Jack Kenny11.14.16
The most recent Front Row column addressed the usefulness and basic how-to of branding, of developing a corporate personality and a brand strategy for your business. In this issue, we’ll delve into the job description of a person whose main objective is to promote your brand. That individual is the marketing director.
Big, powerful companies have marketing VPs who oversee teams that focus on the many aspects of this particular discipline. It’s probably a safe bet that label converters who employ marketing people have only one such person, who might be called a marketing manager or coordinator instead of director. Nevertheless, the work is the same but on a different scale.
Why employ a marketing person? What do they do?
Sales involve selling your product to customers. Marketing is selling your company to customers, potential customers, and the rest of your industry. The marketer has a strong role in creating the brand strategy and is the one who is mainly charged with implementing it.
In practical terms, the marketing person:
Identifying and studying industry trends is one of the most significant aspects of the marketer’s job. The individual must be – or become – highly proficient in analyzing and understanding trends for the benefit of the company. It is from this work that target markets are determined and marketing strategies are developed to best penetrate them.
Some think of marketing people simply as those who create advertisements and other promotions. That remains part of the job duties, perhaps, but this is the Information Age, and the scope of the work has exploded. It’s safe to say that a label converter will not advertise in newspapers, on the radio or television, or via airplane banners. The only print advertising that makes good sense is in trade publications that are viewed by customers and target customers.
People today, however, spend more time online and are much more likely to come across your advertisement while viewing a web page or an email that is specific to their industry. Here’s an example: As a freelance writer, I’ve been covering the beer business, among others, for many years. Today, I subscribe to quite a few daily emails from individuals and companies that report on trends and activities in that field. I can assure you that, at least once a month, I’ll come across a small ad by a printer who wants to make beer labels. It might be a shot in the dark from a converter who prints anything and everything at commodity pricing, but it catches the eye. And today’s craft beer industry is huge and populated overwhelmingly by small brewers.
Then there are Facebook and Twitter. You and your marketing manager might feel comfortable with those platforms but not everyone is. Do a bit of exploring to find out if your business targets are visible in that part of the digital world.
Websites are crucial tools, and if you’re not already spending time on those of your competitors, start now. See what they show and do, and then compare them with yours. Put as much information as possible on your website. Yes, I know that some label converters are shy about exposure, but that has to stop. People demand knowledge. Your marketing expert should be skilled in search engine optimization to get your site and your company’s name quickly into the eyes and minds of your clients. Publish a blog on a regular basis and play it up in the regular emails that you send to everyone on your list. And make that list longer.
The marketing professional has to know everything about the company: every department and how it works, every machine and how it works, every process and every product. If the marketer is pitching a story about the company or one of its new technologies or products, he or she has to be able to answer the editor’s questions. They’ll set up interviews with the top brass, certainly, but his or her understanding of, say, digital printing or complex label constructions will go a long way toward generating deep interest in the subject.
The marketing person also will become well known to every customer and to as many target customers as possible. This has to happen if the company’s image and brand is going to grow. He or she will go on calls with the sales reps and will be involved in developing a sales strategy that will persuade the listener to buy the products. This person has to be good at numbers and know the sales figures to determine if the marketing and sales strategies are working as planned.
Yes, sales people are territorial (pun intended), and they might not be fond of others horning in on what they do on a personal visit. Who needs marketing, anyway? I make my numbers! And yet if something doesn’t go right, it’s easy to point to the marketing expert with his or her feel-good ideas about business.
With the full backing of top management, the marketing manager or director should become a necessary participant at every sales meeting. Sales are the primary goal of marketing, and marketing is a powerful tool for a sales person. Everyone on the sales force should be armed with statistical data on every market in which the company performs and with every other piece of knowledge that the marketing person develops.
Another job of the marketing expert is to act on behalf of the company when something goes wrong. Just as he or she has to prepare for planned events, they also must be ready for the unplanned. Something is late, something was manufactured incorrectly, someone misspoke, emotions flare. The skilled marketer has the practiced skill of smoothing the wrinkles, of minimizing damage with calm control and addressing the problem with accuracy and concern.
This brings us to the character and the personality of the person we want for the job of marketing professional. The skills must be there – that’s a given – but that’s only part of it. The person you hire for the job must blend perfectly with your company’s personality and must really want to do so. You want to see intuition, poise, people skills, a forthright and positive attitude, and a genuine respect for the work of others. It’s a tall order.
The 21st Century marketing professional does what his or her predecessors could not do. John Fox summed it up in the Huffington Post: “For the first time it’s possible to link hundreds of various inputs from internal sources like engineering, sales and customer service with external feeds such as Internet search-related keywords, online advertising, competitor social media, third-party recommendations and all sorts of touch points into a model that yields profitable customers and measurable ROI.
It’s the catbird seat of the entire outreach-to-engagement-to-customer cycle and the essential job description for today’s marketing director.”
The author is president of Jack Kenny Media, a communications firm specializing in the packaging industry, and is the former editor of L&NW magazine. He can be reached by email at jackjkenny@gmail.com.
Big, powerful companies have marketing VPs who oversee teams that focus on the many aspects of this particular discipline. It’s probably a safe bet that label converters who employ marketing people have only one such person, who might be called a marketing manager or coordinator instead of director. Nevertheless, the work is the same but on a different scale.
Why employ a marketing person? What do they do?
Sales involve selling your product to customers. Marketing is selling your company to customers, potential customers, and the rest of your industry. The marketer has a strong role in creating the brand strategy and is the one who is mainly charged with implementing it.
In practical terms, the marketing person:
- Performs valuable research and analysis on trends in your industry
- Identifies target markets and ways to reach them
- Creates marketing strategies for conventional and digital media
- Plans and executes marketing campaigns and manages their budgets
- Meets regularly with clients, and attends industry events
- Ensures that the sales force buys into the marketing plan;
- Monitors the effectiveness of the campaigns
- Involves the company in industry associations and community and charitable events.
Identifying and studying industry trends is one of the most significant aspects of the marketer’s job. The individual must be – or become – highly proficient in analyzing and understanding trends for the benefit of the company. It is from this work that target markets are determined and marketing strategies are developed to best penetrate them.
Some think of marketing people simply as those who create advertisements and other promotions. That remains part of the job duties, perhaps, but this is the Information Age, and the scope of the work has exploded. It’s safe to say that a label converter will not advertise in newspapers, on the radio or television, or via airplane banners. The only print advertising that makes good sense is in trade publications that are viewed by customers and target customers.
People today, however, spend more time online and are much more likely to come across your advertisement while viewing a web page or an email that is specific to their industry. Here’s an example: As a freelance writer, I’ve been covering the beer business, among others, for many years. Today, I subscribe to quite a few daily emails from individuals and companies that report on trends and activities in that field. I can assure you that, at least once a month, I’ll come across a small ad by a printer who wants to make beer labels. It might be a shot in the dark from a converter who prints anything and everything at commodity pricing, but it catches the eye. And today’s craft beer industry is huge and populated overwhelmingly by small brewers.
Then there are Facebook and Twitter. You and your marketing manager might feel comfortable with those platforms but not everyone is. Do a bit of exploring to find out if your business targets are visible in that part of the digital world.
Websites are crucial tools, and if you’re not already spending time on those of your competitors, start now. See what they show and do, and then compare them with yours. Put as much information as possible on your website. Yes, I know that some label converters are shy about exposure, but that has to stop. People demand knowledge. Your marketing expert should be skilled in search engine optimization to get your site and your company’s name quickly into the eyes and minds of your clients. Publish a blog on a regular basis and play it up in the regular emails that you send to everyone on your list. And make that list longer.
The marketing professional has to know everything about the company: every department and how it works, every machine and how it works, every process and every product. If the marketer is pitching a story about the company or one of its new technologies or products, he or she has to be able to answer the editor’s questions. They’ll set up interviews with the top brass, certainly, but his or her understanding of, say, digital printing or complex label constructions will go a long way toward generating deep interest in the subject.
The marketing person also will become well known to every customer and to as many target customers as possible. This has to happen if the company’s image and brand is going to grow. He or she will go on calls with the sales reps and will be involved in developing a sales strategy that will persuade the listener to buy the products. This person has to be good at numbers and know the sales figures to determine if the marketing and sales strategies are working as planned.
Yes, sales people are territorial (pun intended), and they might not be fond of others horning in on what they do on a personal visit. Who needs marketing, anyway? I make my numbers! And yet if something doesn’t go right, it’s easy to point to the marketing expert with his or her feel-good ideas about business.
With the full backing of top management, the marketing manager or director should become a necessary participant at every sales meeting. Sales are the primary goal of marketing, and marketing is a powerful tool for a sales person. Everyone on the sales force should be armed with statistical data on every market in which the company performs and with every other piece of knowledge that the marketing person develops.
Another job of the marketing expert is to act on behalf of the company when something goes wrong. Just as he or she has to prepare for planned events, they also must be ready for the unplanned. Something is late, something was manufactured incorrectly, someone misspoke, emotions flare. The skilled marketer has the practiced skill of smoothing the wrinkles, of minimizing damage with calm control and addressing the problem with accuracy and concern.
This brings us to the character and the personality of the person we want for the job of marketing professional. The skills must be there – that’s a given – but that’s only part of it. The person you hire for the job must blend perfectly with your company’s personality and must really want to do so. You want to see intuition, poise, people skills, a forthright and positive attitude, and a genuine respect for the work of others. It’s a tall order.
The 21st Century marketing professional does what his or her predecessors could not do. John Fox summed it up in the Huffington Post: “For the first time it’s possible to link hundreds of various inputs from internal sources like engineering, sales and customer service with external feeds such as Internet search-related keywords, online advertising, competitor social media, third-party recommendations and all sorts of touch points into a model that yields profitable customers and measurable ROI.
It’s the catbird seat of the entire outreach-to-engagement-to-customer cycle and the essential job description for today’s marketing director.”
The author is president of Jack Kenny Media, a communications firm specializing in the packaging industry, and is the former editor of L&NW magazine. He can be reached by email at jackjkenny@gmail.com.