Now is a perfect time to create a marketing-led organisation!

Business’s and economies everywhere are struggling as a result of the pandemic. Staff are worried about their future. You are spending more time answering questions about that future than working on creating it. Spending is being cut back. Previously announced projects are being cancelled. That leads to further questions. It is a time of crisis! And a time for interdependence. How does the business survive and prosper? It is a time for the marketing organisation to take a lead and market inwards. To staff. To suppliers. To the internal resources. To focus the brand DNA. And get the entire resource base behind the same brand values and culture, a unified brand DNA.

Is your business battling for survival?

As the chief executive, your priorities include right sizing for the current business climate, finding business that pays, evaluating risk and building confidence in the minds of stakeholders, shareholders, suppliers, distributors, customers and your team.

Rightsizing means reviewing headcount which is always a painful process. Finding business, but more importantly, business that pays is of critical importance. And dealing with debt collection formally but amicably where possible. Your suppliers are going through the same process. And evaluating business risk. Finding new ways of managing risk and obtaining guarantees that new business. Old trust and long-established relationships are being questioned. Spending time with shareholders, discussing, evaluating and strategizing a way forward.

This will demand more of your time than ever before.

Perhaps this is not the time to be thinking of new marketing initiatives, though many will argue that a time of crisis is equally a time of opportunity, that old customers are looking for confidence and engagement, for established patterns to return. They will argue that now is not the time to go marketing quiet but to engage, to be innovative and creative and take up the opportunities that the crisis offers. You will hear plenty of such arguments.

Perhaps for your business; new product launches, new advertising campaigns, new service offers and that entry into social media that you have been planning are not the right way to go now.

And if you are looking at the bottom line, that marketing budget is an attractive place to cut spending. If you are not spending marketing money the marketing heads are obviously high on your list on the “saving money” agenda.

What is the role of marketing?

Before continuing let’s have a look at what marketing is considered to be and the implications of that on your business. 

The American Marketing Association says somewhat formally, “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Others give a more practical, more holistic, customer centricity to it.

Peter Drucker says “It (marketing) encompasses the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of the final result, that is, from the customer’s point of view. Concern and responsibility for marketing must therefore permeate all areas of the enterprise” and further adds “it cannot be considered as a separate function on par with others such as manufacturing and personnel. It is first a central dimension of the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its results, that is, from the customers’ point of view.”

Seth Godin talks of connectivity when he says “Our job is to make change. Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them, more able to get where they’d like to go.”

The themes that continuously emerge include exchange of value, custom centricity, connectivity and more recently the concepts 360 and integration come into these discussions.

B.L. Ochman is more 360 focused and says “Marketing is everything a company does, from how they answer the phone, how quickly and effectively they respond to email, to how they handle accounts payable, to how they treat their employees and customers. Done right, marketing integrates a great product or service with PR, sales, advertising, new media, personal contact. In other words, marketing is not a discipline or an activity – it is everything a company is – at least if the company wants to be successful. 

What does the marketing department deliver in a market-led organisation?

• They do the usual communication and advertising things such as run advertising campaigns, produce, manage and measure social media, design and execute new product launches, produce the collateral that the sales people use to present their business to selected markets, create training programs for staff and customers, etc.
• They bring customer centricity to the fore. They know the customer, their values and needs and act as a customer representative within the organisation. Words that come into this discussion include retention, customer satisfaction, customer experience management and lifetime value of a customer.
• They are brand custodians. They passionately and enthusiastically represent the value of their brands. Here conversations include mission, vision, brand culture, brand DNA and brand character.
• They lead the organisation both externally (the customer centric view) and internally (a staff centric view).

In a brand led business every aspect of the business must reflect the core brand values at every interaction. Is the experience of the third party the same when?

• A customer walks into your front desk reception area.
• A customer receives a delivery from a driver.
• An accountant is talking with your account department.
• A buyer is dealing with your busines development responsible.
• A retailer is dealing with your merchandiser in the display department.
• A consumer making a service request of your service department.

Each of those third parties should experience one brand culture. The brand DNA should be similarly revealed in all interactions. They should not have to see the logo on the wall, the business card, the livery of the vehicle or the address on the invoice to understand the company they are dealing with. That should come through clearly in every interaction.

For example, you are a young, innovative brand, marketing casual clothing to Generation X target consumers. Everything your company says and does should reflect the same set of values that the brand is trying to communicate. Young. Fun. Innovative. At the front desk. With the accountant. With the driver.

Everything the organisation communicates must reflect the core brand and business values.

Is your organisation doing that now?

That is what your marketing leadership must be doing right now.

Researching and evaluating every component for your business. Comparing that to the brand DNA and character, identifying needs and managing programs and training to fill in the gaps. Training to address those gaps need not be expensive. Your people have serious questions about the business and their own role and future within in. They will be attentive to this kind of training.

This is definitely a time to relook the internal position, a job for the marketing leader. It is a time for him/her to look more closely at the internal customer.

There are many ways of expressing our learnings of the past “lockdown” months, but one thing is true. We are all interdependent and must start acting interdependently; with our shareholders, stakeholders, suppliers, customers and our staff. One brand message throughout directed at everybody. Directed by the brand DNA of your business.

And managed by the marketing leadership of your business.

And if your team is short of that resource, add it fast.

Good luck and examine and exploit every opportunity these times present.

About Garth Sutherland

Garth Sutherland has an extensive multicultural understanding.

He has worked with local brands (creating independent strategic positions) and international brands (integrating the international brand vision with the local demand to optimize the “on the ground” brand presence). His strengths include bringing a strong strategic focus into all aspects of marketing delivery, working with multi-agency perspectives, independent thinking & implementing with a consistent and practical interdependent teamwork focused delivery.  

He is currently studying towards a BPhil (Honours) Degree in Marketing Management and lecturing at Varsity College in Project Management and at VEGA School in Digital Marketing.

And writing on modern marketing.

If you are looking to maximize the strategic value of your brand opportunity, Garth is the ideal resource to task.

Contact him at [email protected]  or +971 50 459 2536. Other posts in this series can be read at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/garthrsutherland/ or on https://www.garthsu.com/