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Business Review 2006 from
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Making marketing effective
Jason MacKenzie
client services director of the Image Group
Marketing is an important business tool. You'd expect me to say that, wouldn't you?
However, it may come as a surprise to you that I also believe that marketing is far too important to be left solely in the hands of your marketing department.
At first glance, that might seem offensive to my industry and my fellow marketers. But I'm not worried about making the statement. Why? Because marketing is too powerful to be entrusted to a single individual or team within an organisation. To be truly effective, the entire business should have a marketing orientation.
Historically, the marketing profession in the Island has been perceived - rightly or wrongly - as the domain of two basic characters. The first is the out-and-out salesman, who's primarily interested in persuading a prospective client to buy his or her product or service for the best possible price. The other character (or should that be caricature?) is often disparagingly referred to as the 'flower-arranger' or 'party organiser'. You can picture them now, can't you? These are employees whose daily routine involves little more than (often chaotic) administration (surely a contradiction in terms?) and co-ordinating (and enjoying) functions.
Change
While admin and effective events are both worthy tactical communications tools, marketing itself demands to be taken more seriously. It's capable of providing strategic input into a business, leading to improved profitability. Fortunately for the marketing community and the businesses it serves, times are changing, due mainly to an increasing emphasis on training and continuous professional development.
At its core, good marketing is about putting the client first. It's not about what one business can sell to another, it's about how a business can exceed the expectations of its clients, leading to long-term, mutually beneficial relationships. The quickest way to kill a bad service or business is to advertise it superbly. If you promote and publicise yourself so well that prospects flock to you, you've succeeded. If you then fail to meet their needs, you'll not only lose a client, you'll damage both your reputation and your brand. Businesses in Jersey are beginning to trust the philosophy of putting clients' needs first. It sounds like a risky strategy, but it reaps dividends. Those that do so are on the path to becoming truly marketing orientated. This is the only sure route to long-term success.
A marketing professional in the financial services industry shared the following story with me. He was debating with a colleague about a proposal to reduce the number of communications their business sent out to its affluent client base. His colleague suggested that they could cut their costs significantly by reducing both the number of mailings and the quality of the literature. His proposition was based on the theory that they could spend less yet maintain revenue. My acquaintance challenged this assumption. 'Put yourself into the (rather expensive) shoes of one of our clients,' he said. 'How would you like it if your quality monthly update suddenly degraded to a flimsy quarterly bulletin?' he asked. 'I guess I'd feel a bit put out and want to know why the service level had dropped,' came the reply. My question is what would the client do after a number of such cutbacks? I guess the answer would differ from client to client, but some would certainly want to switch to a company that appeared to valued them more and sought to give them extra, rather than strip down their offering.
Very few people today are in business to try to make a fast buck. We want to increase our profitability year on year - and the best way to do that is by continually investing in our brand and in our marketing. Good marketing is an investment, not a cost. It delivers returns - and helps both acquire acquire and retain business.
My conclusion is that business today is tougher than ever - and therefore requires that marketers be more professional than ever. Rather than bad news, this is actually great news for the industry. It raises the bar and challenges us to strive to improve the service we provide. But how can we do that? The answer lies partly in continuous professional development, through bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.
Qualifications and accreditation aren't the total answer. We all know well-qualified people who are not so capable and poorly qualified people who are brilliant. The key is to take the theory and to apply it in a real life context and practice the learning in our workplaces. As you look to the rest of 2006, the challenge is: will you keep learning - or do you think you've already arrived?
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