How to write marketing strategy that gets boardroom buy-in

Unpopular opinion but a marketing strategy doesn’t just need to be good. It needs to sound good to the people holding the purse strings. That means clarity over cleverness, logic over lingo, and a structure that walks decision-makers through the why before dazzling them with the how.

It specifically needs to sound good to people who are not marketing strategy experts. Ever sat with IT while they hung their head that you haven't restarted your work computer in 6 months? That's how Marketing feels when we're asked to "do some social posts and make it go viral".

So make it tangible, perceptible, and comprehensible for busy executives.

5 steps to a marketing strategy that earns trust

Here are five things I employ to craft strategies that stick in the boardroom:

1. Start with the truth, not the trend. Executives don’t want to chase fads. They want to solve business problems. Begin with a clear-eyed diagnosis: what’s broken, what’s misaligned, or what the market isn’t yet seeing. Ground the strategy in something undeniable, like previous marketing efforts that led to huge deals or saved other teams time. You might need to do this with anecdotal evidence if quantitative data is hard to get hold of, so be approachable in your position and welcome all feedback, in order to also hear something good that can be amplified.
   

2. Define the ambition.

   Skip the vague “build brand love” language. What’s the actual goal? Capture market share? Drive usage? Build pricing power? Speak in commercial outcomes that matter to the business, not just the brand.
   

3. Make a sharp, ownable positioning call.

   Positioning is where strategy gets teeth. Don’t offer five options and ask for feedback.

   
   

   The people you're pitching marketing strategy to are busy, so choose for them. Say what the brand should mean, and what it shouldn’t. If they dislike it, trust me, they'll tell you! You don't need to hedge your bets.
   

4. Back it up with tangible examples.

   How does the brand show up in the world if this strategy is real? Give examples of tone, campaign ideas, or content themes.

   
   

   Show what the strategy unlocks for each individual department, for example: "If we perfect this FAQ webpage, more people will find this information before reaching out to customer service, and they'll have more time to help the people who prefer to talk than to read." You think about personalisation for different audiences all day! Use that same logic internally.
   

5. Make it easy to champion.

   A strategy that’s hard to explain is hard to approve. Use plain language, short sentences, and a clean narrative arc. Give them scripts to explain what you're doing to their boss, draft their emails to their teams.

   
   

   Think about the person who’s going to repeat this strategy in a funding meeting — and make them sound smart doing it.

Why marketing strategy needs boardroom fluency

Boardrooms don’t reward ambiguity. They reward focus, insight, and a plan that’s easy to retell when you’re not in the room. The best marketing strategies first resonate with creatives, then they earn the confidence of the CFO, the CEO, and everyone in between.

If you can speak their language without losing your edge, you’ll get more than buy-in. You’ll get real momentum.