By Daniel Rowles, lead trainer at Target Internet and author of Digital Branding (Kogan Page). Last updated: November 2026.
Stakeholder management for marketers means identifying everyone affected by or able to influence your project, mapping their influence and stance, and winning their support through tailored conversations. It is how new tools, budgets and digital transformation plans actually get approved.
Why does stakeholder management matter for marketers?
Stakeholder management rarely appears on a list of core digital marketing skills, yet very little gets done without it. Marketing teams constantly need to introduce new platforms, change processes, secure budget and work across departments. Whether it is a new marketing measurement platform, an AI tool, a hyper-personalisation programme or a website rebuild, someone outside marketing usually has to agree.
You can be excellent at paid search and social media, but if you cannot persuade your manager, IT team or finance director to back a change, you will fall short of your potential. Stakeholder management turns that persuasion from hit-and-hope networking into a managed process, and it works best when you start at the very beginning of a project.
Who counts as a stakeholder in marketing?
A stakeholder is anyone professionally involved in or affected by your project. Start by writing them down in three groups, drawn as concentric circles with your own team at the centre:
- Your team: usually the most important stakeholders, because they will deliver the change and live with it.
- Internal stakeholders: the board, finance, IT, legal and compliance, sales, customer service, data and any project or product managers involved.
- External stakeholders: customers, agencies, freelancers, technology suppliers, industry bodies and, where relevant, regulators.
Customers are stakeholders too, and their buy-in comes through research, feedback and testing. As you list everyone, note the key relationships between them. Knowing who listens to whom will matter when you decide the order of your conversations.
How do you map stakeholders?
Once you know who your stakeholders are, plot them on a two-by-two matrix of influence against impact. This is a variation of the widely used power and interest grid, and it shows you how to treat each person. Ask a few trusted colleagues to help you score each stakeholder:
- Impact: how heavily will the change affect them? Could it change how they work, their budget, their status or their responsibilities?
- Influence: how much power do they have to block or enable the change, what resources do they control, and how essential are they to delivery?
Each quadrant needs a different approach:
- Key players: high influence and heavily affected. Manage them closely and involve them early.
- Mavens: trusted experts with high influence who are less affected. Bring them on board to help persuade others.
- Passive passengers: heavily affected but with little influence. Keep them informed and satisfied wherever practical.
- Distant cousins: less affected and with little influence. Monitor them so they do not become detractors.
If you find it hard to think through each person's motivations, try building a short profile for each key stakeholder, as you would for a customer. Our free persona template tool works just as well for stakeholders as it does for buyers.
How do you find advocates and detractors?
Next, establish where each stakeholder stands by asking a simple question: would this change be a good thing or a bad thing for you? Talk it through with each person, or with a representative for larger groups. Some will be immediately supportive, some supportive with concerns, and some opposed. These are your advocates, in-betweens and detractors.
Colour-code them on your matrix and always ask why. Listening to concerns flags real issues early, and often points to a change that brings someone round. It is better to understand the problem than to guess at the solution.
How do you win stakeholder buy-in?
Build your coalition one conversation at a time. For each stakeholder, think about what you need from them and what you can offer in return, then look at it from their side. Agree clear rights and responsibilities, for example the right to be copied into project updates and the responsibility to respond to questions within 48 hours.
Start with your advocates, working from key players to mavens to passive passengers, and prepare a tailored pitch for each one that reflects their priorities and earlier feedback. The order matters: early wins with influential supporters make later conversations with sceptics much easier.
Winning over detractors
You will almost always need support, or at least agreement, from some detractors. Start with their motivations. Are they reacting to a past bad experience? Is there tension between their team and marketing? Do they simply not see the value? Different reasons need different responses:
- Doubts about value: talk about return on investment and show how you will measure it. A clear digital marketing dashboard helps make the case.
- Technical concerns: invite them into a structured feedback process with genuine influence over the project's direction.
- Workload or status worries: show what they gain, and what support they will get through the change.
- Fundamental opposition: where someone's goals are at odds with the project, work with more senior stakeholders to find a compromise.
A regular feedback mechanism, such as a short monthly form for involved stakeholders, improves the quality of input and reduces noise. Act on the points you can, and explain why when you cannot. People accept a "no" far more readily when they understand the reason.
Copy and paste prompt: "I am a marketer seeking approval for [project] at [organisation]. Here are my stakeholders with their role, likely influence and likely impact: [list]. For each person, suggest what they probably care about, the objections they are likely to raise, what I could offer them, and a two-sentence opening pitch. Then recommend the order in which I should approach them, and how to handle the most likely detractor."
What should you avoid in stakeholder management?
A few common mistakes undermine even well-planned stakeholder work:
- Sharing your analysis: keep your stakeholder map private. People do not like being analysed or labelled.
- Group meetings too early: large meetings can turn into collective complaint sessions. Agree positions one to one first.
- Leaving it too late: stakeholders who first hear about a project once it is decided are far more likely to resist it.
- Going quiet: once support is won, keep it with regular, honest updates on progress and results.
Stakeholder management sits alongside change management and leadership as one of the skills that makes a complete marketer, and many marketers have never been formally trained in it. The Target Internet platform helps close that gap, with interactive courses across digital marketing and AI, skills benchmarking to show where your gaps are, accredited certification, over 400 episodes of the Digital Marketing Podcast, and monthly live masterclasses.
If you are ready to take a structured approach to building your digital marketing skills, explore Target Internet membership options and discover how the platform's interactive courses, benchmarking tools, podcast, accredited certification and live masterclasses can help you lead change with confidence.
Frequently asked questions
What is stakeholder management in marketing?
It is the process of identifying everyone who can influence or is affected by a marketing project, understanding their position, and managing those relationships to win and keep their support. It covers internal colleagues, external partners and customers.
Who are the main stakeholders in marketing?
Typically your own team, senior leadership, finance, IT, sales, customer service, legal and compliance, plus agencies, suppliers and customers. Which matter most depends on the project, which is why mapping influence and impact is so useful.
Who needs to sign off a new marketing technology platform?
Usually the budget holder, IT or information security, data protection or legal for any customer data, procurement, and the teams who will use or integrate with it, such as sales or analytics. Involve them early rather than presenting a finished decision.
What is a stakeholder map?
A stakeholder map plots each stakeholder on a grid, commonly influence against impact or power against interest. It shows who to manage closely, who to keep informed and who simply to monitor, so you spend your time where it matters most.
How do you deal with a difficult stakeholder?
Start by listening to understand their real concern, then respond to that concern specifically. Offer genuine involvement through a structured feedback process, show the evidence for your case, and, if their goals truly conflict with the project, seek a compromise with more senior stakeholders.
About the author
Daniel Rowles is lead trainer at Target Internet and the author of Digital Branding (Kogan Page). He co-hosts The Digital Marketing Podcast and delivers digital marketing and AI training for organisations around the world, including digital transformation and future skills. You can find out more on his Target Internet profile.
Bibliography
1. Mind Tools (n.d.). Stakeholder analysis. https://www.mindtools.com/aol0rms/stakeholder-analysis
2. Target Internet (n.d.). Digital Marketing Podcast episode 281: Digital transformation toolkit. https://targetinternet.com/resources/digital-marketing-podcast-episode-281-digital-transformation-toolkit/