A few years ago, we developed a framework to extend Account Based Marketing (ABM) to a wider constituency. Now, we can see that Stakeholder Marketing is a much wider concept, that doesn’t just seek to generate revenue, it is part of creating value – or sometimes limiting the erosion of brand trust.
Stakeholder Marketing – a Short History
Account based Marketing is a B2B concept recognising that the buyer, the customer and the consumer, or user are different people, but all have influence on the final purchasing decision. ABM is a Revenue or Growth exercise. It’s main focus is getting the deal signed or extended. As the name suggests, it markets to all the decision makers and influencers in a single account – a hangover from older CRM models.
The siloed approach where PR & Comms and Government Affairs and CSR and Brand social media are all saying different things doesn’t work in a world where an individual can be a buyer, employee, partner, influencer, community member and activist all at once. All these stakeholders need to be brought together under Marketing.
Stakeholder Marketing for Complex and Uncertain Markets
Stakeholder Marketing has a very wide remit. It recognises that decisions made by a company, or in a brand’s name, can have far reaching consequences or impact on a wide variety of constituents. Traditional Marketing has usually put one stakeholder front and center – the customer, but increasingly, the interests of investors and shareholders, governments and even the environment as a stakeholder requires a new kind of marketing.
Take AI as an example. On the one hand, you could argue that OpenAI and Anrhropic are just trying to make a great product that solves a problem we didn’t know we had. You can now ask a machine that cost $180 billion to build how to boil an egg. Of course, the retail consumer of ChatGPT is not the stakeholder that OpenAI is optimising for. They don’t even seem to be prioritising enterprise clients. In fact, there are two stakeholders they are marketing to – the financial markets, and the current US administration, or at least the executive branch. They are fighting messaging wars on multiple fronts and they don’t seem to be winning – data centers, existential threats to human exisitence, making the kill-chain more efficient by enabling autonomous weaponry, employee dissatisfaction and a perception that there is no real governance or care for the commonwealth.
Stakeholder Marketing begins by identifying who the stakeholders are. Some of them have been mentioned already – the customer, the end user, employees, other departments including finance and sales. Investors and shareholders, the media, the industry including partners and suppliers (to pay people on time or not is a Stakeholder Marketing decision). Then there are the community, local and wider, regulators, government and last but not least – the stakeholders who don’t have a voice, like the environment or future generations.
Many companies do a version of Stakeholder marketing through sponsorship – again, what you sponsor makes a difference. Are you sponsoring an F1 team or a local baskeball stadium or an opera company? Sponsorship and the activation of sponsorship can be an efficient way to engage multiple stakeholders under one ‘campaign.’ For example, sponsoring The Ocean Race allows you to talk about high-performance and endurance and best-of-breed technology while also promoting support for cleaner oceans or dwindling fish-stocks while educating kids about the benefits of an outdoor lifestyle.
Companies with the budget create their own branded events – summits, festivals and ‘cons’. Again, these events spend Marketing budget, not just to get a lead or get a deal renewed, but they support the ecosystem. Some of these events bring thousands of visitors, which helps a city’s local economy. Some are free to attend, offering access to key-notes and seminars. On the one hand, it might look like a big line item, and the attribution may be difficult, but many of these brands claim to be data-driven, so they must have metrics that show it’s worth doing.
We Are All Stakeholders
Some companies, especially those in oligopolistic markets, where the customer has no other choice, have engaged in a more cynical kind of Stakeholder Marketing. But terms like Sportswashing and Greenwashing suggest that the customers and the public at large can see right through the attempts to launder a brand’s reputation through a kind of bribery.
We are all stakeholders. We all are all impacted directly or indirectly by decisions made by companies in a brand’s name. And, despite what it might feel like sometimes, customers still have power. In an age of AI where almost everything can be copied or commoditsed, where there is competition, even if you might have to look to the east to find it, customers don’t have to buy from the incumbent. Many of us are also shareholders – either individually or through pension funds.
It takes a brave brand to say, ‘you know what Boomers – you’re okay. We are going to optimise for the next generation now.’ Some brands are braver than others. Some nod along with the loudest pundits to ride the wave of the latest podcast-class opinion. Some keep their head down and say nothing. A rare few, take a moral position over a commercial one.
Which is why a Stakeholder Marketing Strategy is so important. You can choose to favour one group over another. You can’t please everyone. Just know that what the risks to your brand equity are of your decisions.
Engage a Fractional CMO to build your Stakeholder Markeing strategy.
