Is your Marketing team set up for success? The first place to look is at yourself.
A common marketing pitfall is a misalignment between what you want marketing to deliver and the level of influence and support that you give it.
When marketing isn’t working, one of the first things you should ask yourself is whether you are expecting something for almost nothing. Here are some signs you might be expecting too much of marketing without the proper support:
- Do you have administrative support staff “doing” marketing part-time?
- Does your Marketing Leader report to the HR Manager or the CFO because they had capacity?
- Is your Marketing team super busy – but mostly responding to requests for brochures from Sales?
- Have you had any meaningful 1:1 contact with your Marketing leader in the last week or two?
- Is your Marketing leader aware of (minimum) or involved in (ideal) strategic decisions about the company direction and objectives?
- Does your Leadership Team think building your brand is a Marketing thing – and one that is super soft and probably won’t have much impact?
If you recognize yourself in any of these questions, it is time to re-think your leadership approach to marketing. Marketing is a system – or a set of integrated, repeatable actions that can be measured and tracked, helping your team stay accountable for the goal you are working to achieve. But, like any system, only the right inputs can ensure the right impact.
For your marketing system to work, you must set them up for success. You, the leader, need to be invested in marketing. Here are a few key questions to get you started:
- Have you hired a skilled Marketing team vs. just reassigning people to marketing roles or adding marketing to the job description of other roles?
- Have you ensured that your Marketing leader reports to an influential business leader who understands the desired role and impact of marketing?
- Is your Marketing leader on the Leadership team? Do they have access to and input into the corporate strategy?
- Have you agreed on a clear role for Marketing in terms of the expected impact areas for achieving the business strategy? Have you decided what they are going to do and not do? Have you communicated that role clearly across the organization?
- Does your Leadership Team understand the role of “brand” which guides every function of the organization vs. “marketing” which is more specific?
“Can’t I just have my assistant do some social posts instead?”
No, you can’t. Not if you want to have a business impact from marketing.
It won’t happen overnight, but once you have the right Marketing team, a clear role for marketing, and alignment across the Leadership Team, then you can move on to the work of building strategically sound, impactful marketing plans, measuring KPIs linking marketing success to business strategy, and changing the culture around marketing as a business driver.