Positive Momentum article explaining how marketers can raise their profile, credibility and effectiveness

1. Quick Tips Engagement
Giving marketing a rebrand
How marketers can raise their profile, credibility and effectiveness
1 Fight the fluff Marketers need to be better at managing the magpie within
themselves and others. Make a focused, objective and dispassionate
Marketing is too fluffy and doesn’t add any real value to the assessment before leaping in. Yes be curious. Absolutely be alert to
business. Sound familiar? Has your marketing function been changing trends. But always be asking ‘how will this improve the
referred to as the ‘brochure and brolly’ team? The colouring-in customer experience’.
department? I’ve heard all of these and worse, so why do
marketers attract this perception? To help, build an informal, cross-functional group from sales,
A common trap is that some marketing people focus on marketing and operations so that you can draw upon the wider
outputs that matter to the marketing team rather than experience in the business when a shiny new thing comes along.
outcomes that matter to the business. Who has ever won a Get them to help you define at least three ways in which it will
piece of new business because the logo is exactly 7mm measurably improve the customer experience. The harder you find
away from the top right of the brochure? Or grown market this, the easier the decision not to jump on.
share purely thanks to the consistency of the secondary
colour palette in PowerPoint decks? Your customers don’t 3 Trash the tower
notice or care about this stuff, so why should you? Marketers are sometimes perceived as living in an Ivory Tower.
According to Wikipedia, this is a place "where intellectuals engage
As experts in brand management, isn’t it time we applied
in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of
this knowledge to develop our personal brand and reposition
everyday life".
that of our profession, rather than obsessing over minutiae
that purely serves to reinforce the stereotype? Sometimes we are worthy of the label ‘ivory tower’ because we
have become internally focused and disconnected from the customer.
Begin with becoming obsessively curious about the wider Sometimes workload and organisational politics conspire to make it
business performance and how marketing can drive or harder than it should be to spend more time with front line staff and
influence it. Celebrate new customer wins within your team customers, but how else will we get to hear firsthand accounts of
and make sure every one of them understands the key how our products and services solve (or cause) customer problems?
financials. Make a public commitment to link your team’s
So when was the last time you heard the customer's voice
outputs to directly driving these business outcomes.
at firsthand?
2 Manage the magpie I mean truly firsthand, not sitting through a 72 slide 'debrief' on
'wave 58' of the latest customer satisfaction survey (showing a 3%
Some are afflicted by the desire for the latest shiny new improvement from 'wave 57' but with a +/- 5% margin of error!).
thing, whether it's the latest technology gadget, social media
Commit to spending at least half a day a week listening to your
platform or marketing technique. With advances in
customers. Go on visits with sales, listen to customer calls in the
technology disrupting many traditional business models,
service centre, read this month's customer complaints. Yes, formal
there's no doubt it's an incredibly exciting time to be in
surveys have a role but I guarantee that if you trash the tower and
business, never mind marketing.
reconnect with everyday life in your customer’s world, you will learn
Yet for many, this excitement causes a common sense more actionable insights to improve their experience.
bypass! Some are blinded by the brightness of the new
thing, whilst others jump onto the 'me too' bandwagon to
seek the reassurance that if other/bigger/more interesting Steve has a 15 year marketing career spanning
brands are doing something, so should we. the IT, Financial Services and Professional
Services sectors. He has held a number of senior
management positions at Barclays Bank, RBS and
BDO LLP. He is a Chartered Marketer and Fellow
of The Chartered Institute of Marketing. Now
a partner with Positive Momentum Ltd, Steve
combines extraordinary marketing, client service
Steve Revill
and business development experience with a
Energy Engagement Edge passion for lifelong personal development.
Contact us to find out how we can help you
Vanessa.aves@positivemomentum.com or call direct at +44 (0) 7921 083517.
We look forward to hearing from you.
t +44 (0)1462 423 375 e tellmemore@positivemomentum.com w www.positivemomentum.com
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