Episode Summary
In this episode of The Out & About Podcast, Tiffany and Jimmy get practical about a topic that quietly shapes every marketing win: alignment. They walk through how to connect your marketing work to real business goals so you’re not stuck defending tactics, explaining “why this matters,” or reacting to last-minute fire drills.
You’ll hear why a simple planning meeting and a firmwide calendar can change everything. Tiffany and Jimmy also talk through how to pick metrics that actually reflect progress, how to work backwards from growth goals into marketing goals, and how to step into leadership in the marketing seat.
Key Takeaways:
Alignment makes marketing more effective, more defensible, and easier to sustain. Tactics like planning meetings, firmwide calendars, and intentional metrics can help marketing teams move out of reactive mode and into a leadership role that clearly supports business goals.
- Problem statement: Marketing in financial services often operates in a silo, which makes it hard to explain why certain tactics matter, defend budgets, and connect day-to-day work to firm growth goals.
- Why it matters: Leadership measures success in revenue and growth, while marketing is often asked to do more without clear priorities or visibility. Without alignment, marketing becomes reactive and is judged on activity instead of impact.
- Real‑life example: Tiffany and Jimmy reference a client that recently built a firmwide calendar and immediately gained clarity on where there was too much activity and where there were gaps. Seeing everything in one place made it easier to move launches, space out events, and conserve team energy. Without that visibility, marketing looked busy but unfocused, which created tension when leadership saw a lot of motion without clear results.
- A few moments that made us stop and think:
- Marketing is not “the fun thing on the side.” It is a leadership function when it is aligned and visible.
- When leadership only sees motion, not outcomes, marketing looks busy but unclear. Visibility creates trust more than volume does.
- “Don’t be afraid of doing too little” can be a strategic advantage when focus is tied to the funnel and firm goals.
- Be selective with metrics: If you surface every data point, you will be expected to optimize every data point, even when it does not move the business forward.
Don’t Miss the ONE Thing You Should Go Do First!
- Make a calendar! Start with your marketing calendar, then start knocking on doors to pull in the rest of the firm’s key dates and priorities.
Links & Resources
- The O&A Podcast Episode [#1]: Are Your Newsletters Really Engaging? Metrics Financial Marketers Should Track
- The O&A Podcast Episode [#3]: Before You Start Marketing: Financial Services Positioning
- Blog: The Role of Marketing and the CMO in Today’s Financial Services Industries with Nick Richtsmeier
Join Us!
- Want more practical ideas? Join The Out & About newsletter for fresh insights into financial services marketing and downloadable resources.
Transcript
Tiffany (00:10):
And if we don't have those conversations early on, then marketing just ends up with grenades thrown into it all the time.
Jimmy (00:19):
So often. It's kind of like, why are we doing this again? Why are we spending money on this?
Tiffany (00:25):
Marketing is on the chopping block so early.
Jimmy (00:30):
One more time. Action.
Tiffany (00:35):
All right. Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Out and About Podcast, where we break down all things marketing and financial services and uncover what's working, what's not working. So as we always say, whether you've been in that marketing seat for your whole career or you just sat down and they handed you the social media accounts and said you're in charge, we're here to support you. And I'm especially excited about this episode because that's pretty much what it's all about. We're just here to back you up and we have a really fun conversation, joined by Jimmy. If you've heard past podcast episodes, you've heard Jimmy and a bunch of them, so I'm glad. Glad to have you back here. And we're going to be talking about, in general, alignment — aligning your marketing with your greater business. But I think it's going to be really fun because I feel like we're probably going to uncover problems you didn't know you had, or maybe you knew it was a problem but you didn't know why.
(01:33):
So I think we're going to be able to name some of those nagging issues you couldn't pinpoint before. So this is going to be a fun one. Okay. Before we dive in too far, Jimmy, I'm going to throw a wrench in because this is, I think, going to be our first podcast of the new year, if I have timing down correctly. So before we dive into what we're saying yes to, what are you excited about in marketing in 2026?
(02:03):
Curveball.
Jimmy (02:04):
Sorry. Yeah. I think yes, curveballs are good. I think what I'm really excited about in 2026 is — drum roll — the word on everybody's lips for the last year or so: AI.
Tiffany (02:20):
Yeah, there it is.
Jimmy (02:21):
How does it play into marketing? I'm watching how it evolves and I'm excited about it. I don't think it's something that is scary. I think it's really interesting and then how we can just work with it. Yeah. What about you?
Tiffany (02:41):
I love it. I'm excited that with AI, all these other conversations around technology and things, it always just pushes us back to the fundamentals of marketing, which makes me really happy. So I feel like you and I have been around this business long enough that we've had these conversations. And it's so funny to me that we're now like, you need the basics of SEO. You need video. This is the trend this year, video. I mean, this has been the thing for years but it's true. It's still the thing that differentiates the page.
Jimmy (03:18):
Yeah. You need your daily serving of fruit and vegetables.
Tiffany (03:21):
I know. It makes me kind of happy though, because it sort of validates everything we've said in the past. So if you've been in that marketing seat since you and I have been in marketing seats for a hot minute, it feels kind of validating. Yeah, we keep saying it and it's still true. So I also think it's just comforting because again, we're here to support you all who are also in the marketing seat. And sometimes marketing is supposed to be the place with the new innovation and the new ideas. We're going to uncover this hack and trick and then it's all going to start working. And so I don't know, there's just a certain comfort level of like, let's just go back to the foundations of what actually works that's going to help accelerate through it all.
Jimmy (04:07):
And test it.
Tiffany (04:08):
Innovation. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Jimmy (04:10):
Good diet, exercise, food and vegetables.
Tiffany (04:14):
Let’s do the thing.
Jimmy (04:15):
The basics.
Tiffany (04:16):
It works. Exactly. So yeah, that's what I'm excited about. Okay. So talking about alignment, and we talk about this all the time, by the way, if you've been around Out & About, if you've ever been in one of our meetings, we are always talking about how marketing ladders up to business goals. It's a foundational topic — we have graphs about it and everything in our presentation but I think it's helpful. So when it comes to alignment, what are you saying yes to?
Jimmy (04:49):
Definitely saying yes to, and in terms of a planning meeting, not having departments or teams work in silos. So we have business goals. Let those business goals be disseminated down to the individual departments, business development, marketing, operations, so everybody's clear about what as a group, where are we going, and then individually we can each then take that back to our department and think, how can I contribute to that? How can I help us go in that direction? Are there things I'm doing kind of laddering up to that? Does it make sense? That's what I'm saying yes to.
Tiffany (05:35):
Okay. Well, I'll say my second one in a minute because it relates to everything else we talked about. So I was going to change it. I was going to just throw a total curveball in and change it but then I realized we had some preparation before this call. And if I don't say the second one, it won't set us up for success. But I just want to piggyback on that. And I know you saw my notes but I think open communication is huge too. So I'm just going to piggyback on what you said, not siloing and marketing needs to know what's going on. Marketing can't just be the fun thing on the side. They need to know all the things, right? Are we looking to do some mergers in the future? Are we looking to hire in the future? So whether you are the person in-house, you certainly need to know these things, but your vendors or if you have an outsourced team, they need to know this as well.
(06:32):
What your growth goals are. Are you looking to bring in clients organically? Again, are you looking to hire? Are you looking to do some acquisitions? Just keeping really clean lines of open communication is super helpful because a big part of marketing success is — well, so that's my other thing. We're going to say it is calendaring everything out, right? And really having a good plan, but there's also pivots that have to happen along the way. Okay, well now we have hired someone. We have acquired another firm. We have to get moving. And if we don't have those conversations early on, then marketing just ends up with grenades thrown into it all the time. Like, "Woo, here's another fire. Here's another fire." So just staying really open. I mean, I think honestly, if the whole culture of your company is open and honest, I know we do that internally.
(07:30):
We have monthly state of the unions where we really talk about growth goals and everything that's going on in the company across departments. So that's what I think every company should do, but at least keep your marketing department in the loop. So the second one is the calendars, which I know is going to lead us in. So firm-wide calendars, I love them. I tell all our clients we need them. It looks different with every client because again, it just depends on the culture, who's making what decisions and when. A smaller team is going to be a little more nimble. So they might say, "Oh, we're going to do a webinar in Q2 but we don't know what it is yet. At a bigger company, we've already planned the webinars. We know what they're about. We know what day they're on." But just getting all that on one page.
(08:19):
So like I said, webinars and events, in-person events, especially those standing ones, the annual client whatever, having all that on the calendar, any, again, acquisition, or structural things that are changing like getting a new office or things like that.
(08:46):
I don't know. Help me think of all the things, right?
Jimmy (08:49):
Yeah. How about client gifting?
Tiffany (08:51):
Yeah.
Jimmy (08:53):
Gifting or if you do an annual NPS exercise, when is that? I think it may be a little bit painful to pull everybody in and say, "Hey, we're going to build a calendar, but it's not just ... " Well, I mean, it will start with the marketing calendar, but then kind of give your inputs, are there things that should go onto this because this should be a company-wide thing. It may be a little bit painful to have everybody come in to do that, but again, it's just one of those things where it's worth that investment of time because we talk about like, oh, sometimes a grenade gets thrown our way or something like that, right? And sometimes it could be good opportunities. Something happened and then we're like, "Hey, this is a great opportunity, but let's not immediately start chasing down this rabbit hole or target, let's look back at our calendar. Can we do this? Is it relevant? Does it add to something or not?" That helps the decision-making. You could decide to say, "Hey, this is really good, but you know what, if we do this, then that will make the other thing even better." The visibility. Yes.
Tiffany (10:15):
I have so many things to say. Yeah, we were talking with a client earlier this week; they have a nice calendar going, which is so lovely, but it also helps us see when there's too much activity and when there's not enough activity. So you can kind of move things around like, "Does this have to launch then? Can this move over here? Can this event be moved or is it always at this time?" That really helps too because also there's an energy conservation question too. I think marketing, again, they can just get thrown all the fires and then the energy gets exhausting. And I think sometimes that's where some of the leadership problems can come in because they see kinetic energy happening in marketing, but they may or may not see the results because maybe there's just too much activity happening at once and there's not a connection.
(11:10):
So I think being able to space that out is super important.
Jimmy (11:18):
Yeah. As you're talking, I'm just thinking of analogies. My favorite. Yeah, I think it's like if we want to go plan a road trip, right? If you just have one person planning the trip and that one person has the map in their head like, "Oh, we're going to go here, we're going to go there." Number one, it puts pressure on that person. Number two, the rest are not going to get as engaged as like, "Oh, where are we going?" For example, "We're going on a road trip to Vegas and okay, that's all we know. We don't know if we're driving there, we're flying there. Are we making stops?" And with this transparency, when it's being shared, number one, you get engagement from the other departments and number two, you take the pressure off yourself and you often can get unexpected ideas from other departments like, "Hey, you know what? I'm doing this. This will help with that.” But if I didn't know, I'm going to do this in my silo, you're going to do that in your silo, when we could have combined our powers and made it even better."
Tiffany (12:33):
Yeah. That brings two things to mind. So number one, again, if I could go back and choose a yes for all of this is if marketing, those sitting in the marketing seats — this is so hard because it looks different in every firm — but can just have more leadership. So sometimes marketing can kind of be like the little brother, a little bit like, "Well, it's good that you're here. You can be at the table but we know that big brother’s making the decisions and you can follow along." So I think to the degree that marketing can take a leadership role and really drive those things like, okay, well, what are our greater goals? How can we map them and can we move things? Again, I see too much energy here. I don't see enough energy here, things like that.
(13:33):
I think it's really hard because it's not always seen that way depending on the structure of your company but it's important. And I think if you can take the risk, it's not a risk, but if you have the courage to speak up, people will see the results, they'll see that. So I just want to encourage everyone not to think of themselves as that little brother. It's so often the case even though marketing is so critical, like you said, to every department.
Jimmy (14:07):
So critical. If you don't have a seat at that table, ask for it. If you have a seat at that table, own it.
Tiffany (14:14):
Yeah. Okay. Say it again. Say it again.
Jimmy (14:18):
If you don't have a seat at the table, ask for it. If you have a seat at the table, own it.
Tiffany (14:24):
Love it. Love it. Clip that one. And then the other thing I was thinking, which relates, is goals. So often we set our business goals to certain growth goals, like this many more clients, this much revenue, things like that. But marketing, I think, should really come in there with specific marketing goals that line up to that. So, again, I have to be vague, but we have one client that really set a theme for the year around their marketing and their goal and who they want to go after, target market and that kind of stuff, but also some numbers, like can we impact this many people within this time frame? Again, I have to speak vaguely, but with this topic that's important to us. And I think that's really nice for marketing to have not just a goal for themselves. It's a goal for everyone but it's coming from marketing, if that makes sense.
(15:30):
So it's related to the greater goals, but again, it's owning that place at the table and saying, "Okay, well, we can help you. We can help the firm, the company reach those bigger goals with our greater goal but the whole company can help us." So it's not just us doing the energy and then coming back with the metrics but all of us can come together and hit this metric. It's not really abstract but it's maybe not about ROI but impacts and things like that.
Jimmy (16:04):
I totally agree. I mean, let's face it, right? Whether it's financial services, whether it is something else, consumer products, the overall business goals nine out of 10 times will probably be, "We need to hit this number. We need to get this number of customers."
Tiffany (16:21):
That's business, right?
Jimmy (16:23):
It's business, it's for profit, right? I think where it is tricky would be for not just marketing, but other departments to just immediately take it that — that's my goal too.
(16:40):
Yes and no. Yes, because you are part of the company. So if it's the company goal, it's your goal but also you need to look at your function. So if we're talking about getting this number of new customers per year, in terms of marketing, what part of this do you feel you have power over to influence, right? Like, oh, if we're going to get 10 people and our conversion rate is 10%, then we need to get 100 people. So then if we need to get 100 people interested, and then I know 100 people, our engagement rate is whatever, again, 10% just to make it easier, then we need to get a thousand people to the website. So then a thousand people to the website, that would be your goal.
Tiffany (17:33):
I love that.
Jimmy (17:33):
And then you can then demonstrate. This will lead to that, will lead to that, will lead to that. If I do this portion, the conversion, maybe it's marketing, maybe it's not, maybe it's business development, then that becomes business development. So I hand this thousand to you or hand this 100 to you and then from the 100, then you convert them to the 10. I think that shows the process and also to be fair to the executive team, leadership team, they could then see that whole web and say, "Ah, okay, I understand."
Tiffany (18:14):
Exactly. Yeah. It's the connections throughout the ecosystem that I think sometimes leadership doesn't see. We know it in our minds as marketers. It's so intuitive but then they don't always necessarily see it. And then sometimes as we're explaining things, if we haven't made those connections, it can feel like excuses like, "Oh, well, this isn't working on the website and so therefore..." But they don't see the bigger picture, so they're just like, "Well, fix it." Get more people, just do the thing, turn it on. So, okay, we're just running through time here. This is such a good discussion, but I know you have a bunch of notes. So before I get us too distracted, is there anything else we need to cover?
Jimmy (19:00):
Yeah, I think I do have notes. I'm shifting to look at that.
(19:05):
Okay. Manage to talk through some of that. I mean, yeah, if I use the example again of like, oh, that means to get to 10 new customers or prospects, we need 100, blah, blah, blah, and we work backwards and we're like, oh, we need, for example, if it's to simplify things, we're just talking about a website, we need a thousand people to the website, then that becomes your goal, right? And I think what's helpful then is to present that, have a cadence of data reporting, give updates, and to get these thousand people, this is what we're doing. We're putting out instead of two blog posts, we're putting out three, we're putting resources into SEO or even maybe AEO or something like that, if that's the direction you want to go. Yeah. And then back to the calendar as well, those go together hand in hand.
(20:01):
So then if things kind of fall a little bit off track, that's where the marketing department can come in and be that voice of reason to go, okay, that's normal, let's hold onto this, we'll ride through it. This is normal, this happens at dips, but let's ride through it. Nothing to panic yet.
Tiffany (20:26):
Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy (20:27):
Yeah. Well, I think too, it helps if you can demonstrate and again, align with the rest of the company sort of where the gaps are in that funnel because I think sometimes it's so easy to just, like you said earlier, like, oh, do one more blog post, do more SEO. We hear tactics all the time and it's so easy to just think, okay, I just have to do more and more and more of the tactics and that can just drain you. And then it can make, again, leadership feel like you're just, again, there's just energy. So I think figuring it out in the funnel, are there not enough people who know about our company? Are we just not capturing them? You know what I mean? Being able to break it down and again, working with the rest of the team, working with business development and things like that, do you just not have enough leads?
(21:25):
Even maybe business development may speak up and say like, "Hey, you know what? Actually whenever we speak to prospects, we're using the same deck again and I see them, their eyes glazing over when we go through that deck, for example, right?" Yeah. Then that's when it could be like, "Oh, okay. Let's look at the deck. Let's build something new."
Tiffany (21:50):
Yes, exactly. So again, having that transparency with the whole company of where things are falling off and marketing can come in and tie it up a little tighter or things like that, I think is super helpful. Okay. Anything else? Metrics is your thing, so anything else on metrics and data?
Jimmy (22:12):
I think metrics just, again, don't put metrics there just for the sake of putting it there.
Tiffany (22:20):
Go back and listen to our first podcast.
Jimmy (22:24):
Don't do it like how we would meet the minimum word count. 500 words. Okay.
Tiffany (22:32):
Yes.
Jimmy (22:32):
I'm a hundred less. What other ways can I say the same thing?
Tiffany (22:36):
That's right. And yeah, that's true. You can do that with data like engagement rate and traffic and every click rate and everything.
Jimmy (22:47):
Yeah. I mean, we get the benefit of working with different companies. So for this company, your goal is A, so this metric makes sense. For another company, it's engagement rate, then your goal is B. So we need to look at something else and be able to demonstrate that why.
Tiffany (23:12):
Yeah. But thinking back to what we were saying about, you don't have to do everything and making sure you're aligning with the company and marketing funnel and things like that. If you report on every data point, then you're going to be asked to fix every data point, right?
Jimmy (23:41):
Oh, yes.
Tiffany (23:44):
So let's just say there's just not enough people seeing your brand. You just need more traffic to the website, you need more traffic to LinkedIn, you need more people at the top of the funnel but your newsletter is clicking along. You have a good engagement rate, you have a good click-through rate. People who are engaged with your brand, even on LinkedIn, whatever, when they are engaged, they're engaged really well in the capture part but you just don't have enough at the top. But if you're always talking about the middle of the funnel, then people will just say, "We'll just keep making that better." Or if it goes down because we're not paying attention to it, then it might be good but the number goes down. Everybody's going to want the number to go back up.
(24:29):
So I think that's part of it too, is making sure you're actually reporting on data that's actually moving the needle to the whole greater funnel. You know what I mean? There's parts we've talked about, right? Like that newsletter or that LinkedIn or that website, whatever, like that's clicking along. That's fine. We're just going to leave it to the side for a little while and focus our energy on the areas that need attention.
Jimmy (24:56):
Yeah. I think maybe something a bit controversial but I think in marketing, don't be afraid of doing too little.
Tiffany (25:07):
Yes. I think that's exactly what I'm trying to say because in 2026, I just want to encourage everyone, you don't have to turn up the volume on every tactic just because there's an ad or a blog post about how to do it. It's exhausting. And then again, I think it makes the rest of the team feel like you're just spinning your wheels and it's going to make you feel like you're just spinning your wheels. So I know we talked with the client recently about that and we use the gear and cog analogy, right? We're like, okay, which ones are just moving along and the machine's working and which ones are a problem and we'll fix those first and then we'll strengthen the whole machine. But we could go after all of them and just keep moving around.
Jimmy (25:59):
Yeah, don't be afraid of doing too little because if you can back it up that this so-called too little or doing little is just being strategic and focused, then you're not going to run the risk of like, "Oh, are they just being lazy?"
Tiffany (26:17):
And again, I think as long as you can line it up with where the rest of the company's trying to go, you'll be in a good place.
Jimmy (26:31):
Yeah. Kind of fix what's most integral at a point in time.
Tiffany (26:39):
Don’t fix it if it’s not broken.
Jimmy (26:40):
Unless you have like lots of resources then, or to be fair, unless you're bringing in new resources, then it's like, "Hey, we can fix more than three things but if we're not looking at new resources and that's very realistic, then let's try to fix that one thing well as opposed to trying to fix three things and then they’re kind of fixed but not really. "
Tiffany (27:06):
Absolutely.
Jimmy (27:07):
Yeah. It's just kicking the can far down the road.
Tiffany (27:10):
Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's just more energy without any focus. Awesome. Anything else to talk about?
Jimmy (27:21):
No. Oh, we could go on and on.
Tiffany (27:25):
It's a fun topic and I think it's so fundamental. I mean, it really lines up with everything we do for our clients and in every meeting we're talking about this kind of stuff.
Jimmy (27:35):
Yeah. And we obviously talk about it in a lighthearted way but it is a very real thing. I mean, even just looking at your own experience in your career, my own experience in my career, marketing is often, that's just how it is. You take the good with the bad and sometimes the bad is like, wait a minute, how is what you're doing kind of lining up with what the company's going?
(28:08):
Especially when it's not something you could draw such a direct line in, like online sales or something like that, not to upset the online sales marketing people. It's difficult too, but yeah, just saying it's harder to draw the line sometimes.
Tiffany (28:26):
Yep, absolutely. I know. Marketing can easily get the bad rap, but I think when done well and when, again, there's open communication, transparency, clear calendaring, and clear goals for the whole company and marketing's willing to knock on a lot of doors — I think that should be your goal this year. Just knock on doors you haven't been allowed into before. It can really shape the culture. Marketing can really shape the culture of a company. It can help just drive energy and messaging and all of that. So powerful. So just knock on more doors.
Jimmy (29:08):
Exactly. It's really like, yeah, earn the seat and own it.
Tiffany (29:15):
Absolutely. Awesome. Anything else? We're good?
Jimmy (29:21):
Yes, we’ve got to keep some good stuff for other episodes.
Tiffany (29:24):
We have some good ones coming. So excellent. Well, thanks everyone for joining us. If you loved this conversation, which I'm sure you did, and you want more of those upcoming conversations Jimmy mentioned, head to outandaboutcommunications.com/community. Make sure you're signed up on the newsletter list. We'll have a link in the show notes but you can also just type it in. It's easy to find.
Jimmy (29:49):
Wait, before we go, what is that one thing?
Tiffany (29:53):
Oh my gosh. See, what happened when we redid our notes?
Jimmy (29:58):
We're ready to record the next episode while we're on a roll like, "Hey, this is flowing really well. Let's do the next one now."
Tiffany (30:06):
It happens when I restructure the notes. I can't actually follow but you're right. If there's one thing you should do, make that calendar.
Jimmy (30:14):
Make that calendar, yes. Start with that.
Tiffany (30:17):
Yes. Again, knock on doors and say, "Hey, when are your webinars coming up? When's your client event coming up?" I just want to get it all on that calendar. I think if you can share transparency of that calendar with the rest of the team, even better. But even if it's just for you, it'll just make your life easier.
Jimmy (30:42):
Yeah. Start with your own calendar and then like what Tiffany said, start knocking on the doors of your colleagues and go, "Do you have any client events happening? Do you have this? Do you have that?" And then you add it to your calendar and get people involved, get them having that ownership as well and work toward a common goal.
Tiffany (31:09):
Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy (31:10):
You can do it.
Tiffany (31:11):
Right. And then people know marketing's there to support.
Jimmy (31:14):
Yeah.
Tiffany (31:15):
Okay. Totally missed that, but now did we get everything?
Jimmy (31:21):
Now we can say sign up for the newsletter. Follow us on LinkedIn.
Tiffany (31:25):
You've probably already done it because I told you to do it two minutes ago but if you haven't, go to outandaboutcommunications.com/community. Get on the newsletter list.
Jimmy (31:35):
Get all this good stuff.
Tiffany (31:37):
Yeah. New podcasts come out. We have all kinds of checklists and fun stuff that comes in the newsletters. You definitely want to be part of that. And then hit subscribe if you're listening on YouTube or all the different platforms.
Jimmy (31:49):
Follow us on our socials.
Tiffany (31:54):
Yes. Just follow us everywhere. And tune in next time.
Jimmy (31:59):
Until the next time.
Tiffany (32:01):
Fun stuff for 2026. All right. Take care.
Jimmy (32:05):
Thanks.
