With more than 5,000 marketing technology tools available today, there are more ways than ever to reach, engage, and serve customers. It’s exciting to see the possibilities, but more options also mean more choices and decisions. Assembling the right marketing team and pointing them in a clear direction is the best way to create a valuable growth and innovation engine within your organization. Here are four steps to accelerate your marketing team’s performance.
1. Create a compelling endgame
I’ve seen a lot of marketing teams set up with the primary goal to “support the sales team.” While that is a noble cause, it isn’t the type of goal that motivates creativity, innovation, accountability, and ownership.
A much more compelling purpose for the marketing team is collaborating with the sales team to generate a winning marketing plan, measuring that plan’s success, and making strategic adjustments along the way.
Organizations that see their marketing departments as a strategic growth generator vs. a cost center, or order-taker, will draw more marketing talent, create room for growth within the organization, and foster healthy teamwork between sales and marketing.
2. Give color to your brand strategy
Your marketing department is the “keeper of your brand.” They must generate ideas, create materials, and execute the events that bring your brand to your customer. If they can’t succinctly tell you who the target customer is, the unique value your company brings to the marketplace, and your organization’s core values, stop now and create some clarity.
Even with a defined and detailed marketing plan, there are going to be difficult and important decisions throughout the implementation process, and it should always come back to measuring those decisions according to how they align with and impact your brand.
3. Get real about roles
Marketing teams evolve as people shift roles and take on new responsibilities. It’s crucial that every person understands his/her role on the team as it relates to the current marketing plan. No one person is good at everything, so you need to identify the gaps that need to be filled in with training, or outside help from a consultant, agency, software, or service.
4. Keep accountability alive
Old habits die hard, and it’s easy to get sidetracked by requests coming in from various areas of the organization that don’t relate to the marketing plan. Know that this will happen and help the marketing team stay accountable. Tracking and reviewing metrics and goals along with regular check-ins to identify challenges and distractions, are two ways to make sure the marketing plan stays alive and healthy.
As with any other area of the business, your marketing team should be inspired, informed, focused, and accountable. What are the processes, methods, or tools your company is using to help your marketing team excel?
Interested in some free ideas to ignite your brand? Sign up for a free Brand Spark Check today to get custom, actionable, recommendations to capitalize on untapped opportunities to build your brand.