When it comes to acquisitions, marketing and communications teams often find themselves in the middle of the storm. Multiple workstreams, overlapping responsibilities, and unclear levels of accountability collide—heightened by urgent, time-sensitive deliverables. All while leadership demands visibility and stakeholders expect seamless execution.
It’s a scenario that can strain even the most capable groups. Teams that have earned credibility in the past by delivering timely, creative results now face complexities that cause missed deadlines—and no one wants that.
At Bonfire Effect, we’ve had a front-row seat to these challenges—and helped design solutions that work in the real world. Here are a few lessons we’ve learned along the way.
Lesson 1: Align process before adding tools
When acquisition activity spans six or more workstreams, it’s tempting to jump straight to technology as the fix. But new platforms are difficult to implement, and automation only amplifies whatever process you already have—good or bad.
The first step is consolidation. Instead of six separate templates and workflows, bring everything into a single, standardized process that reduces redundancy and clarifies expectations. A unified template doesn’t just save time. It helps establish trust by showing that all teams are working from the same playbook.
For example, every organization and even many inter-company departments have their own process for Content Lifecycle Management (CLM). Getting everyone on the same CLM tool might hold the promise of nirvana. But the first step should be mapping each organization’s current process and creating alignment. Then and only then does moving to a unified CLM tool make sense.
Lesson 2: Meet teams where they already work
One of the biggest barriers to adoption is asking people to change their daily habits. We’ve all seen it. When organizations force a change too fast, best-case scenario is team members creating manual workarounds to get back to what they know. Worst-case? Complete resistance to adoption.
So, if your teams live in Excel, don’t fight it.
We’ve seen success by integrating familiar tools with platforms like Smartsheet for marketing operations. That way, contributors can keep working the way they always have, while the data automatically rolls up into a central source of truth. The result: real-time visibility without disrupting daily workflows.
Lesson 3: Build dashboards for different audiences
Keeping all key stakeholders up to date throughout acquisitions and transitions is critical. But executives don’t need the same level of detail as individual contributors—and middle managers sit somewhere in between.
Building on common processes and rolled-up platforms, dynamic dashboards are one of the simplest but most powerful ways to create clarity. From a single data source, you can serve up big-picture snapshots for senior leaders, red-flag alerts for managers, and detailed workstream views for contributors. Add permissions and filters, and suddenly everyone has access to exactly what they need—without all the noise.
Lesson 4: Don’t underestimate communication and collaboration
Acquisition activity often fails—not because people aren’t working hard, but because they aren’t working together. Dependencies fall through the cracks. Deadlines sneak up. Frustration grows.
A centralized hub for acquisition activity can be the antidote. By creating shared visibility, clarifying handoffs, and making accountability crystal clear, teams move from reactive firefighting to proactive coordination.
We’ve seen hubs help align brand messaging, coordinate campaigns, manage sensitive communication, give transparency on marketing activities, and drive advocacy from employees.
Any official updates, communication updates, FAQs, and “what to say/what not to say” guidance can live in one place. This helps prevent misinformation, support executives with clear scripts, and ensure marketing efforts don’t “get ahead of the news.”
The Payoff: More than efficiency
The outcome of these lessons is more than saved hours or cleaner spreadsheets. It’s credibility. It’s confidence. It’s the ability for a small team to manage a large, high-stakes process without burning out or losing trust.
When acquisition activity is treated as a “backburner task,” mistakes are inevitable. When it’s supported with thoughtful processes and smart systems, it becomes a source of momentum and clarity.
The bigger picture
Professional services don’t always make headlines. They’re not as flashy as a new brand launch or a big creative campaign. But they’re often the quiet superpower behind business success.
