Seven steps to boost the effectiveness of your marketing function
Written by Sharon Collins
Ineffectiveness is one of the biggest challenges in professional services marketing.
Earlier this year Marketing Week reported that nearly 60% of marketers are experiencing “emotional exhaustion” and 40% are experiencing a “sense of ineffectiveness” in their role. This is set against a ‘perfect storm’ of marketing teams becoming leaner, facing competing demands from multiple stakeholders, and being expected to deliver more with less. I’ve read several accounts this year of marketers having a sense of overwhelm – unsure of what to prioritise when being pulled in so many directions.
If we were to take a steer from the medical profession, and in particular, A&E, it would not be a case of ‘last one in, last one dealt with’, or a case of those who are the most vocal being dealt with first (both of which I’ve seen in professional services firms). Medical staff carefully review the situation and take a decision based on which cases are more of a priority and require attention.
If, according to Peter Drucker, “efficiency is doing things right, effectiveness is doing the right things”, how do you build effectiveness into marketing teams and help them to prioritise their marketing efforts, aligning them with their firm’s strategy and putting their resources and budgets where it will make the biggest commercial impact? The first step is understanding the stakeholder’s requirements (with all the strategic planning in the world, we know that ad-hoc activity will crop up throughout the year). The second step is reviewing and ‘triaging’ (to return to the medical analogy) what is important and what is not, remembering “If everything’s a priority, then nothing’s a priority” (Frank Sonnenberg).
Below are seven steps to consider when building a more formal process to boost effectiveness.
- Data and insights – Ideally, you will have access to some insights through client listening programmes, market research or brand research (or all three!). Alongside your firm’s strategy, these will steer where you need to focus your marketing efforts including channels used and messaging.
- Clear criteria – Make sure you have a clear checklist for what meets your criteria for putting resource and budget to an activity. Does it align with strategy? Do you have enough time to deliver against the deadline? Are there any risks to your brand/reputation?
- Automating the process – Software such as Monday.com (other software available!) allows you to automate the process from capturing the information, to ‘triaging’ and prioritising what will be actioned, and then to be able to report how much of your team’s time is being spent on your firm’s strategic areas. These tools massively reduce time spent on manual input.
- Decision makers – Decide who makes the decisions and how frequently you meet as a group to discuss. Does the group consist of your senior marketers, or does it also involve a small cohort of partners? My experience is that if there’s a tricky conversation to be had, it always helps to have partner-level support.
- Collecting the request – Decide how you want to collect the initial data you will use to ‘triage’ – will this be via email into a dedicated inbox? Or will it be a form? On a recent project we opted for a Monday.com form as this automatically inputted the information collected straight into a board. Clear expectations will need to be shared with stakeholders to ensure they understand the new process, making it clear the benefits to them.
- Communicate with stakeholders – Throughout the process, let stakeholders know the status of their requests and set clear turnaround times for responses. These messages can be automated or templated for ease. A large part of any behavioural change project is frequent communication and messaging.
- Saying ‘no’ – Once a decision has been made that an activity does not align with firm goals, this needs to be relayed to the stakeholder. Scripts and templates are helpful here to ensure a consistency of message. There may be ‘self-service’ options or alternatives that you can point stakeholders to. Most difficult messages are always better delivered in person rather than by email and always refer to the strategic reasons behind the decision. I have had many challenging ‘pushing back’ conversations with stakeholders and from experience can say that aligning the message with strategy is always the way to go.
A more formal process around prioritisation means that marketing teams are focused on what’s really going to make a difference. This enables them to feel that they are contributing, being effective and adding value.
For firms, it means their marketing resource is allocated effectively to maximise outcomes, reduce risk and contribute to commercial impact.
A win-win all round.
Are you ready to boost your marketing team’s effectiveness? Reach out today to explore how we can help.
