What is Marketing’s role (today)?
ByI recently received an invitation to become a member of CLOSE – Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness. It looked interesting enough so I joined. After the registration process was complete I was presented with a page on the site and noticed a “True or False” item in the Daily Digest. The title was “Myth: Marketing Focus”. So I clicked. What the heck.
The True of False statement was “Marketing should focus on brochures, web site communication, and tradeshow management”. The myth was presented by Paul DiModica of DigitalHatch.
Paul’s answer? False. Good, I agree, continue reading…
Revenue is revenue. Marketing’s primary business responsibility should be creating qualified sales leads for Sales.
I took a look at the link provided to one of Paul’s articles and I agree with a lot of what Paul is saying in his article, but he’s dead wrong on this myth. Stating that Marketing’s primary business responsibility is creating qualified leads for Sales is the typical “I don’t really understand the role of marketing” response that I see from Sales.
Selling is a tactical activity. Always has, always will. Marketing is strategic. People who have the misfortunate title of VP of Sales and Marketing cannot possibly being doing both activities very well. More often than not the focus is on selling (naturally) and marketing becomes a sales support function, reacting to the whim of the sales force.
Marketing is strategic. Marketing’s primary business responsibility is to identify problems in the market and drive the development of products and services that solve those problems. Generating leads is just one of the myriad of tactical activities Marketing performs.
Oh, and by the way, does Sales ever agree that the leads are any good?
Hi,
As a Product Management professional, I agree with your article, with the exception of the second last sentence.
i.e. [Product Management's] business responsibility is to identify problems in the market and drive the development of products and services to solve those problems.
Product Management is sometimes part of Marketing, sometimes part of Engineering, but I believe it should be a peer level function of those on it’s own.
Having said that, I agree Marketing can be strategic. There are different types of marketing of course: product marketing, brand/corporate marketing, events marketing etc.
Product Marketing is the most strategic of those and has a complementary role with Product Management. But while strategic marketing looks at overall market trends and potential impact on the future of the business, it is product management that focuses on market/customer problems and drives product development.
Saeed
Thanks Saeed. Agreed that Product Management owns the activities around identifying problems and driving the development of products and services. My context is a classic definition of marketing where product management is a function within the overall marketing umbrella. I’ve seen product management within development – more so in the tech industry – but what happens is those guys are so tied up worrying about schedules and defining features they don’t have time to pay attention to the market. I’m with you.
Thanks,
–Dave
Amen, Brother Dave! You’re correct – marketing is strategic and sales is tactical. Further, I agree that marketing identifies the opportunities (market) and defines the solutions (products & services) around which the business is built.
Now, within the context of the marketing and sales relationship, which is where I believe Paul was going, I tend to think of marketing as the function that creates the roadmap (strategy) for the sales team to follow to initiate, qualify and close business (tactical). Indeed, marketing also contributes tactically to the mix by delivering tools to support the journey including, among other things, leads, collateral, events and PR.
Problem is, even though a marketing plan has been vetted and blessed by the sales leadership, in practice, sales is going to do what is familiar and what produces quick results. That’s because the sales function is compensated based upon closing business, any business. Unless you have a sales leader and compensation plan that forces – er, promotes – the team to follow the plan, it won’t fully be carried out.
Hierarchically speaking, strategy should trump tactical. Therefore, sales should roll up under the marketing function. The two-headed sales and marketing executive (a cartoonist would have a field day with this!) is a utopian solution that, in theory, provides a single voice to guide the plan and its implementation.
So yeah, given the marketing and sales juggernaut, the leads stink since both teams are really not singing to the same hymn sheet.
Thanks Mike. Great comments. –D