are the overall business objectives that we’re trying to accomplish, and then align your activities and your focus in support of those.

Robin: So getting to that state of marketing enlightenment for you has been about really being strategic in the marketing’s goals. What is an example of where you’ve done that?

Brooke: One example at NCI Building Systems is we have implemented a system of marketing forecasting and guidance, and where as previously we operated more intuitively, now marketing’s role is to gauge the various markets and to bring those opportunities to the business in advance so that they can prepare. And we’ve had several successes as a result of that, and once you do that, business leaders will see the value that marketing can provide.

Robin: I agree. Thank you so much for sharing, and I think everyone will appreciate that. Well, this has been another edition of Brandononmics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies.

NCI Building Systems, Inc. designs, manufactures and markets a comprehensive list of metal buildings and components for construction in virtually every sector – commercial, industrial, agricultural, institutional and governmental. NCI builds communities, from schools to manufacturing and the places in between. https://www.ncilp.com/