Part I of III: Knowledge (And it's 3 Dimensions)

Over the last 10 or so years we have witnessed a revolutionary shift in marketing. Cast your mind back to 2004; no social media, no mobile responsive sites, no e-mail automation tools, no analytic's, the list goes on. One thing has remained true through these years however, and that’s that marketing’s main function is to drive revenue for its respective organization.

It’s the businesses that invest in change that differentiate. Those that see the shift, before we've even ‘shifted’. They gain the extra inch, yard or even mile on their competitors and marketing sits at the forefront of this journey. The marketing leadership needs differentiate through innovation, to influence key stakeholders, but most importantly, build and motivate a team for success.  But where do you start?

I have broken my evidence and thoughts down into 3 categories and will do three different blogs for each category for an easier comprehension of the subject matter. The three different categories are: Knowledge, Innovation and Specialization, all equally important when wanting to build a vigorous and successful B2B marketing team and none of them can afford to be overlooked.

Lets tackle the first category, KNOWLEDGE:

Section 1 – Knowledge (and it’s 3 dimensions)

Having spent the last 4 years rolling my sleeves up and learning the functional side of marketing the hard way, it’s only now I can truly see the benefit of understanding the grass roots. Throughout my career, I've worked for organizations and have been a managing partner of a company with limited or no budget, within small teams expected to transform a business with no agency support and in a global, multi-discipline marketing teams with budgets to envy. What has struck me in the larger companies I have worked for or represented as an independent contractor, is the lack of knowledge in the marketing leadership. Now, I need to clarify what I mean by knowledge in this example, as this could be easily misinterpreted. Dimension 1 looks at ‘Hands-on Knowledge’. Knowing how, or at the very least, exactly what is involved in delivering the tactical elements of a marketing plan and strategy.

Building websites, creating social media presence, designing a brochure, creating an animation, writing thought-leadership articles, managing complex agency relationships, placing articles in the media, producing SEO friendly copy, creating, managing and reporting on PPC campaigns, developing email automation campaigns, understanding print specifications…

The list is endless. But it’s also very important. If, as a leader of a marketing team you don’t understand

every one of my previous examples, how can you effectively build and then manage a team to deliver them? How can you accurately select the best agency for the job? And more importantly, how can you properly budget for it? It’s not about being a graphic designer or web developer, but more about understanding what’s involved. In my opinion it’s fundamental, not optional. And what’s more, your team will have a greater level of respect for a leader that understands what they do, than one who blindly dictates.

But knowledge doesn't end with the specific disciplines within a marketing team (we’ll come back to this later) and it certainly doesn't end with just the ‘leader’ of the aforementioned team. Marketing is ultimately responsible for the outbound message of its respective organization. To be able to accurately portray the business, the marketing team needs to intrinsically understand it. Here is dimension 2; ‘Knowledge of your Business’

There will always be subject matter experts within a business and more often than not they will know more about the area they focus on than any member of the marketing team could wish for. What’s important though, that the marketing team has a base level of understanding across all products and services, so that it's able to build relevant engaging campaigns and communications. Marketing teams must make it their business to interact and engage with the knowledge rich communities that surround them in the physical and/or virtual workplace and it’s the marketing leadership’s responsibility to ensure that happens,

The 3rd dimension of knowledge that is vital for any marketing team is the 'understanding of the market'. The challenges our customers and prospects face should shape the way we market our products and services. It’s down to the marketing management to explicitly understand not just those we sell to or could sell to, but also the competition and the growing number of influence-rs in any given market. As a leader of a marketing function, you should understand these aspects in great detail and impart that knowledge to the relevant members of the team.

Talk Talk Business is a great example, they completely reorganized their marketing function in the wake of the re-brand from Opal Telecom, under the leadership of Paul Higgins. Central to this was an ethos of learning and mentoring, which was permeated from the top of the organization downwards, throughout the whole team. The basis of the transformation was a migration to customer-eccentric thinking, with channel managers comprehensively examining and reviewing their respective market segments. As a result, propositions were better targeted, messaging refined and buyer personas created, to enable team members to better understand needs.

This is an excellent example of how a marketing team understands its own business as well as the ever-changing dimensions in their customer markets. They applied this knowledge seamlessly to their content creation strategy and produced a framework for creating and delivering specific types of collateral based on the level of engagement and the stage the prospect was at in the buying cycle.

Catherine Green, Marketing and Communications Director at Mace displayed a similar strategy and developed a strategic marketing planning framework to track buyers’ journeys designed to support the business in winning work. Green lead the creation and launch of a content archive, aimed at assisting marketing and facilitating better pitches closer aligned with client’s briefs. None of this possible of course without a detailed understanding of the business and customer segments. 

Part II of III Innovation is next....

Luis Esparza is a social media marketing expert and the Director of Operations for LEADS 123, Llc.