Marketers: born or bred - or a bit of both?

However, although I am a firm believer that true marketers are born and marketing from the gut is what they are made to do, no responsible marketer would rely purely on his or her gut to drive growth and profits without sound, disciplined and factual strategies.

Indeed, this is where the “breeding” or entrenched experience and background come into play.

Start balancing

The reality is today's organisations need to start balancing the creative aspect that comes from gut feel marketing with factually researched campaigns which in turn are aligned to the businesses' sales strategies and targets.

In order to do so, companies' board of directors need to hold both marketing and sales directors accountable for delivering return on marketing spend against sales revenue.

Currently, there is a disconnect of sorts between marketing and sales departments. The one is spending considerable amounts of money on creative brand awareness without realising that this spend needs to offer tangible returns, while the other, the sales department that is, has lost touch with the real world, chasing targets that are often unrealistic.

Not in isolation

Here, the board is responsible for ensuring that their sales and marketing teams are not working in isolation from each other. Furthermore, the organisation must be marketed optimally, ensuring the sales team can get out there and reach targets based on strong and solid branding. The proverbial push and pull effect is very applicable in this instance.

Therefore, by holding the sales and marketing directors accountable and asking questions about how marketing spend is assisting in driving sales revenue, the board will begin to ensure that these two departments are working for a common goal, that of organisational growth and profit.

Ultimately, successful marketers are those who use both their gut and factually researched and properly targeted strategies to assist the sales team in driving revenue.

It is a fine balance; pure gut just doesn't cut it anymore. However, facts and figures will cramp creativity - a mixture of gut feel and sound marketing principles is therefore a prudent route to follow.