Clearly the “business delivery” buck stops with the owner or MD of any organisation. Talented as they are though, they may not always have the skills and/or time to ensure that their business plan is delivered as effectively as possible, and in a lot of cases the marketing function will appear as fuzzy crosshairs in the commercial delivery programme.
So, from a marketing perspective – who is the right person to help and how can you avoid the tinker, tailor, soldier, spy syndrome? Here are some thoughts on how to create a robust and malleable marketing strategy and avoid becoming an innocent bystander in a spy novel…
- Get the right person for the job. We often see the business owner take responsibility for marketing implementation and often in micro businesses there is little choice. In any larger enterprise, however, the owner is unlikely to have the time needed to deliver effective results across all disciplines. As a result, it can feel as though nothing ever really gets done properly – a case of too much tinkering around the edges perhaps? This can lead to a disgruntled workforce or other areas of the business being adversely affected and underperforming as “the eyes on the cross hairs have now become completely misaligned and are out of focus”.
From an MD’s perspective, the best approach is to task an experienced marketing professional with the ownership of plan delivery and review the key performance indicators (KPIs) on a regular basis or as the dynamics of the trading environment evolve and change.
- Once a plan is in place, stick to it! Constantly changing the plan is often a knee jerk reaction derived from spying on competitor activity as part of market analysis and appraisal. Sometimes it can be attributable to over-zealous and enthusiastic junior marketing staff, keen to make a name for themselves or the sales team’s attempts at being marketers. The grass may always seem greener on the other side but reacting to any market change, needs to be balanced against sound planning. Is it worth risking your business vision to generate sales at reduced profit for a mere Pavlovian response? Once again, an experienced marketing professional can carry out a dynamic reconnaissance into competitor activity and formulate a significant and positive way forward.
- Choose the right foot soldiers. Another misguided approach to marketing implementation is to give responsibility to existing staff members who are dependable and reliable, but who lack marketing skills. This person is chosen to soldier on and implement the marketing plan, irrespective of their experience or exposure to marketing. This is often an administrator with high levels of numeracy and who is good at database management or has had some involvement in a marketing related project e.g., a web designer. From a cost perspective using readily available foot soldiers is tempting, however, the main drawback with this approach is the lack of experience and skills. The only benefit being that the individual will understand and hopefully work within the guidelines of the organisational culture.The experience and skills pitfalls, can be overcome in different ways, including training, or bringing in a marketing mentor or coach to guide existing staff and act as a communication conduit, ensuring that the positive business message is clearly communicated across all departments.
- Other options often considered by businesses include the appointment of an external creative agency to look after the marketing needs of the organisation. Agencies can be an excellent source of creative input and so long they work within the framework of the agreed marketing plan will provide an excellent launchpad for strategy implementation. A great marketing ’engine room’ needs to be marshalled by a professional marketer who can “orchestrate and mobilise the agencies troops into action” enabling the collective skills of the creatives to tailor the strategy and transform the marketing plan into the business vision.
Great marketing is all about inventive teams with original and cutting-edge ideas… whilst these are all crucial in creating business differentiation, like all good espionage thrillers sometimes the sub plots are not always central to the delivery of a truly compelling strategy centred story which lies at the heart of any ‘novel’ business success!
