One of the problems that marketers and sales professionals often experience is that it is difficult to collaborate with the communication department. In turn, managers and employees of the communication department feel they receive less attention than marketing & sales. These departments can and should work together better.
Formation of silos
As an organization grows, more barriers (silos) are built around departments. As a result, (digital) meetings need to be scheduled between sales, marketing, and communication colleagues. Whereas these colleagues used to just sit together in the same department. In other words: they start to lose sight of each other – and thereby out of mind.
That departments communicate less frequently or less organically with each other limits their effectiveness. A concrete example: sales talks to (potential) customers every day. Marketing and communication can greatly benefit from the insights of sales. However, these departments only receive these insights during the designated meeting times. Exchange of data could also proceed much more smoothly if the barriers between these departments vanished.
Frustration with communication departments
It is sometimes claimed that communication departments often lack alignment with the business, that few data-driven decisions are made, and more are based on intuition and gut feelings.
Furthermore, perhaps you recognize it: communication departments that are skilled at ensuring colleagues do not communicate with the media. Fearful of scandals, organizations become wary of any form of publicity. And so, a communication department ensures that a company does not build any reputation in the media. A pity.
Frustration from communication departments
Right to reply! In many organizations, managers and employees of the communication department feel they are the ones who suffer and receive less attention than their colleagues in the traditional marketing and sales departments. While marketing and sales departments directly contribute to revenue, the subtle but crucial work of the communication department, such as building reputation and long-term relationships through PR, is often overlooked.
This leads to PR often being the neglected child within organizations, something we already addressed in 2020 here. This lack of attention can limit the growth and success of an organization, as a strong PR strategy is essential for building trust and credibility with the public. You can read more about the power of PR in this blog.
Now what?
Marketing and communication professionals can still learn a lot from each other and strengthen each other more. One solution is merging marketing and communication departments, another solution is for marketers and sales departments to start working on external communication themselves. This can be done by acquiring relevant knowledge about how PR and external communication work. Learning to see 'the outside perspective'. Learning to focus on long-term relationships with the press, instead of a quick win.
Communication does not have to be complicated. In fact: the PR field is a craft that can be learned – and there is no reason to believe that marketers or sales professionals would be unsuitable for it. That is why Presscloud was founded: so that PR is no longer solely reserved for PR agencies, but organizations can work on their external communication in a smart and efficient way. Read our blogs, our knowledge base, or schedule a demo now.
