“MARKETING IS FAR TOO IMPORTANT TO REMAIN IN THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT”

I've observed many a marketing department and managed them myself too - there are some very common themes

1. Do you have a pathway clearly mapped out that is understood by everyone involved?

If you have a marketing plan that’s an A4 document held on Word, approximately 5 pages and has a load of wish washy claims on it - this is not an all inclusive plan to drive growth.

If you stop thinking of the marketing activity as everything done by JUST the marketing department your outcomes will improve. Your success in marketing lies in your relationships with all staff, specifically, customer services, sales and your key professionals. More importantly, your customer opinion needs to be heard and tie in with your objectives too, in order to have success.

You can’t implement a successful marketing campaign when it’s been born out of a ‘gap’ (“we haven’t done anything for a while”) or from a reaction to competitor activity.

You need the customer point of view in order to avoid imposter syndrome and be clear about exactly who you need to be to meet your customer needs head on with a solution.

2. Could the manager walk away from the department and it still run itself?

At any point, you should be able to go away for a fortnight and come back with the confidence that everything you set out to do has been done.

For this to happen you need a clearly mapped out strategy that has been built and shared with all involved. Every area of activity needs a tactic and a method of delivery along with a clear target group and a deadline.

You also need accountability, what are we expecting to happen and how will we know when we have achieved our objective?

3. At any point, could your team show evidence of your tactical and strategic marketing development?

Any member of senior management should be able to ask the marketing team where we are at with activity on any day. You shouldn’t have to wait for a monthly or quarterly report, the marketing team should be totally on top of their direction and productivity.

This doesn’t just apply to digital marketing. It applies to ALL activity. Of course, some areas are more ‘fluffy’ than others but there are plenty of metrics to measure your marketing effectively as long as your lead generation and teams are all joined up.

If your customer service staff can’t be bothered to ask customers where they first heard of your business, your marketing results won’t be accurate.

If your sales staff take full credit for marketing qualified leads and don’t share the outcome (for fear of losing commission usually...), the results won’t be accurate.

My advice is to get your teams really talking, read 5 Dysfunctions Of A Team (Patrick Lencioni) and get some real, hard, brutal honesty in your teams.

Break down those communication barriers, areas of resentment and misunderstanding and get some smooth sailing driving your business before you implement your plan and introduce accountability for growth.

Need a hand? It’s here!