The collaborative win! Why marketing in isolation is the calm before the storm!

I remember quite distinctly having a debate in MBA college about which roles to pick, which companies to apply for and what subjects to choose. The choice between marketing and sales seemed to be the most stark dilemma. Marketing seemed to be the glamorous counterpart but sales was the one that would make big bucks!

All that high pitched conversation seems to be a fairly uninformed chit chat. 

In today’s world the walls between marketing and all other functions (especially sales) are blurring. In fact recent studies have shown that the marketing team that cuts across functions is more likely to make informed decisions about what the consumers really want. And yes yes !! I am talking about marketing guys sitting together with Sales, Finance, Operations, Customer Service, IT, HR and so on like a big happy family!!! And we all know, every family has some ups and downs.

But we can not shy away from the fact that in most organisations, teams still work in silos. 

The  sad truth is that we all know the right from wrong but continue to work in isolation to protect our territory.  The organisations that are able to break these barriers and march ahead in unison will be the ones that survive and thrive.

If you are thinking that you and your organisation have everything under control, I am super excited for you. 

But, if you have the slightest doubt, let’s answer these 7 questions together : 

1. Is your marketing team a part of all the sales reviews?
2. Does your marketing team leverage data enough?
3. Is your marketing team listening to your customers?
4. Is your tech team aware of the marketing strategy? 
5. Is your marketing team managing internal customers (i.e. employees)?
6. Is your marketing team aligned with the CSR activities?
7. Does your creative team understand your products well enough?

If the answers satisfy you, you can skip the next few paragraphs :) and enjoy being the best. 

If not, let’s dig deeper and see how we can amplify our growth with the answers.

1. Is your marketing team a part of all the sales reviews?

It all starts with accountability. Hitting the sales numbers is the joint responsibility of marketers as well as the sales. Especially with Covid making it pertinent more than ever that consumer connect as a brand is one of the most important factors to sustenance under crisis, the marketing teams have to understand the sales process thoroughly. Of course the KPIs of both sales and marketing teams would be different as the approach to getting new customers and retaining old ones varies, but both have to be cognizant of the efforts and concerns in hitting their respective numbers aka achieving the KPIs.  Neither can succeed if the other counterpart fails. 

2. Does your marketing team leverage data enough?

Let me begin this answer with another question. How often does your sales team direct the marketing campaigns vs. how often does your marketing team predict trends and events and guide your sales team?

Having a fine balance between these two options is super important. I have seen organisations where the sales team huddles every morning to review data and makes daily plans on how to run behind lost accounts or lagging products. However, the same is not true for all the marketing teams. And unfortunately this results in a reactive approach rather than a proactive approach to preempting scenarios and being armed with marketing tools to cater to them.

3. Is your marketing team really listening to your customers?

With sales funnel moving to a modernised version where the customer service is a critical component, marketeers are listening to the consumers more than ever. There are means for employing social listening tools to check what customers are saying about a brand and that works wonders. However, sometimes the gap between the internal customer service team and the marketing team is wide enough for some critical sentiments to be missed out. How your customer service team and the marketing team interact and find solutions to the internal and external customer issues is critical to customer satisfaction. And the objective is to delight the customer, not just be reactive to their issues.

4. Is your tech team aware of the marketing strategy? 

By strategy I do not mean the day to day tactical work, I mean the big fat strategic activities that the marketing team has for the year. With Martech capturing the interest of the most successful marketing teams across the globe, the technology teams need to understand the needs of their marketing counterparts inside the organisation. Marketing has to form a significant part of your technology projects especially with business intelligence platforms directly feeding into the marketing team plans and helping the organisations get even closer to the consumers every single day.

5. Is your marketing team managing internal customers (i.e. employees)?

Let me resort to the hindi saying “Ghar ki murgi daal barabar” (translated to : we don’t value what we have and are familiar with, but think that what we don’t have is better and covet it). We keep on saying that our employees are our brand ambassadors. Especially the HR team concentrates on keeping these so called brand ambassadors happy. But keeping Brand Ambassadors happy should be a marketers responsibility as well Right??

My agenda is not to increase the already stretched work hours of my fellow marketing team members :). But, just trying to point out a key customer that is sometimes neglected during the strategic communication that any organisation does to connect with more customers.

6. Is your marketing team aligned with the CSR activities?

Okay, so we are already through Sales, Customer service, Tech, HR departments. Why CSR though?

The new gen marketing team would agree that we all are driven by purpose. And marketing the company’s purpose is a strong tool to make the audience believe what the brand stands for. Your marketing team needs to closely listen to the CSR team and derive a common purpose which the brand stands for and then pursue this purpose through consistent marketing efforts to tell the audience the story behind the story (https://cutt.ly/ZbZbXlO).  Let the audience walk the same path and stand for the common purpose. 

7. Does your creative team understand your products well enough?

We all get attracted to a nice image. Creatives are the most important component of a marketing campaign. But the person who decides the creative tone for any collateral - email campaign, product note, sales notes, product launch campaign, social media campaign and so on needs to have a 100% understanding of the product/service and the consumer of the product/service. More often than not, the marketing teams working through creative agencies are distant from the product teams (physically, virtually and emotionally). This makes it necessary to bridge the gap between all three parties to enable that the creative insight contains the right information and instantly connects with the end consumer. 

I know it is easier said than done to have all these functions work in perfect unison. As a matter of fact one of the most favourite projects that I picked up during my corporate stint was Integrated Business Planning. And believe me, it was an uphill journey that tested my grit and people skills in the best possible way.

But even a small improvement can go a long way in getting you closer to the consumers. After all, the consumer continues to be the King or the Queen! 

It is not a rocket science. We all know what the right strategy is but executing it to achieve the desirable results may be the key differentiator.

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For all those who would like to chit chat some more or share your views, please feel free to reach out to me on Linkedin or  upasana@thestackco.in. I work with organisations to build strong business strategies and stronger implementation journeys. #strategytoaction. Feel free to visit www.thestackco.in to know more.