No more ‘coloring in department’

Is your marketing team considered the ‘coloring in department’? Then, you’re in trouble.

Here’s why.

When you’re seen as the ‘coloring in department’ your influence will be restricted to marketing communication efforts. That’s an issue. Because, even with the best flyers and most amazing social media posts in the world, you can still massively screw up your marketing.

Your best efforts won’t help you sell any more services, if your strategy is off.

Marketing professor Mark Ritson does an amazing job outlining 3 simple strategy questions:

1. Who are we targeting?
2. What do we want them to think about us?
3. What are our objectives?

Now, those objectives should not only be narrow and specific. They should also be business objectives. You know, the ones other departments also understand. 

“We need to connect the dots between marketing actions and business outcomes,” said Mastercard’s CMO Raja Rajamannar during a talk about dysfunctional CMO/CFO relationships.

And, he’s absolutely right. How else will you keep getting sufficient buy-in from management and finance? How else will you get the resources you need to execute your strategy?

I believe this starts by agreeing on marketing’s function and position within your organization.

Marketing’s function is driving attention and interest for your services. Its position is right at the epicenter of your business: behind value creation, and in front of sales, value delivery and finance.

Because of marketing’s position in the organization, you’ll need to work closely with other departments.

You can only develop a marketing strategy for your services, if you understand what value is promised to the people using these services.

You can only connect marketing actions to business outcomes if you work together with sales. And collaboratively guide people through the buyer journey.

To help you ensure a robust marketing strategy and make the right tactical decisions, I’ve developed the Marketing Strategy Canvas. It’s based on Mark Ritson’s ideas and those of other marketing strategists.

Hope this helps!

Thank you for reading MBD Boost #011, sent to marketers and business developers on June 4, 2024.