Getting Your Marketing Department Right

Imagine this; having received a board approval to recruit a competent marketing manager for your organization, you advertised for the position, shortlisted candidates, interviewed a few candidates and finally selected the best candidate The remuneration package for the incoming manager is quite attractive and the corresponding allowances are also not bad at all. You can now proceed to tick the box and expect great performance from the marketing departments. Right? Or Maybe not.

Why is it that despite having in place what we consider a competent marketing team in our organization our brand may sometime fail to compete as we expect in the market. Our top line may fail to grow as fast as we expect and our customers still remain dissatisfied with our product offering? Aren’t competent marketing staff enough to turn around all these things?

Well Kudos to you if you can confidently vouch for the team working in your marketing department…The journey to positive results is already well covered once we have the right staff. We however need to remember that there are other key ingredients to great performance of a marketing function. In our case we need to carefully assess the strategy, processes, culture, infrastructure and structure of this critical department.

Strategy is defined as the choice on course of action that a party chooses. In the case of a marketing strategy it involves having clarity on the target market for which products and services are developed with clear tactics laid out to ensure that the customers in the target market are effectively reached and served. It is important to have a method of gathering insights that inform the marketing strategy that is adopted.

Processes are the building blocks through which an organization is able to drive consistency, efficiency and effectiveness of its operations. In marketing operations there are a number of processes that are critical to smooth flow of work and these need to be accessible and well known to the team.

An organization has its underlying behaviours and beliefs that are exhibited by its staff and a combination of this can either create the right climate for action or not. Different micro-cultures may be observed in different departments. The climate for action is what directs how staff perform and how well the strategic objectives are met. The marketing department needs to harness a culture of innovation, self -drive, customer centricity and sales excellence.

The infrastructure refers to all the tools, system and innovations that support business. It is important to ensure that the marketing team have all the correct tools and systems that they need for gathering insights through research, managing customer information, designing marketing collateral, developing content and managing it across the team,

Finally, the departmental structure has to support the strategic direction adopted. A typical marketing structure needs to mainstream the following core areas; communications, PR, digital marketing, brand management, creative design and customer relationship management. There have to be clear lines of control and responsibility carried by each role.

With all these key ingredients thought through and a planned for, your marketing department can now be confidently relied on to push your organization to win in the market place. It must be remembered that a satisfied customer is the backbone of a successful business and the marketing departments ultimate goals is to take a lead in delivering great value to customers.

Talk to us at PKL today if you would like to learn more regarding how to build your marketing department to a level that it effectively supports your brand in winning in the market place.