MODERN MARKETERS:YOUR 4 NEW RESPONSIBILITIES AND HOW TO ADDRESS THEM

From being a single function 20 years ago - with most people vaguely thinking it had something to do with advertising - the responsibilities of

marketing have extended into a grab-bag of other departments. In some cases, they’ve become the primary business driver.

TODAY, EVEN SUB-100-EMPLOYEE BUSINESSES FREQUENTLY HAVE A BOARD-LEVEL CMO MOVING AND

SHAKING NEXT TO THE CEO AND CFO.

WRONG HEADED? Not at all. Marketing, after all, delivers

what business guru Peter Drucker called the first purpose of any business:

THE ACQUISITION AND RETENTION OF

A CUSTOMER.

If you believe companies exist to satisfy the needs of their audience, then marketing is about product and service design as much as SEO and CRM. Just as marketing is dividing into IT-heavy specialisms like Marketing Operations, it’s also broadening into strategy.

NOT JUST MARKETING STRATEGY, BUT THE STRATEGY OF THE

BUSINESS AS A WHOLE.

BUT WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY.So here’s how to measure up to these new responsibilities of marketing and become a jack of all trades - missing out the master-of-none part.

1. THE TECHNOLOGY TRIALS

It won’t be long before CMOs are spending more on IT than CIOs. CRM systems become vast databases; off-the-shelf applications become ultra-

customised business tools. When your marketing responsibilities extend

to technology, think first about the people, not the software.

When IT implementations fail, it’s not usually about the software. It’s because people weren’t prepared for the change, or weren’t trained on the system. So focus very, very closely on how people accomplish their tasks now, and make

sure automating those tasks really does save time and resources for them. You’ll find many different technologies can answer your goals; the trick is in

how they’re perceived by people.

2. THE METRICS SYSTEM

With data now available in near-infinite abundance, another responsibility of today’s marketer is to choose the right performance indicators.

THE KEY LEARNING HERE: LOOK FOR METRICS THAT REPORT REAL PERFORMANCE, RATHER THAN THOSE THAT ARE EASIEST TO GET HOLD OF.

It’s easy to track page views and click-throughs, but that’s no guarantee of a positive effect on actual sales and profits. If your metrics are narrow and obvious, you’re not answering business strategy - just outcomes of a campaign. So put meaningful metrics among your new responsibilities of marketing too.

3. THE SALES LIAISON

The new responsibilities of marketing contain a huge opportunity:

ALIGNING THE SOMETIMES COMBATIVE DEPARTMENTS OF SALES AND MARKETING.

With CRM systems equally useful to both, you can remove the constant disconnects between silos with a “single version of the truth” that gives a complete picture of every customer and prospect across the business. So

that’s our third strategic boost:

LOOK AT WAYS TO WHIP SALES AND MARKETING INTO SHAPE.

4. THE BOARDROOM BUY-IN

When the responsibilities of marketing broaden, you risk treading on toes elsewhere. So a fourth idea is to share the benefits.

As you roll out shared databases, sensitive customer-listening technology and meaningful metrics, talk to your colleagues in Finance, Operations and the Corporate suite about the value they provide - it may prove relatively easy to “sell” them on the benefits. If it makes their lives easier, your life will be easier too.

Perhaps that’s why

84%of marketers today are automating key operations.

With these principles the new responsibilities of marketing won’t turn into chains around your neck, but rather tools you can use to carve out new opportunities for yourself. Remember that, historically, CEOs are recruited from Finance or Operations, not Marketing. With marketing strategy becoming business strategy, is that about to change?

TAKEAWAYS• As Marketing’s responsibilities broaden,

marketers’ understanding of people remains key.

• Marketing Operations can forge beneficial links between Sales and Marketing.

• Amid masses of data, think very critically about metrics and which offer insights about real performance.

TRANSFORMSTRATEGISE EXECUTE

SUCCESSFUL EXECUTION OF YOUR MARKETING OPERATIONS STRATEGYTHROUGH CROSS ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION

SUCCESSFUL EXECUTION OF YOUR MARKETING OPS STRATEGY THROUGH CROSS ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION

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