Most people haven’t a clue what the marketing department does.
• Run ads
• Make brochures
• Make websites
• Spend money
• Eat at fancy restaurants
It has been my experience that most businesses understand most job functions and departments better than they understand what my marketing colleagues do. Finance counts the beans. Operations make the beans. Human Resources finds people to make and count the beans. But it is our fault for not doing a better job marketing ourselves within the company. Think of it like bringing in extra fruit and vegetables from your garden and sharing the goodness with your colleagues.
But what does the marketing team do? But it is our fault for not doing a better job marketing ourselves within the company.
I always think of marketing like gardening where you help to plant, seed and fertilize the fruit and vegetables you get to enjoy later. But we need to share the fruit of our work within the company.
Marketing Department Mysteries
During my career, I always recognized that I had several jobs when I worked in marketing. First and foremost was to help sell more products or services. Second, and just as important, was to communicate internally what the marketing team was doing and how it connected with our overall goals.
The following five tips may help you and your marketing team start to think about other ways to share your work within the organization. When you market your marketing, you build trust, confidence and a sense that marketing is like fuel in the engine of your company.
5 Tips to Marketing the Marketing
1. Share the news. Find a way to share with a broad audience a summary of positive press coverage received each month. Don’t assume that because your company was written up in a trade journal, that your colleagues will have seen it.
2. Cover the walls. Reuse content as posters and artwork. So when you are creating a fun new brochure or infographic for your website, enlarge and print it for your lunchroom or conference room walls.
3. Summarize the results of a successful email campaign. Don’t hesitate to let your organization know about the recent email activity that the marketing team created to raise awareness among new potential clients. Share a summary that you sent out 2,000 emails to the CFO at 400 companies and 653 of them opened them and 128 clicks through to watch a new video about a new product.
4. Create an email address for marketing ideas. I love to encourage employees to share their thoughts on how to build awareness or grow the brand. Set up a marketingideas@mycompany, com email address so that colleagues can quickly share an idea they observe from another industry that could lead to something helpful for the marketing team. I used a variation of this concept and got an excellent idea from a European colleague who suggested we make our own DID YOU KNOW video. Here is that video sparked from a colleague’s idea. We ended up creating this same video concept in 6 languages and had more than 20,000 views.
5. Red Carpet Lunch Premier: Has the marketing team created a terrific new video for a new product launch? Why not have a preview at lunchtime for employees in a conference room. Bring in a popcorn cart and refreshments, dress up the team in fancy clothes and have fun showing off your work. The brief explanation can tell the audience about the purpose of the video, where it will be posted and what your expectations are over the coming months. Don’t let great assets only sit online. Show them off.
When was the last time you shared what your marketing team does for your organization?
Need a marketing sounding board to help you manage a marketing team? Looking for new ideas to generate leads for your new product launch. Call me to discuss your needs. I may be able to help you solve your problem and grow your business. 919 720 0995 or jeffreylynnslater@gmail.com
Photo from Unsplash, a hip new free photo site. HT to Mark Schaefer for the link.
