thefunnel

This one is a continuation to a couple my earlier posts in relation to the different functions of marketing. On it’s simplest level some organizations have a hard time figuring out where to draw the line between outbound and inbound marketing, in addition to understanding how tasks should be split up between “creating value”, “providing value” and “communicating value”. Not intentionally, but in large organizations, with a lot of change, if roles and responsibilities aren’t clear it will create a problem. But things gets more complex than this, because marketing also interacts with both sales and business development and there’s the grey zone between marketing – sales, sales – business development, and business development – marketing, as illustrated. I think the obvious areas that warrants some more conversations are: The role of marketing in customer retention activities versus sales as a “farmer” function. The role of sales as “hunters” versus a business development function. The role of a business development function as a “value provider” or “value communicator” versus inbound marketing or marketing communications. The sweet spot is in the middle where you have a good balance between marketing, sales and business development.

A few nuggets (with my own twist) from an article (Arruda) about personal branding in the Social Media era, that I thought were valuable, but also apply well to company branding and the basics of marketing.
- Don’t be a fake. Strong brands are about authenticity (value proposition)
- Wishy-washy. Don’t try to be everything to all people (segmentation and targeting)
- Think before you act. Have a plan before you engage with social media (planning is everything, plans are nothing)
- Talk, and more talk. If you have nothing better to do than just re-tweeting everything, just stop
- Quality is better than quantity. Better to have a few right followers / participants / visitors than lots of the wrong ones
- Don’t switch tools all the time. It’s not about the tool. It’s all about the content (the latest hype)
- Don’t forget traditional marketing vehicles (you customers might spend most of their time off line)
- There’s a temptation to do everything cheaply with low quality to save some money, after all the Social Web is all about CGC, but what perception will this portray on your products and company. Don’t confuse amateurs with professionals
- Talk about what you can do for your customers rather than what you do (we, we, versus them)
- Don’t measure anything. Everything can be measured (outcome based marketing)