| Marketing Rule #1 | | | | director lacks the training and experience to actually do |
| Take charge of your marketing. | | | | the work and, second, because the hired guns can |
| No one cares about your success like you do - not an | | | | take the blame if the company doesn't hit its revenue |
| ad agency, not a marketing director. Do not leave your | | | | targets. |
| marketing oversight to others. | | | | Smaller and medium-sized businesses aren't as bad |
| Over the last 30 years or so, there has been a subtle | | | | about this as corporations, but the weakness there is |
| but crucial shift in how many companies manage their | | | | that the owner-entrepreneur is often so torn between |
| advertising, public relations and marketing. | | | | having to manage money and people, networking for |
| Prior to the 1980s, marketing was usually a C-level | | | | new clients and sometimes even answering the |
| activity. It was considered so important to the ongoing | | | | phones, that she may entrust the business' promotion |
| success of a business that the company CEO or at | | | | to a family member, friend or almost ANYone who |
| least an executive vice-president directly oversaw it. | | | | can take it off her shoulders. |
| In recent years, the CEO's focus has shifted almost | | | | Put all these flaws together and you understand why |
| entirely to driving short-term shareholder profit. Where | | | | a huge amount of marketing today is either bland, |
| once a company head had perhaps five to ten years | | | | play-it-safe me-too-ism or else wildly inconsistent as |
| to prove his or her worth, today CEOs are hired and | | | | new marketing directors and agencies come and go in |
| fired on the results of just a few quarters' profits. | | | | one-year bursts. |
| The result is that marketing has been shunted off to | | | | Marketing must be overseen at the highest level of |
| lower-rank officers in the business such as a | | | | company authority or it will be prone to failure. No one |
| marketing director or communications officer, often a | | | | - not a marketing director, not an ad agency - cares |
| junior executive who may not have much real clout | | | | about the company's success like the owner or chief |
| within the company. | | | | officer. |
| A second factor is that - by emphasizing transient | | | | Marketing directors care about looking good - or at |
| gains over long-term growth - jobs within the | | | | least not looking bad. Agency people care most about |
| organization have become more short-term too, tied to | | | | boosting their companies' revenues. Sure, they all hope |
| quarterly earnings. Today, marketing jobs at many | | | | they'll build the company but if not - oh, well, on to the |
| companies are seen as just a temporary "gig," a | | | | next business. After all, it's not their money that is being |
| stepping-stone to something better. | | | | gambled with. |
| The result is that the marketing at quite a few | | | | If it IS your money that is going into marketing, you're |
| businesses these days is being managed by:o a | | | | foolish to leave the oversight of that effort to anyone |
| less-experienced person;o often young;o with little | | | | but yourself. That's certainly not to say that the |
| interest in consistency or long-term results | | | | company CEO should be cranking out press releases |
| He is often more concerned with promoting himself for | | | | or responding to every comment on the company |
| his NEXT position. | | | | blog, but she SHOULD be regularly checking that those |
| The marketing director will then usually hand off the | | | | things are being done in a manner that is consistent |
| responsibility for the company's marketing to an ad | | | | with her vision, goals and the long-term image of the |
| agency or PR firm. First, because the marketing | | | | enterprise. |