I recently came across a post on LinkedIn, well more of a request to underpin key challenges that marketing strategists and communication professionals experience. It was interesting to see an emerging trend that most of us in this ever changing, unpredictable career, are concerned about, and that is, the sustainability of the role and its diminishing presence at a strategic level. I too had my two cents to add, basically stating that with technology anyone can suddenly claim to be a bona fide marketing strategist, because "I can click and I know how to post on social media pages". Ridiculous! some of my peers would say, yes I would agree, but as I’m typing up this article, someone out there has suddenly boosted their ego by clicking and posting...until...one wrong message, one negative viral post and then all of a sudden ...bring out the PR expert!
The role of marketing cannot be questioned or be taken for granted. There is a lot more to the marketing process and its involvement in the business is paramount to the overall organizational success. A marketing strategist can take the lead in creatively designing a plan that talks to your specific business needs and goals. You see not all templates out there fit your business model, financial targets or your market. Who you talk to matters. You cannot assume the same demographic in Germany would relate to your product in the same way someone with the same demographic profile would in Botswana. One needs to understand the customers behavior and purchasing patterns and know how to reach them, what to say (to avoid saying something wrong and then paying the price for it) create interest, desire and a call to action. A marketing strategist can forecast market trends, come up with new products or services, establish your brand, create campaigns to drive awareness and visibility to your brand or products, boost sales, measure customer satisfaction and assess the return on marketing investment. Strategists have gone through extensive training to appreciate the entire marketing lifecycle and have the ability to work with data intelligence to redefine the way business is done. I’m still baffled at some professionals who simply assume that marketing is about events and advertising. If the role is understood at a leadership level, the way finance is, then discussions would not be wasted on the importance of marketing, it would be turned to innovation which in essence is the soul of marketing.
I always marvel at textbooks that place the role of marketing as one of the 6 core functions of business. Pick up any business book and you will find marketing sitting next to finance, human resources, operations etc as key players in the business. Yet back to reality and you’ll find a battle between the creatives and the scrooges, that’s right - marketing and finance. If the two could synergize and collectively appreciate that marketing is a driver towards financial performance and not merely ‘milking the cow – and making the rest of us pay for it’ (this perhaps comes from the few extravagant events we , as marketing strategists get to attend) then perhaps business would perform as we are told could and would in those business books.
So next time, just as you would consult an accountant about the financial health of your business, tap into a marketing strategist to help you explore new markets, come up with different products, help you identify your unique selling proposition, retain your customers, inject intelligence to measure your efforts and feed your business with all the right processes to reach your financial health, whilst steering the organization’s reputation, after all one negative comment can overturn the many positives.