Recently, one of my clients hired a Marketing Manager. A much needed resource as the company has very little public presence and needs professional branding, a lead generation engine, and a update on verbiage. The company is in a rather commoditized sector and has a fair amount of competition as well as other strategic and non-strategic issues.
So, I meet this person who has a substantive background in the industry, does a lot of the branding and marcom stuff I am not good at and is very articulate. I am impressed and happy to work with her – until this happens:
She runs an email blast on a pre-existing list and I go to follow up on the “opens” and find out that none of the contacts are in the main CRM – nor are they particularly qualified. I see a brochure she has written on a key service that is bereft of any competitive differentiation value and lacks the depth of credibility to differentiate the company from other similar service providers. I see another *work in progress* brochure that is OK, but lacks particularly compelling content.
Granted, she just started with the company. But, as with typical marketing people – particularly marcom oriented people, I expected more. I expected that there is a strategic analysis that results in compelling content and an integrated sales/marketing flow for lead generation. Not a regurgitation of what the business owner told her or an accumulation of stuff from other sources. She actually said that she was going to throw some list in the email mechanism which was a combination of research and other contacts and if they show interest will add them to the main CRM. But, if there is a lack of understanding on who the buyer is and why, how do you “research” them? She wasn’t going to talk to clients to understand the “WHY” behind their selection and continued work with the company – she wanted testimonials.
What is interest? That they open the email? I just received a list of email recipients that apparently had interest cause they “opened the email” and none of them were qualified or relevant to buy our service/solution.
I had a boss, a Marketing Director, at one of my early employment situations who actually wrote a brochure for CIO’s that used the term “We put the “O” in outsourcing”. Yes, really.
This is nothing but fluff and wasting precious time for salespeople who need to be focused on qualified leads and having discussions that will result in $$$ for the company.
She jumped into the job and started “producing”, getting collateral created, mapping partnerships, doing stuff – with no contextual analysis of what the real issues are. I did share my blunt and unadulterated feedback for sure.
I always vowed that if I ever, ever, assumed a Head of Marketing role again the following would occur:
- Interviews with the salespeople and business development folks to find out what works, what doesn’t work, and what they need.
- Interviews with clients and prospects to find out why they bought from us and get insights on what they did TO buy from us. (Which I have done with many clients where I had access to do so).
- Interviews with the business owner or general manager to understand company position.
- Competitive analysis at the business level and service/solution level.
- Attend initial demos/meetings, go on ride-alongs, lurk on sales calls. (Which I do with clients now as well).
- Make some prospecting calls myself after developing messaging and keep doing about an hour a day of prospecting to stay on top of messaging and what works.
- Then – and only after some or most of that is accomplished – then – build all the support material, do PR, digital and whatever in a seamless, integrated fashion.
If it took a month before I actually created any collateral, updated the website, or did anything outward – so be it.
Anything else will result in “Putting the “O” in outsourcing” . Marketing folks must be held to performance measures, they need to show increases in qualified lead generation leading to closed deals. In order for marketing to linked to sales, marketing must work with and understand the sales process and the buyer journey from the sales perspective. Otherwise, this is money not well spent and if positioning is inaccurate or messaging poor, can actually hurt the company in the long run.