CDA - Blog - How to be a successful marketer (marketing director) Part 5. Brand competence building and delivery

How to be a successful marketer (marketing director) Part 5. Brand competence building and delivery

31st May 2009

In the fifth 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.

The role of the marketing director and his/her department is also to create and define what it is about an organisation and its products and services that is distinctive and appealing to customers. It is about creating distinctive value propositions for which customers will shell out more of their hard-earned money. It is about creating and building brands. Underlying this challenge is a need to understand and nurture the strengths ie assets or skills of the organisation – to reinforce a positive and distinctive impression in the customers’ minds. This requires rigorous examination, insight and analysis to understand what strengths can set the organisation apart and can be nurtured to deliver extra value.

Much is written about brands and most ignore the importance of the difference between a simply named products and the brand. Particularly for those who work for corporates, branding is often a misunderstood concept, and that’s where marketer’s challenge starts with helping people understand ‘what brand means’ and ‘why bother’.

There are lots of reasons to bother; to simplify and enable customer choice and purchase, add value (brands command premiums), to provide a vehicle for uniting organisational hearts and minds, be a change culture vehicle (most relevant for service organisations) and of course, enhance shareholder value.

The management function to maximise the stand-out, and appeal of the brand is the domain of the marketer. So often in service companies, the good work of an advert in raising expectations is undermined by a surly customer service representative. Thus this requires effective management of the customer or brand experience, the touch-points or encounters that the organisation has with its customers. In some businesses, the range of touch-points or brand encounters can be vast and putting service at the heart of the experience can help achieve stand-out.

Exerting influence over these touch-points usually requires influence over many areas in the organisation that are not controlled by the marketing department. These areas may be customer facing, such as customer services, or internal such as Human Resources or finance. To bring about change in these areas will require strong communication, influencing and managing skills. You will need to build strong relationships with colleagues to win their support to help you. For example, through the HR team, you will be able to influence employee communications, the content of job objectives, job performance reviews and reward and remuneration packages.

Exerting influence over other customer-facing functions is unlikely to be an easy task. The marketing graveyard is littered with the remains of marketers who tried and failed. As well as using charm and persuasion, use your marketing technical skills to obtain hard data to support your arguments. Use research to understand how consumers perceive the touch-points, what are their expectations and if there is a shortfall between expectation and delivery. Also understand what drives or inhibits demand and loyalty, and would ensure an excellent customer experience.

In part 6 next week we’ll discuss the importance of marketing technical excellence

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)

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