Harvard Business Publishing

I agree on the points listed, since I am the CFO of the company, hard numbers validate success and existance. There are, however, things that cannot be measured. Understanding your clients business not only assists in the sale, but delivers a message that is unique to the client. This cannot be measured, only the actual sale can. Knowing a clients business may not deliver the sale immediately but will, during good economic times, present possible oppurtunities for the client to change. This was popular a few years ago with all corporations on the KYC (know your client) bandwagon. With this the KPI indicators became relatively popular, as noted in the article on reporting tools. However company's hit the cost to benefit wall, and began to question how much is to much information. Businesses are now considering the impact and needs of the information necessary to deliver exact reporting for analysis.

I read your posting with interest. As I was interviewing CMOs for a recent project, the one thing that stuck in my head was when a CMO of a leading software company told me that he clearly remembers the day that he felt business unit leaders aligned with him. It was the day that he defined the business problems and solutions from their perspective - not from a marketing perspective. He felt that this was a trait that is missing from many CMOs. People talk about aligning with business leaders and confuse that with ingratiating them by simply providing marketing support. That is not the way to do it. Look at the problem through their prism. Feel their pain and solve the problem from their perspective.

beat - Excellent point that 'balances' the need for measuring and understanding.
Umesh - Treating our buiness partners as great customers can go a long way!

Can not agree more with the article. To add to that, in simple words I think marketing executives should always define who is their top priority inside the organization and how to enable them to be more successful. Once this is defined, the right performance matrix should be drawn addressing how to score well in the eyes of your top priority customers (internal). I think this is very much applicable during bad and good business times.

Mohamed A. El-Beshieti

Hi,

I think that these suggestions apply actually to anyone in any organization no matter the type of business or the role playing on it:

After all; If you have a thorough understanding of how the business runs, Speak the same language as other executives, Align yourself with the rest of your executive team and Find the right reporting tools; what you are doing is Measure your way to a seat at the table in the end.

It is as simple as the golden rule... you are showing that the most important thing is understand your internal customers first in order to do the business the best way for the organization... you are listening… and you are making the executives to listen to you in return.

As a result you will see that most of the time things are not done the way the executive table wants, but on a way that will get the best results for the organization you work with… and the best part: with the executives "on your side of the table"… simply because you listen and understand them.

Not an easy path certainly… but on my humble opinion, the best one.

Regards,
Carlos.

Mohamed-This is a great point. Defining the top priority is important!
Carlos-I agree! These are suggestions that many people in the organization would find very useful.

Great column with some good suggestions. Having worked a bit in advertising/marketing, I know how the bottom liners can disregard the marketing's value sometimes. Thanks for the tips on how to make a positive difference.

I agree with the points made. Some excellent suggestions above. IMHO :
1. We all thrive to get the share of the increasing demand of the existing customers to grow business. I label it Theory X. Customer Loyalty ( I challenge this as I say, customer is the King how can he be loyal to us - we need to be loyal to him :)), customer relationship, customer behaviour, changing business needs and wants assessment goes here.
2. We try and elbow out the competition and increase the wallet share from existing customers. I label it Theory Y. We try and penetrate the existing customer's needs and future wants and create products and services and come 'One Up' on the competitors to get more wallet share from shared accounts sometimes wiping out the competition from big accounts. (often cutting down our margins).
3. We keep researching the market for the new users, first time users for our products and services and provide the leads to the marketing executives. Make the backend telesales people pitch over phone, get appointments ( No cold calls) which opens new doors for us. I label this Theory Z. The better the research and the quality of sales pitch the better the results.

However, in a downturn I also see the following needs for a marketer:
a. Re-define the product/ service
b. Re-launch the offering with more features, advantages and benefits.
c. Look for opportunities in non-users and spend time in market research.
d. Have a very close look at the competition and as Harvey Mackay would say ' follow their trucks and sales people'.
A downturn is a Near Perfect competition stage and therefore the customer really asserts as the KING and demands better offering at better prices - a marketer should be ready for this.

Sarah-Thank you for reading!

Jay-Thank you for your Theories X, Y, and Z! And for your tips for marketing during a downturn. These are very helpful.

One thing we have used that helps us justify our marketing efforts is as simple as "A to B". Executives are very clear when it comes to knowing where they are and where they WANT to be. If you can show how our plan is moving the company from point A to point B, you are going to help secure your budgets & and your job. One other tactic for you - all managers at the executive level love KPI's. And because you are in charge of the marketing, you can often bring them those KPI's or at least a new take on them. Provide them information THEY feel is valuable and you are securing your budget for next year. One we find Executives love is the Customer Referral Index. It is simply a number based on how many clients say they have or would refer you. A great gauge on how well the company is doing by the way.
Thanks,
Tim
CEO/redpepper