In the sixth of this series, Guy Tomlinson and Tim Arnold, marketing consultants, directors and authors of The Marketing Director’s Handbook outline some of the prerequisites to be a successful marketing director.

 

In highly competitive markets, finely tuned marketing strategies and executional ideas can make a difference. A misplaced or poorly articulated word in a strategy could be misinterpreted and cause confusion within your business. There is also a need for excellence in execution in those markets where companies follow similar strategies. A misplaced or poorly articulated word in an advertisement could inhibit response and waste a lot of money. Conversely, a well-placed or well-chosen word could help cut-through and connect, thereby accelerating demand.  Attention to both strategic and executional detail are vital. You will need to establish processes, tools and techniques to ensure that both your decisions in both areas are of the highest order.

 

Overcoming perceptions that marketing is ‘fluffy’ is another key challenge that you may have to address. Mastering and using a few analytical tools and techniques can help you marshal and present your arguments in a simple and easy-to-understand manner. Not only can these distil complexity into simple messages but also give added rigor and impact to your arguments. A spreadsheet model will also be helpful. A number of useful tools and techniques are described in our book.

 

Your own motivation, drive and rigor in seeking and enforcing marketing excellence will help overcome any negative attitudes. One way of seeking such excellence is in embracing new technology for in itself this will create new opportunities. However bear in mind that embracing new technology may mean even shorter planning cycles so clever anticipation and preplanning becomes more vital. For example, while using digital technology can reduce promotion origination and reproduction costs you will need to be more vigilant in maintaining and using a database to ensure effective targeting.

 

The Marketing Director’s Handbook has been acclaimed as a book that all directors should read and that all marketing directors should keep close to hand. To find our more and order a copy follow this link to The Marketing Directors’ consultancy website. (link to www.themarketingdirectors.co.uk/the_marketing_directors_handbook.htm)