Maximize Your Marketing, Listen to Functional Managers
As the marketing manager’s new product proposal drew to a close, everyone in the meeting breathed a collective sigh of relief. The presentation was the last item on Friday’s agenda. The CEO turned to the group and asked, “Okay everyone, questions? Comments? Concerns?”
The boardroom fell silent.
“Why is she asking me this question? What can I contribute to a marketing campaign?” wondered the finance manager.
The most valuable feedback functional managers can give during marketing checkpoints draws upon their unique perspectives and their functional area’s resources. These gates are a “collaborative disaster check, not a challenge and not an encroachment on any department’s territory,” says Marcia Kaylen, a Willamette MBA adjunct professor and former Hewlett Packard marketing manager.
Opportunities for non-marketing managers to contribute to checkpoint meetings are often ignored throughout the product life cycle. But that is a mistake.
Marketing communications in the global business environment require more participation from functional managers. New media, such as the Internet, cell phones and wireless computing, make marketing communication programs ever more complex and, more importantly, ever more integrated. It is important for functional mangers to be familiar with the marketing communications mix and their department’s impact on the objectives in order to contribute to the discussion and help a firm achieve its goals.
A HR manager’s critique of the music or color scheme in a commercial may be valuable though he misses an opportunity to contribute real expertise from the human resource perspective. Functional managers may also want to ask questions that focus on the tactical aspect of the campaign such as cost, timing, competitor response and target audience. This may not be the best use of their expertise.
“These are all good questions, but they get caught up in the language of brands and somehow separate from the organizations they represent,” write branding experts Phil Askham and Susannah Feeley in their article, “360 Degree Branding.”
Managers’ questions should focus on the specific benefits their functional areas can contribute to the marketing campaign and the definite roadblocks to the communication’s success.
According to Tom Anderson, the controller for Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort and Spa, functional managers across the firm should consider the amount of incremental new business required to cover the costs of advertising and whether the product or service is something the employees are able to deliver.
Some of the most commonly asked questions during marketing checkpoint meetings focus on the creative execution of the communication.
“My favorite question is this: How much additional business must we generate in order to at least cover our costs relating to advertising? For example, does it make sense to spend a few thousand dollars to advertise for a Sunday brunch? How many additional brunches must we sell to achieve a few thousand additional dollars at the bottom line in order to break even?” Often, according to Anderson, the answer is “more than we have seats in the restaurant.”
Organizational strategies sometimes consider advertising as the default solution to increasing sales. Managers across the organization can use their knowledge and experience to direct marketing communications and maximize effectiveness.
A manager’s organizational perspective can challenge marketers by demonstrating how a communication strategy or campaign will impact specific elements within the organization. For example, a human resource manager might consider how a marketing communication will impact the organizational culture.
This demands that employees “have a clear understanding of what their organization stands for, where it is going, and what their own personal contribution toward its success is; experience a sense of involvement in change and ownership to improve things for the better; and enjoy genuine confidence in their ideas,” Askham and Feeley write in their article, “360 Degree Branding.”
These questions go beyond the idea of training within the organization. Employees are the firm’s ambassadors and budgeting for their involvement in the marketing communications efforts can contribute to the firm’s success.
No matter where managers work within an organization, they must be involved in the marketing checkpoint process because their combined knowledge contributes to synergy. Manufacturing’s knowledge of productivity combined with distribution’s “insight” can fundamentally alter the timing of a marketing communication strategy and deliver on stated promises.
“The ultimate goal of a promotional campaign is to move the targeted customer toward trial or purchase and have that experience appear seamless -- no surprises,” says Claire Still, former marketing communications manager at Hewlett-Packard Co.
“That can only happen if all functions involved understand and manage interdependencies and timelines.”