Marketing is More Than Marketing

Social media. Public relations. Digital. Advertising. Brand. Image. Content. Events. If somebody today rattled these words off and asked you to sum them up in one word, you might say "marketing." And you would be on point. But after spending years at advertising agencies and client-side marketing departments, marketing goes so much deeper.

Below are some key ingredients (or potential barriers) that go into planning and executing successful marketing today...and a “must” attribute all successful marketers have in common.

Processes and procedures

The best laid plans of mice and men can get caught up, delayed or never come to fruition without clear processes and procedures. This is especially true in larger marketing organizations with hundreds of people and different marketing departments (i.e., national, local, account-based, industry based) scattered across the country.

An individual or team can have a great marketing idea that would benefit the company, its brand and its clients. But without a clear process in place to execute, frustration and confusion set in. And when this happens, the team becomes less enthusiastic about carrying out the plan…no matter how great the idea. Securing buy-in from all key parties for a new initiative can be a challenge in its own right. In addition to communicating the value and benefits of the new initiative, outlining the execution processes and procedures in a crystal clear manner can persuade the team to move forward. Create a clear, concise, step-by-step playbook that all parties can easily follow and can be used in other marketing departments across your organization.

Communication

How many missed opportunities happen due to lack of communication? How often have you found out about something (i.e. an event, a campaign, an external email blast, a sponsorship) in your marketing department after the fact? Plenty of times, right? Again, this tends to occur more frequently in larger marketing organizations where sub-marketing departments are working in their own silos.

Without the proper, internal communications channels, your marketing team can miss out on a valuable opportunity that would have benefited your external clients. For example, marketing team A has planned an external webcast or hosted event on a trending topic. Two weeks after the event took place, marketing team B at the company, who have clients that should have been invited to the event, finds out about it. Talk about frustration and a missed opportunity!

So how can such instances be avoided? That’s something that really needs be discussed and agreed upon between the different marketing teams. An internal portal page where every marketing department lists their upcoming events, initiatives, campaigns…An internal monthly newsletter listing all events by marketing group…A monthly call between the leaders of each marketing department…A private LinkedIn group where company marketing initiatives are posted…Some combination thereof?

Measuring return on investment

According to the 2015 State of Inbound Report, measuring return on investment (ROI) is still a marketer’s top challenge; followed by securing the right budget, managing their company website, identifying the right marketing technologies, employee training, international content development, and hiring/retaining top talent.

When you think about it, it makes sense why this is annually the top challenge of marketers. First, as more and more companies are inviting their top marketing person to the C-Suite table and marketing is (finally) being recognized as the engine for growth that it is, marketing is being held more and more accountable for their spend. Second, with the explosion of digital channels, social media marketing, and video marketing, marketers are just learning what can truly be expected from investing in these channels and mediums. Layer the challenge of measuring the end-to-end client experience (across a variety of channels) on top of that, it’s really no surprise why this is a marketer’s biggest challenge.

Experience (i.e., trial and error), industry benchmarks, self-education, continuous learning, speaking to vendors that specialize in each of these niches, and chatting with experienced peers are ways marketers can confidently set (and meet) the right key performance indicators and show the value in their marketing.

Vision

As marketers, part of our job description is to 1) anticipate our client needs and deliver the right content when and where they want it while enhancing their overall experience with our brand; 2) and foretell where marketing is heading over the next few years…then combine the two. Easy, right?

We all know how incredibly fast marketing and marketing technology is evolving today. There are not just new developments seemingly every week, but significant developments that have an impact on how we market our services and brand; make recommendations to our internal clients; execute our initiatives; and evolve and grow as marketing professionals. Moreover, our external clients are changing today too. How they collect and digest content; how and where they research solutions to their problems; and how world and relevant industry news impact their decisions must all be carefully considered too. Bottom line, marketing in today’s world and client behavior are two fast moving targets that require marketing professionals to stay at the top of their game unlike ever before. Yes, we must market in the present but continuously have an eye on tomorrow. These two tricky “targets” are not slowing down anytime soon, which brings us to the last key ingredient.

Knowledge

It’s undebatable that in order to be an effective marketer today, you must stay current on the latest marketing trends, best practices, technologies, case studies, and news…at least on a weekly basis. Marketing is moving way too fast not to. Newsletter subscriptions, current marketing books (depending on the topic, anything more than 3-5 years old is probably out of date already), marketing magazines, case studies, webcasts, networking events, active participation in industry association memberships, and LinkedIn are just a handful of sources in-the-know, savvy marketing professionals turn to on a regular basis to stay current with their craft.

The biggest driver of wanting to (not needing to) stay current with your profession is not a (bigger) paycheck, a promotion, a fear of losing your job, a fear of looking out-of-touch with your boss/colleagues, or providing your clients with the best marketing advice. The biggest driver of wanting to be the best professional you can be is passion. Passion drives our desire to learn and stay current with marketing (or any other profession); which leads to better, more current and creative ideas and makes us the savviest marketing professionals we can be. Everything else (e.g., promotion, raise, recognition) will take care of itself sooner or later because, as they say, the cream always rises to the top.

So fellow marketers, I would love to hear your feedback. Can you relate to any of these issues? What factors and habits go behind great marketing and marketers today? What are some other key ingredients behind great marketing? I would love to hear from you!

Think like your client. BE your client!