If you’ve sat in a corporate marketing seat, it probably does not come as a surprise that there’s often tension between the finance and marketing departments. This tension is caused by a variety of factors, including misaligned success metrics, a perception of marketing as a cost center versus a growth driver, measurement and accountability challenges, and communication gaps. The annual budget planning process is a period that can challenge even the strongest marketing-finance relationship. It can be difficult to have a collective conversation on long-term marketing impact when the budget planning exercise is focused on fiscal year spend and fiscal year outcomes, but through storytelling and collective conversation, you can start to evolve the conversation and discuss the long-term jobs marketing needs to do. 

How do you decide when to prioritize progress over perfection in your marketing strategy? We believe in taking well-informed action and iterating from that action instead of waiting to launch until every detail has been perfected, as long as key foundational elements are in place.