Tips from a marketing all-rounder

Not only do all brands now seek a marketing manager to know and understand digital and social media, but marketers are increasingly breaking the mould of handling marketing alone. In fact, most marketers have become sales orientated, logistics orientated as well as strategic in guiding company goals.

Here are some tips I have learnt along the way.

Sales departments are our allies

Sales departments hold the key to customers and to satisfying the customer. They can equally give you tips on which clients to aim for and recommend that you profile these clients into your strategy. In fact, to go to a sales pitch and present to a client will reap bounds for your strategic efforts.

Get out of the corner office

Marketers need to break the bubble of sitting back and having an ‘I do strategy only” attitude, and speak to agencies. This silo has to be broken. I understood this fully when I worked at a leading waste management giant and was given the chance to sit in a truck and experience a day with a driver. Get to mingle with the customer service department and work with operations in seeing where marketing efforts can gain strength. Include the strengths of departments such as finance, HR and logistics in your strategic plan, so that you, as a manager, can see the total 360 approach. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and understand the people.

Be committed to growth

Commit to personal growth and company growth by growing yourself and being open to learning. It has become clear that marketing managers are no longer staying for a 10 year period in one industry or one company. The time for “a 60 year old marketing manager sitting in the corner office” has passed, so devise your own growth plan.

Increasingly personal growth is inevitable. Be open to growing within the company into other areas of the business and challenging the company to assist in cross functional vacancy strategies, or “a day in the life of” scenario. I had this experience at a retail giant where the CEO was tasked to be a planner for a day and a planner tasked to be a CEO for a day - this brought insights to both parties on handling each other.

Grasp the digital divide

No longer can marketers say, “I’ll leave it to the digital agency”. Take control and learn digital, understand what affects Search Engine Optimisation or Pay Per Click. Marketers grow the brand, so think laterally and use the knowledge of branding to bridge the divide in digital. I adopted this when a major IT company wanted to open in African markets. The brand needed to capture African markets and the only appropriate channel to do so was digital. In keeping with an African brand, we launched a portal for each country and drove news, entertainment and other news to it to reach audiences in each country. Over and above this, we aligned to Online Reputation Management, allowed online PR to build our story and asked customers to get involved in their customer experience by buying packages online.

Corporate brands have a different digital strategy

The most difficult challenge was working for a purely corporate brand and understanding that not all elements of digital will work in that space. For a brand like Investec or BHP Billiton, whose clients are top end corporate and mining giants, only a few digital avenues could be explored. Facebook and Twitter was far more consumer-orientated and, therefore, had to be eliminated in the strategy.

What worked well was Search Engine Optimisation, Online Reputation Management and LinkedIn profiles. Know your industry and brand and decide which elements of digital will work well. Always keep learning.

Marketing is adaptable

As much as FMCG and retail brands ask for experience in only their industry, be part of the all-rounder crowd. Don’t be afraid to change direction. Marketing concepts are easily adapted to any industry once you apply the concepts and research to that industry. Coming from a financial giant and moving to an internet company was a challenge, but once I understood marketing, the six Ps, segmentation, integrated marketing communications and brought all the knowledge together to fit this industry, a strategy became easier once I knew what would work and what would not work in each country in Africa.

Marketers need to lead the way

As marketers we are leaders, whether we guide a team or not, our image is important to the brand as a whole. Leading and the concepts through leading can help us manage our image. Goal setting, motivation techniques and brand change strategies can allow us to be focused on internal branding and staff enthusiasm for the brand. Internal branding and allowing staff to measure and get involved with the brand values as well as getting feedback allows us to truly lead the way. We should never forget the people on the ground, and always get them involved.