Bridging Misalignment Without Losing Strategy
I’m sitting at my desk, deep in a strategic work session — and I’ll be honest, I’m killing it. Okay, maybe it’s the coffee, but I’m in the zone. Next quarter’s campaign is coming together beautifully. It’s smart, targeted, and anchored in the research my team has been nurturing for weeks.
Fast forward to the first day of the new quarter, and I get a call from a sales leader: “Let’s change the campaign to mirror what our biggest competitor is doing.”
Cue the fire drill.
Pivoting now means scrapping the thoughtful campaign we’ve been building. New messaging, new assets, rushed execution — and a high chance of diluted results. This isn’t just inconvenient. It undermines the long-game thinking that marketing requires to build momentum.
Here’s the kicker: the competitor campaign that sparked this whole detour? Flashy, but flawed. It might stir some buzz, but real ROI? Unlikely.
So why do these misaligned requests keep happening?
Misalignment Has Roots — Not Villains
These kinds of pivots usually come from a good place. A desire to stay competitive, to respond to a shifting market, to make an impact. But they often reveal something deeper: a disconnect in how different teams think about time and value.
Sales lives in the now: Who’s ready to buy today? What’s closing this quarter?
Marketing, on the other hand, is building trust over time. We’re planting seeds — of recognition, of preference, of emotional resonance. That kind of work doesn’t shout. It accumulates.
Sometimes, the problem isn’t the request itself. It’s that marketing’s strategy is invisible. Like the base of an iceberg, most of what we build isn’t immediately seen — the customer research, the positioning nuance, the deliberate timing. All of it supports what eventually becomes a campaign.
So when someone sees a single ad or email and asks for “more like that,” they’re really responding to the tip of the iceberg — without realizing what’s holding it up.
Make the Strategy Visible
Here’s a truth I’ve learned the hard way: it’s not enough to have a strategy. You have to make it seen.
That means:
- Bringing your research into conversations — not just your recommendations
- Translating marketing metrics into business outcomes
- Setting clear expectations for what success looks like (and over what timeline)
If we want to be treated like strategic partners, we have to show our work — not defensively, but with clarity and confidence.
Bridge-Building Tactics
So how do we reduce the number of fire drills? By investing in cross-functional alignment before the crisis moment.
Some practices that have helped:
- Pre-mortems before campaign launches — where we game out likely challenges and questions from other teams
- Quarterly marketing briefings for cross-functional leaders, to keep them in the loop on what’s coming and why
- Shared success metrics, especially ones that bridge sales and marketing KPIs
When your stakeholders understand what you’re building — and why — their instinct to intervene shifts. They become more likely to contribute with you, not around you.
Strategic Flexibility, Not Reactive Flailing
Of course, not every pivot is a bad one. Markets shift. Priorities evolve. Part of being a strategic marketer is knowing when to flex.
But there’s a difference between being agile and being reactive. The first is intentional. The second is a scramble.
When we allow every external spark to ignite a fire drill, we teach our teams to prioritize noise over nuance.
Final Thought
Marketing doesn’t live in a vacuum — but it shouldn’t live on a leash either. When we make our strategies visible, invite others into our process, and stay rooted in long-term impact, we shift the relationship.
We become more than executors. We become partners.
And when the next “let’s pivot” call comes in? We can engage from a place of grounded leadership, not panic.
Because the real power isn’t just in saying no — it’s in making fewer fire drills necessary in the first place.