Marketing Orchestration a Talent Retention Strategy? It’s True!

Summary

This blog post explains how Marketing Orchestration is tied to retaining top talent. We will discuss issues to look for that can lead to unhappy employees and high turnover. Then we'll dive into how a solid Marketing Orchestration strategy can lead to decreased turnover, a positive work environment, effective communication and more.

By Brenna Lofquist, Senior Marketing Consultant / Client Services Operations at Heinz Marketing

Better process –> better quality of life –> better talent retention  

Marketing Orchestration goes beyond planning and executing campaigns. It impacts how your teams live, work, and connect. I’m here to explain an interesting take: Marketing Orchestration as a talent retention strategy. 

Talent retention is important because the more you can retain employees (and top performers at that), the happier they are and the better their performance. All of which means the business is more successful. 

Diagnosing the problem 

When we worked with our first Marketing Orchestration client, we quickly realized a few issues that impacted the quality of life for the team. These impacts were negatively affecting their day to day work, relationships with colleagues, and distrust in leadership.

Lack of and inconsistent communication  

There was a general lack of communication. Teams were hoping that someone else was doing what they needed to and when. Then when it came down to it, people were very quick to blame someone else or throw them under the bus. This isn’t helpful for anyone.

When they did communicate, they were on different channels making it difficult to track key decisions and information. This is very important when working on a campaign or deliverable. Notes or comments can get lost and it’s difficult to reference or in some cases find, if not in the same place. 

No documented process 

People started creating their own processes and, in most cases, those processes weren’t communicated with the rest of the teams. Process siloes cause expectations to be misaligned because no one knows how long something should take, they are confused about who should do what, etc. 

This all leads to tension (lots of tension) 

The main thing we noticed from the issues was a lot of tension. This was happening among individuals and across teams. Frustration was rampant between teams and with leadership. We could tell that everyone wanted a resolution, but no one knew how to go about it. Teams were looking for direction and guidance from leadership and they weren’t receiving it. Little did the teams know, it was on leaderships radar and they were working on a plan but again, there was no communication of said plan.

Let’s recap Marketing Orchestration 

Before we get into the connection between Marketing Orchestration and talent retention, let’s take a step back and recap Marketing Orchestration. 

Marketing Orchestration (as we define it at Heinz Marketing) is a disciplined approach to how marketing work gets done. It starts with planning and goes all the way through execution. The approach examines the inputs and outputs of campaign development and execution steps to drive cross-functional collaboration, improve agility and performance, and fulfill your market potential. 

To be successful with Marketing Orchestration, you must have a clearly defined framework that is communicated to those involved. You must have defined roles and responsibilities so it’s clear who should be doing what and when. 

Connecting Marketing Orchestration to talent retention 

There are a handful of key factors to retain top talent. These include career development opportunities, competitive compensation and benefits, work-life balance, positive work environment, effective leadership, employee engagement, and more. Obviously, a few of these don’t make sense when we think about Marketing Orchestration, so we’ll focus on the ones that do. 

The issues mentioned above can make employees unhappy and likely to seek a different job. Their attitude and work ethic may decline, causing frustration among other team members, communication breakdowns, etc. 

When you have a well-oiled Marketing Orchestration strategy, everyone is in lockstep, communication is flowing, timelines are being met, expectations and responsibilities are clear – everyone is happy! Now, this is won’t be easy by any means but it’s what you’re striving for. 

If you can achieve the well-oiled machine this in turn allows for: 

A positive work environment 

Tension and frustrations decline, creating a positive work environment and one that people want to keep coming back to. 

Employee engagement 

Gathering feedback and allowing employees to provide input into decision-making processes keeps employees more engaged and part of the process. They should have a say in things that impact them. 

Effective communication 

Open and transparent communication will allow for a smooth process. Employees appreciate being informed of potential changes, company developments, and goals. 

Employee empowerment 

A RACI chart is another important component of Marketing Orchestration. Clarity provides autonomy to employees, and they feel trusted and empowered, which contributes to job satisfaction. 

Effective leadership 

Leadership must be able to provide clear communication, support, and guidance. They play a crucial role in creating a positive and motivating work environment. 

Bottom line: when your employees are happy, they will stick around longer. 

How does this impact your business? 

In doing a quick search on Google, numerous articles popped up with stats correlating talent retention to employee engagement, employee happiness, productivity, etc. There’s no shortage of data that says when your employees are happy, they are likely to stay for longer. 

In a blog post from Hailo (an employee communications platform), they list a few stats specific to employee engagement: 

• Employee engagement increases productivity in the workspace. Companies with high employee engagement are 21% more profitable 
• Low employee engagement costs business $4,700 on average to hire new talent, and around $986 to onboard the new hire. You lost almost $6,000 each time an employee leaves, not to mention the unquantifiable cost of losing an experienced employee 

Now this post isn’t focused solely on employee engagement, however you can get a glimpse into the negative impacts not only on your employees but your bottom line . Your time and investment into Marketing Orchestration will be well worth it. 

I hope you found this post helpful! If you want to chat Marketing Orchestration, you can always reach me at brenna@heinzmarketing.com.