Creating a Better Marketing Team

Many times exective and upper management outside of marketing make decisions for marketing when they have no background or experience in marketing. We aren’t talking about well informed decisions, based on credible reports or extensive research, we’re talking about decisions that change the landscape of their company’s direction, their ability to do lead generation and maintain brand visibility and credibility and the decision is made on a “gut feeling” or “best guess”.

Good leaders recruit and rely on the people who have the hands-on experience and the background knowledge to guide decisions around their areas of expertise. If you lack the credible experts on your team to make those decisions then get rid of the people you have and replace them with people you can trust and rely on. It does a company no good to have a marketing department, marketing director or CMO running the team if they do not empower them to do what they were hired to do which in most cases is drive business growth, increase brand value and set marketing strategy.

Limit micro managing marketing to improve success.

Here are 10 Things You Must Know When Managing a Marketing Team

1. Marketing is about creating a fluid motion, a snowball effect; not about a series of last minute start and stop tactics. Don’t expect that if you change your mind every other day that your marketing team will be able to change directions with you and be productive and efficient.
2. It takes money to make money. If you cut out or drastically reduce your marketing budget, then expect that your results will also be reduced.
3. Be proactive. Plan ahead. You cannot operate in a reactive mode and see long-term success. Plan for long-term goals but create strategies that also have short-term milestones along with the big picture. For shorter-term goals planning is key
4. Don’t micro-manage your team. By doing so you create animosity and a lack of trust with your employees. If you give someone a responsiblity, let them manage it and if the results are not what you expect, analyse it and discuss it with them and work to improve next time around. If you dont trust someone enough for them to do the job and make the right choice then get them off your team.
5. The marketing industry changes rapidly, monthly if not daily. You can not rely on data or ideas you had a few years ago and expect them to be relevant in today’s market. Rely on your senior marketing team to keep the executive team informed of what’s new in the market. If you don’t have the resources then hire someone who can do the research.
6. Target Audience Data is Key. You must know your audience in order to successfully market to them. You should invest heavily on research and information gathering tools to get your team the data they need in order to create effective marketing campaigns.
7. Approach marketing from a holistic approach. The best marketing is marketing that is done inclusively, not exclusively. Rather than a bunch of unrelated messages, ads and campaign collateral done here and there, work towards the whole package.
8. If you don’t have a background in marketing or advertising, don’t set strategy and make critical decisions yourself without the assistance and guidance of those who do know marketing.
9. People do their best work when they feel motivated, respected and part of a team. Foster this environment and empower your people with the tools they need to get their jobs done and/or make decisions. If you don’t they will go elsewhere.
10. Have fun and take risks. The best marketing and advertising campaigns were the ones that took a risk. In order to be different you have to be willing to take a risk, if there is no risk then you fall into the mundane and unoriginal. You can’t call the best brands out there mundane, or the best advertising campaigns unoriginal.