How Bad Leadership Can Destroy a Marketing Strategy

Leadership is always tricky. What defines a good leader is quite subjective. Also, if one type of leader works well for one company, then we can’t quite assume that he/she will work well for another.

Marketing strategies rely heavily on accurate direction & effective planning. So what happens when an ineffective leader plans a marketing strategy? Well, disaster. Let’s discuss.

Planning is a Double-Egded Sword

Planning is everything in marketing. A badly executed strategy will basically destroy your campaign and also can easily drain your resources. Not to mention that it’ll waste everyone’s time as well.?

A good leader will know ‘when’ to launch the campaign. It might seem obvious, but plenty of companies have lost tons of potential revenue simply due to bad timing. They either launched the campaign too early or they launched it too late or too close to the actual deadline. Either way, messy timing will be just that, messy.

And mess is something you want to keep far away from your company. I would say you should plan a campaign at least 2 months in advance. You’re not automatically going to start getting leads and conversions after you launch a brand new campaign unless you’ve actually done the required research and groundwork.

If you’re a relatively new start-up, then you need to spend enough time building awareness and communities before you launch an all-out sales campaign. Because how can someone buy from you if they have no clue that you exist?

‘Teamwork’ & ‘Work Culture’ is More Than Just A Buzzword

Okay so this is a big one. We know how many people love to throw around words like ‘team-work’ and work culture’ and ‘hustling’ right?

Well, they all lose their meaning if the leader doesn’t actually practice these in real life. Marketing is majorly a team effort. Get together a weak team and that’s the end of your marketing goals.

But then how does one build up a strong team? Well by building up individuals within that team. You see, teamwork is fine but a competent leader makes sure that individual members are looked after the right way. When individual people within a team win, then the team wins. And when the team wins, the company wins. It’s really quite straightforward.

A leader should give credit where credit is due. Yes, it’s a team effort but also individual accomplishments should be recognised. There is a fine line that needs to be considered here. When you empower individuals, you automatically empower a team.

Deadlines Are A Necessary Evil

Every successful marketing strategy uses deadlines the right way. Without firm deadlines, delays will become a daily occurrence.?

For example, if it takes 4 weeks or more to make simple adjustments, to let’s say your landing page content, then you should know that there’s something massively wrong somewhere.?

Leaders need to set realistic & practical deadlines in order to avoid costly delays like these which would derail your whole campaign, if not sorted out at the right moment.

Going back to the previous point about planning a bit, deadlines are also a critical component of planning. Before you go about launching the campaign, all of your important deadlines should be carefully mapped out.?

Making The Process More Inclusive

For bad leaders, everything revolves around them. For slightly more sensible leaders, everything revolves around the team.?

During the planning and the execution stages of a marketing campaign, it’s important to discuss key points with all the relevant people. If you’re planning a PPC campaign then make sure that everyone involved in the campaign knows what to do & also what everyone else is doing.

Also, taking in ideas and feedback and then discussing them with the team is an obvious but crucial part of a good marketing strategy.?

Successful marketing managers are often open to new ideas and strategies, no matter where and from who they come from.?

Leadership is a tricky thing to get right. Successful leaders understand this fact and strive to make consistent small improvements to their overall approach. A marketing strategy should not be something set in stone. It needs to breathe, evolve and be flexible according to the changes in your target market.

If a marketing manager is too rigid with his/her approach, then the campaign won’t be able to deliver in both the short and especially in the long term.

___________

Hey. I’m Abhishek. I’m a digital marketer & a visual content creator. If you liked what you just read then do drop a follow. Helps a ton. Thanks!

My podcast — https://open.spotify.com/show/0k4rQBTnvyps1m0LIhV1a2

Mail — [email protected]

Web — www.msmw.in

LinkedIn — https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/abhishek-samant-digital-marketer/