marketing department and Related Posts

Some of the insights in the recent Gamma Notes post on using customer profiles and knowing your audience might seem obvious. But, you’d be surprised how often things like internal protocol or our own personal preferences impact decisions.

In fact, a little (big) something called confirmation bias can impact something as simple as your decision to continue reading this post . . .

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is neatly defined by Science Daily as “a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.”

According to authors Chip and Dan Heath in their book Decisive, confirmation bias is a major roadblock to good decision making because “it can look very scientific. After all, we’re collecting data.”

Right?

They go on:

When we want something to be true, we will spotlight the things that support it, and then, when we draw conclusions from those spotlighted scenes, we’ll congratulate ourselves on a reasoned decision.

Haven’t we all done that? And, if you say no, you’re probably guilty of confirmation bias.

Know Your Audience And Thyself

Know your audience and market accordingly. What's outside the spotlight? — What’s outside the spotlight that you’re not seeing? Know your audience, then act accordingly.

In order to determine which decisions are based on good information versus bias, we have to do some testing. (And of course, not let confirmation bias color how we read the results.)

Returning to an example in the previous post on customer profiles: My friend believed that incoming phone calls held no promise for lead generation.

There are in fact a number of possible variables that could be skewing this perspective, and these variables act as great tips for analyzing almost any similar situation:

Positioning – Perhaps the phone number isn’t presented in such a way that actually encourages use – how would a vanity number change the results? Does toll-free matter? Maybe a simple local number is more appealing to the audience.
Messaging – Is the overall message and brand something people feel they can engage by phone? Or, is the thought intimidating for some reason?
Call to Action – How is the number presented? What’s the expectation that callers have? A wait? A human being? An automated system? Lots of questions?
Bias – She may not like using the phone. (I know, it’s not my first pick either.) Or, perhaps a previous experience involving one of the above has biased her outlook on the phone as a lead generator altogether.

As you can see, there is a great deal to consider and all of the above can be narrowed down with even basic testing and analysis.

For example, a more specific call to action such as “call for a free (blank)” might be all that’s needed to get at least some result. A phone number with no call to action may generate exactly that . . . no action.

So before reinventing the wheel or worse, taking on that rebranding strategy, it can pay to take a step back and look at the situation objectively.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

A business professor and friend once told me, “The numbers don’t lie.” And rarely will your customer profile.

We, on the other hand, lie to ourselves all the time.

How might you be deceiving yourself in the way your business messages, markets, and sells? Please share your thoughts and questions below.

Nowadays, just about any marketing or communications department looks something like the chart pictured here.

Marketing department structure example — An example of typical marketing department structure. Though marketing has changed, many organizations have not changed their approach to it.

Some of the titles may get swapped around or the term marketing gets swapped out for communications if you’re a nonprofit, but the marketing department structure itself is pretty much the same.

The boxes at the bottom can be a whole lot of things depending on your model and organization’s mission. Maybe they represent social media, blogging, and print advertising, for example.

Or, each box might even represent a single social media vehicle like Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. More and more, managing a single one of these channels is a full-time job (or should be) for many organizations. The job requirement depends on your mission and outreach strategies.

But, get ready for the big takeaway from this blog post. Many already know this, but a surprisingly large number of organizations don’t:

Every one of those boxes can be contracted out. And, the farther you get way from the top box, you probably should contract out those roles. In fact, you can – and possibly should – contract out the whole department.

Think about that for a moment. There are a number of reasons that management will immediately claim to challenge this. I’ve heard them. I’ve lived them. Still don’t believe? Please, read on.

Marketing Was Once More Passive

Twenty years ago, marketing was – by the very nature of the mediums available – much more passive. You had advertising and print campaigns, which you could have an ad agency manage of course. But, results and metrics were fuzzy. They took a while to receive and digest.

Maybe you were putting together a direct mailer. Same thing. A phone campaign would be more engaging, but again, results and feedback are slow. You might put a trade show booth together, and while this too would be less one-way, it made sense to manage much of the preparation and staffing in-house.

Regardless, all of these are mostly static tactics that are managed well and executed upon within the kind of hierarchy we see in our chart here.

More importantly, “best practices” weren’t changing much in the foreseeable future.

Marketing Is Now Much More Dynamic

Marketing department structure pictured with question mark — Marketing has become far more dynamic than ever before. In fact, it’s difficult to keep up with the trends and tools without specializing.

The speed with which a message can be constructed, distributed, evaluated, tested, improved upon (and repeat) is much faster now: Hours in many cases and even minutes in some.

In short, for communications and marketing departments, the landscape, mediums, and tools have changed dramatically – even over the last five years. But, organizational structure and procedures have not.

And, if you’re a small business or nonprofit, all the added “convenience” of smartphones and social media have only resulted in more items on your to-do list . . . or even worse, your wish list.

For many, “in-house” is no longer getting results. And, the returns will in most cases diminish over time.

The Biggest Problem With “In-House” Is Stagnation

Organizations by their very nature aren’t often great at innovation and evolution. They are good at deliberation and staff retention. And, the bigger they are, the better they get at these things. This inevitably leads to stagnation. I have watched this happen firsthand. You can see this for yourself in many of the dinosaur companies that still walk among us.

Experience in widget making or widget maintenance is good. Broad, seasoned personal networks built over time are good. But, the search for new ways to capture new eyes, ears, hearts, and minds requires something different. It requires new insights and a view from the outside.

With such dynamic landscapes in mobile marketing, search marketing (that includes SEO), content marketing, and social media marketing, innovation and evolution are exactly what is required.

The agile and the flexible will not only keep up, they will grow and dominate.

Know Your Audience . . . Then, Act Accordingly