Mock-up to Mop-up: The New Role of Marketing

When I started my career in marketing almost 20 years ago (holy $%*!, I'm not that old am I??), the marketing role within an organization was clearly defined around branding and business support functions. People understood that we were all graphic designers who have been asked to create some "really cool" stuff. But in my years as a marketing professional in numerous industries, I've since learned the true value of marketing within a company. 

Our impact on the organization

Marketing is no longer in the rear seat of the car waiting for sales or executive leadership to make the decision of where to go when. The marketer is now sitting up front (and in some cases, driving the car!). It's a huge shift within an organization and one that some companies have not done yet. But as a marketer, you are uniquely qualified to sit up front. You understand the ins and outs of the product, the problem you're solving as well as your target audience. The ability of a marketer to craft the correct message or design the right feature have all become of the utmost importance to marketing professionals in 2021. 

It's our job to take our mock-ups and their feedback to the next level – and deliver it to the market.

Mock-up

Ideas can start anywhere. In fact, listen to your sales team. They are full of great ideas. The challenge for sales teams is that they need you to make their ideas a reality. You bring the skills needed to turn an idea into something tangible. This skill is most valuable to the company when those ideas are needed to make an impact on the bottom line. Without the energy of someone who owns the marketing function within a company, you can miss this opportunity. This is not a new role for marketing (in fact, it's probably the original role of marketing), but it has changed. What we are mocking up and how we share it with the company/stakeholders have all changed in recent years. We now have to deliver content or designs where we have the ability to adjust quickly, so designs are less polished and the content might have a few gaps that need to be filled. This is all necessary to keep pace with the speed at which the company is moving. If you wait until it's done, you're late. This attitude has shaped how marketing delivers ideas internally and what feedback we actually need from the team. We don't need to ask them about the look or feel, or even the core messaging. We need to make sure we are communicating what we want quickly, concisely and in a way, the team understands it internally. It's our job to take our mock-ups and their feedback to the next level – and deliver it to the market.

This means that marketing once played on the fringe of sales is now directly involved in the outcome of sales efforts.

Mop-up

This role is new to marketing and will continue to grow. Companies are leaning on their marketing teams to not only drive sales and brand awareness, but they are asked to help sales directly by driving new leads, nurturing those leads and working with sales to convert these prospects into paying customers. This means that marketing once played on the fringe of sales is now directly involved in the outcome of sales efforts. In fact, as time goes on, sales will have a hard time working on their own to close deals without the support of marketing efforts, especially since much of the sales process takes place online now. Marketing professionals bring digital expertise that is essential to closing a deal or making a purchase.

Have we become data royalty? 

In my early days of marketing, we did our best to track the success of our marketing campaigns. Although it's possible, tracking the results of your print ad was never very easy (or fully accurate). Well, that's all changed over the years and marketers have jumped on the opportunity to understand the impact of their work. We are now being asked to report on the success of campaigns, how many leads came in and ultimately how many sales did your campaign impact. As the tools to track programs have become more accessible and less expensive, the ask from the organization is to share it regularly. It puts pressure on marketing to test a campaign, report on it, pivot as needed, repeat. And, it's a never-ending cycle. The faster you push something to market, the more likely you will be to make updates faster. The faster you make updates, the faster you need to retest or pivot altogether. Our ability to be successful in the coming years will hinge on how well we understand the data coming into the organization and how to make sense of it all.  

It's more than just making something look pretty or writing a flashy piece of content to drive downloads.

We are all in sales

I know you have all heard "we are all in sales" from a senior leader at your company. And it's true! We are all in sales. But some of us are also in marketing and that's ok. We need to make sure that the marketing within the organization understands its role in helping sales close business. The more aligned the better. Some studies suggest an impact of 30%+ in revenue when sales and marketing teams are closely aligned. 

Understanding the new role of marketing will help you grow as a professional. It's more than just making something look pretty or writing a flashy piece of content to drive downloads. Marketing has become a holistic position within the company and one that has the highest of expectations.

Are you ready for the next evolution of marketing?