I ask because I find people often have a narrow view – they see marketing just as fluffy brand stuff, building websites or generating leads. I think marketing is a broad, strategic function that’s fundamental to business success.
Put simply, marketing’s goal is to get the right product in front of the right customer and maximise the chance of making a sale.
This doesn’t happen by accident. We need to know our customers, we must design products & services they want, at prices they’re willing to pay and we need to find and communicate with those customers.
- It’s not just sourcing comprehensive market data and customer insight.
- It’s also having well-designed products & services customers actually want to buy.
- And creating strong brands, great websites, PR & social media.
- Plus running promotions and demand generation campaigns.
Crucially, all activity, design and messaging must be integrated across all teams and functions in the business so that the customer gets a consistent experience.
Commercial and Communications – both critical
If your sales promotion does not look enticing and convey the right messages it won’t deliver sales results. If your website is beautiful but your products and pricing are off target, you won’t deliver sales results. So brand management is as important as demand generation is as important as engaging communications.
Business or Consumer – it’s people buying stuff – think AIDA
Although some tactics will vary, the task is the same whether we’re selling to businesses or consumers. So AIDA is still a relevant model: we must first attract the buyer’s attention; then get them interested in us and our product; arouse their desire for the product; and make them act (buy).
On-Line and Off-Line – integrate for the perfect blend
Our customers live in both worlds, so we need to operate in both too. The internet, apps and social media have changed the buying process so that early stages, and sometimes the whole transaction, are done on-line. We routinely use digital marketing tools and tactics, and need to integrate that activity with off-line activity – e.g. sales events & promotions, telephone support, retail outlets, physical advertising & PR events.
Size Doesn’t Matter
The principles apply whatever the size of the business. What changes is scale, organisation structure and some tactics. And obviously it’s much harder to achieve integration in a larger organisation. Effective internal communication is essential – top to bottom, division to division, team to team. For example, Customer Care teams need to be fully bought in to all and any customer communications, ahead of time; Sales teams need to work alongside Marketing when planning and running demand generation campaigns; all staff need to know when PR is happening.
Organisation Structure – Sales or Marketing-Led?
I have experienced both models and think neither is perfect. With Marketing-Led, the risk is that market and product planning misses out on the valuable customer insight that Sales has, and Sales says they can’t sell what Marketing has developed. With Sales-Led, the market and product planning can lack rigour due to the focus on short term numbers, so Marketing is asked just to conduct tactical DG activity which doesn’t build sustained growth. I think the goal must be to be really clear that the customer buying process involves both functions playing their roles at different stages, doing what they’re each good at at the appropriate time in the customer journey.
Selling Through and With Partners
If products and services are being sold by a third party – e.g. a channel partner, a distributor, a licensee, affiliates – we also need to market to those partners about what we’re offering them and their customers. For sales & marketing teams, it’s like having another group of customers, for whom we develop products, pricing, value propositions, messaging and communications.
Then the ongoing through and with sales & marketing activity needs to be managed, according to the partnership agreement. Typically, selling through will be partner-branded and selling with will be joint-branded.
Important communications point: partners must be treated second only to the internal audience – so that they receive messages and information before customers.
Simple Models Can Help
What I’ve said here is clearly not rocket science. But I usually find that asking simple questions can cut through complexity and kick-start projects: why are we doing this activity? who are we talking to? what do they want from us?
SALLY-ANNE BURWELL – JANUARY 2015
B2B MARKETING and PR 