How to Manage Your Marketing Person

How do you manage your marketing? Who’s the person that has the plan and makes it happen? If you are a tech B2B company CEO, you probably, if you don’t have a team, a multiple person team and a Marketing VP, you are dealing with it one of three ways. Either you’re using vendors to get stuff done, you have a junior marketing person on your staff to get stuff done, or you have a Sales and Marketing Leader, VP, Director, who’s responsible for the marketing part of your business. I want to give you some tips on how to make either, all three of those scenarios work effectively for your business.

Vendors

So, let’s start with vendors. If you are using vendors to get things done, the priority, most important thing, the thing that’s often missing, is continuity and cohesion. If you are using vendors in silos, one after another with a different plan each time, or different ones side by side that don’t know what the other one is doing, you are probably damaging your brand and creating confusion and inconsistency in the market. So, it’s really important to have a plan for all of what you do, so what works together. You can do that with an external person, like an agency can offer that ability to have an overall coordination. And if you don’t, you are that person. So, you’re the marketing leader if you are the one choosing these vendors one by one. So, something for you to be aware of and make sure you address.

Junior Marketer

If you have that one person on your team that you’ve hired, an entry level person or a newer person with not a lot of experience to get your marketing done, the common problem there, the common issue, is that that person does things, they’re doing activities, but they don’t know what to do. So, there’s a risk of them being lost or, you know, not having the direction they need to be successful, or even worse, doing the wrong things because they feel like they need to do something and they don’t really know what the right thing is. You need someone to direct this junior marketer. It’s not enough just to hire somebody that can do things. You have to have a plan for what they do as well. So, again, that might fall back to you, but if it doesn’t, you need, you need to identify someone in your organization that can provide that direction.

VP of Sales and Marketing

Finally, I find it surprisingly common, that sales and marketing leaders in organizations actually are sales leaders that were given marketing because somebody has to do it. That creates some risks for you as well. What’ll happen often is that marketing is either avoided or ignored by that leader because again, their main motivation and passion and experience and skill is focused on sales and probably is the most clear requirement or ask that you’ve given them as well. So, it’s really important for you to consciously prioritize marketing and create visibility for it, and hold them accountable, make sure that they have a plan and that you’ve approved that plan and that hold you, hold them to deliver on that plan. If you don’t make that a priority, it’s not gonna get done. And maybe even worse, you’ll be kind of shielding from knowing what’s really going on or what’s really missing there.

So, really what it comes down to with this marketing person in your company is for marketing to work, there are two things that have to be happening. There are activities that have to be done, that’s all the visible tasks and programs and campaigns, but you also have to have a plan that connects those activities in a meaningful way for them to be effective. Otherwise, you’re burning, you’re wasting a lot of time and effort and maybe damaging your company’s brand. Make sure you have both.