I don’t think Harry Potter has to worry for a while … apparently Lord Voldemort & his death eaters have turned their attention to marketing.
I recently heard from two colleagues in different industries that their marketing function is at risk — primarily due to organizational changes. In one case, the marketing staff has been placed under the control of Finance & Administration (yikes!)
In the other situation, the powers-that-be have proclaimed that brand-building and relationship marketing are no longer needed. Their rallying cry is sales, sales, and more sales! (Get out there & bring in new customers … Relationship & retention marketing? We don’t need no stinkin’ marketing!)
Uh oh …
Granted there are organizational and internal cultural shifts happening here. And while the situations are vastly different, the undercurrent is the same — why is marketing’s value in question?
I keep telling myself that it’s just a coincidence that I heard from these colleagues on the same day, just minutes apart. Has “he-who-must-not-be-named” discovered marketing?
More to follow … (and you don’t have to wait as long as you do for the next H. Potter book!)
2 replies on “CPR for Marketing? Part 1”
Yes, Chris this IS scary, but not unusual. In fact, I see it almost everday in the advisory services we provide to CEOs who are having trouble controlling what is happening with their marketing. Why?
Let’s start with what the CEO really wants from the customer? – The CEO wants sales! Well, what does the CEO want from the sales team? – Sales (I guess that one was obvious) Ok. But what does the CEO want from the marketing team? – You guessed it sales!…and they are right. Marketing is there to sell. And when it is done with that it can go back and sell some more. Because, marketing is selling. So where is the breakdown?
Well, most marketers simply can’t demonstrate exactly how their spending of money, time, and effort is driving sales. In other words, most marketers don’t know how to measure (at least inside of organizations that are less than $100 million – the non-profits we are referencing in this string probably fall into this category. But the big dogs fall in this mud too.) So if you had a marketer responsible for selling, but they couldn’t explain what impact they have, how the money and resources you are allocating drive that impact, why what they do for you is invaluable, or what their next step would be – wouldn’t you get rid of them too?
This IS scary. On the one hand, you want to say “What are these people thinking?” On the other, we’re clearly not proving our worth.