Small businesses don't have the luxury of a fully staffed marketing department. The business owner/CEO must be particularly careful to plan, organize, and manage a 1-person department to maximize the return on marketing investment.
Some of the biggest mistakes small business owners make occur when focusing on only one or two functions of the marketing job and not realizing that many pieces must fall into place for even the most modest marketing department to be effective. Jumpstart your decisions here.
10 Critical Decisions To Shape An Effective Marketing Department
Here are 10 decision points business owners should consider to ensure that their marketing resources are put to best advantage.
1. Define expectations. Put your expectations down on paper so that assumed responsibilities and contributions are communicated. Small businesses tend to have their own sense of what marketing is and does, and this may not be everyone's understanding. This includes other members of the company as well as the marketing candidate. Suggestion: write down expectations before going through the following steps, then revisit them for a final statement.
2. Decide between tactical and strategic. Do you want someone who largely does things or plans things? Most small businesses need a "doer." If you want a doer, realize that you won't be getting someone with a big picture view of your company and who probably won't be too helpful with structured planning. From a practical point of view, don't expect a doer to help with big business building ideas or even some of the more classical marketing ideas like positioning.
3. Decide between creativity and getting things done. Someone labelled as "creative" should be able to design and produce marketing pieces, including digital pieces, but may not be capable of pulling together production schedules and coordinating among various people/departments. One of the key failings of small business marketing departments is having well designed marketing pieces that aren't fully integrated into the workflow of the office. This includes communicating within the company the who, what, where, when, why of the event, and responsibilities and expectations.
For example, a direct mail piece will lose its full value if the proper procedure for sales follow-up is not communicated.
4. Hire digital natives. This is less of a decision and more of a mandate. Digital natives are individuals who have grown up with the Internet, know its language, and have total comfort working in the digital environment. This is more than just graphic design and social media, however. Your marketing digital native should understand the importance of content and relationship-building in a digital age, and have a sense of how technology is a tool and not an end in itself.
5. Decide if you want analytics. One beauty of Internet marketing is all the metrics available to help manage and refine marketing programs. Understand that someone who is comfortable with numbers may not be comfortable with other, more intangible considerations such as design, and vice-versa.
6. Decide on the importance of interpersonal / relationship-building skills. One area that shouldn't be overlooked is the ability of the marketing person to relate comfortably with many people within the company. Marketing is the hub of many activities, and the marketing person should be a facilitator, not a roadblock. A common mistake is to hire for marketing skills without regard to the personality, only to find that the person just can't work with everyone else.
7. Define the relationship of marketing to other departments. It's typical for small businesses to be oriented to sales, accounting, and operations. If marketing doesn't get a seat at the table, it will be viewed as weak and subservient. This is a natural result of the personal power play the occurs within every company, small or large. If viewed this way, very little significant contribution can be expected. Marketing will become an errand boy or girl for everyone else.
8. Decide on the extent and nature of required communication. In addition to the typical verbal, written, and digital information that is a necessary part of your company, marketing may introduce new and expanded forms of communication. This may involve new terms and planning schedules, for example. It's a sad fact that some great personal communicators can't write.
9. Decide between "learn on-the-job" or immediate contribution. If you select someone who will be required to learn marketing on-the-job, which is often the case when an existing employee is given marketing responsibility, some of the questions which must be asked are: who will be the teacher, what standards will be set, and how long until the person is expected to be productive? Learning marketing on-the-job has the potential to be a huge failure.
10. Decide on your management time commitment. How much time are you, as owner/CEO, willing to invest in the success of your marketing department? Expect to spend time equal to the contribution expected from the function. For example, significantly more time with sales than with marketing will likely result in an under-performing marketing department.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Use these 10 decision points to plan, organize, and manage an effective 1-person marketing department.
Does planning your 1-person marketing department sound a little complicated? Concerned about missing a key element? Simplify your decision with a free, no hassle conversation. To sign up, click on the link, below.
