Adding Marketing to the Mix

Having worked in marketing my whole career, I’ve seen first-hand how it can fall under several remits within an organisation, which range from the sublime to the ridiculous, and consequently has a big impact on the success of the business.

•         It’s dismissed as the ‘colouring in’ department;

•         The hazardous ‘nice to have, but not essential’ team;

•         Surely ‘everyone can just do a bit’ strategy;

•         Or the holy grail, ‘a business critical’ division.

What does it fall under in your business?

The fact you’re reading this blog gives me hope the first option doesn’t apply. This archaic view unbelievably does still exist though. Why? To some degree the industry has to take on a level of responsibility. The sustained period of lack of accountability and champions within the boardroom, along with the absence of any required formal training or accreditation has meant that any real impact from strategic marketing has been lost on a generation. I always remember a line from Bridget Jones, when Daniel Clever declares Bridget could never understand the pressure he was under at work because all she does is ‘fanny about with press releases’; a complete dismissal anything to do with marketing and communications could have any understanding of the business world. Shocking.

Those who believe marketing falls into the ‘nice, but not essential’ camp are in a precarious position. Poking your toe in the marketing water every now and again because you have a little bit more spare resource whether it be time or money can create unstable and confusing propositions for your customers. Imagine you developed a great marketing strategy, started to implement the actions and seeing the beginnings of positive results and then because of a distraction, or refocus, put the breaks on it, leaving it to collect dust along with 2015 annual report. You’ll not only undo all the good work you’ve started to achieve but having created an expectation by customers and suppliers, you will only disappoint when you then fail to deliver.

Assuming ‘everyone can just do a bit’ when it comes to marketing is unfair to not only your staff but to the profession as a whole. No one would start a job in HR and anticipate taking on the profit and loss accounting on the side or someone in finance wouldn’t be reasonably expected to compile legal tenancies and HR contracts.  I’m a big advocate in making your team become marketers for the company. Having a committed and engaged workforce who will positively share your company values, offer and benefits is a great way to authentically promote the business to others. But that is quite different to having Carol in admin write a press release and try and foster meaningful relationships with journalists and relevant media or John in finance put time aside each week to update the website and SEO, along with crafting social media posts each day to targeted audiences.

Good marketing takes dedicated time and effort. Great marketing also involves skills, knowledge and insight to support the business strategy and determine the correct target markets, products, pricing and promotion for your business.

So how can you improve your marketing knowledge to ensure it’s included effectively in your business strategy?

-          Take a course

The Chartered Institute of Marketing offers lots of formal part-time qualifications that can provide theoretical and practical insight into marketing business practices.

Alternatively, courses such as Marketing Week’s Mini-MBA in Marketing offer a short, intense series that will give you a great understanding of the key areas to consider when developing your marketing strategy

-          Read industry publications

Subscribing to industry magazines or websites are a great way to keep on top of industry developments, competition and practical insights. Campaign, Marketing Week, The Drum or Prolific North are all good reads with daily digests available straight to your inbox.  

-          Engage external support

Commissioning the support of external agencies or freelancers can be a great way to ensure marketing activity for the organisaiton is given dedicated resource without employing full time staff or creating an in-house department.

Not all organisations are in a position to take on additional staff and have a dedicated marketing department but if you’re serious about developing your business and want to attract new clients, retain existing ones, have a positive impact on the bottom line, and promote and present your business in the best possible light in order to grow the company, then including  marketing into your business mix is a must.