HEY MARKETING: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY? Building and Demonstrating the Value of Technology Marketing

This American Marketing Association (AMA) roundtable event was held on February 19, 2004.

The Panel

  • Jeff Hayward, National Marketing Manager, PeopleSoft Canada
  • John Foreman, Vice-President, Corporate Marketing, CGI Group Inc.
  • Ron Mitchell, Vice-President, Integrated Communications for the Canadian Trading Area, Fujitsu Consulting
  • Ken Kirk, Vice-President of Sales, KPMG Canada

    • This discussion was moderated by Bob Becker, Principal, SMA.

    What is the marketing function in your organization, and how has it changed in the last few years?

    • We take a broad approach to marketing in three main areas: strategy, branding and awareness, and business development support. The focus changes with the market – in good times there are a lot of sales opportunities; in bad times, more sales support is required from marketing.
    • Traditionally, our marketing function has been focused on events and pure marketing activities; now we’re focused more on measurement activities. Investment must equate with results – there’s more pressure on marketing to do this.
    • Recently, there has been less of an emphasis on soft and awareness marketing and more of a focus on our accountability to drive the business.
    How is marketing viewed at your organization – a necessary evil, a cost, strategic enabler, driver of stakeholder value?How do you move from the perception of marketing as a cost to a builder of shareholder value?
    • We need to be viewed as part of the business that delivers value. We build plans that have specific objectives, and we use tools that can extract and measure results.
    • We focus on revenue generation. But when we work closely with sales, it’s perceived that we’re ignoring other parts of the organization.
    • Marketing is viewed as a necessary evil. In the short term, there’s lots of pressure from sales to deliver results. But by providing strategic services we deliver the highest value, which is not always viewed as favourably.
    • Sales’ responsibility is to focus on the next customer, the next opportunity. It’s up to marketing to maintain value and keep a dialogue going with the existing customer. We have to engage many tools to maintain contact with the customer in a way that doesn’t undermine the sales function.
    How can marketers be more efficient in communicating and building a relationship with sales?
    • How many people in marketing can say they’ve seen a customer in the past week? That’s the number one way to establish credibility with sales.
    • Each marketing team spends 25 per cent of their time with customers, and this is reported on to the president. At the same time,we aren’t sales and don’t want to be sales.
    • We’re involved in customer dialogue and RFP preparation. This gives us the opportunity to be “in the loop”. We get together with sales to build strategy.
    Should marketing report to sales, or should they continue to be a separate entity?
    • Each enterprise will determine their own model, and each function must be clear on their own responsibilities. A sales dominated process may be too focused on the short term, but marketing still needs to be accountable for results. Establish a service level agreement by marketing function to each line of business.
    • Our sales and marketing departments report to the same individual, but are separate structures. We go to market as an industry, combined.
    • Marketing should be accountable to the whole organization, and should provide ultimate value up and across
      • the organization.
    We’re supposed to be effective in marketing externally. What can we do to communicate better with our business units?
    • That’s called “the marketing of marketing”. Spend time communicating to other departments about what you’re doing.
    • Hold the lines of business responsible for the “what” and “who”, and establish a marketing communications role for the “how”. Have an integrated function to communicate for different business units – marketing then becomes a partner to all.
    • Conduct internal surveys and focus groups – what do the other business units think about our services? This gives them a greater involvement in what we do.
    Has your marketing budget -- as a percentage of revenue – declined? If so, how have you managed that shrinkage?
    • If marketing is supported by good management principles and tools, then you’re in a position to make intelligent decisions on where to cut. Build a system with marketing resource tools and get a whole view of marketing activities and how they line up to company strategy.
    • There tends to be a lot of duplication in marketing – if you can cut out waste and duplication, that money can be thrown into new initiatives, such as tapping into the existing customer base.
    Is it possible to put an ROI on all marketing activities?
    • There’s a distinction between ROI and measurement. If you can’t measure it, you shouldn’t be doing it. You need objectives for your investments, and those objectives need to be expressed in measurable results.
    • Measurement should be intuitive and integral in every marketing event. Look for tangible measurement of results; the more measurements we have in place, the better to build a case for future initiatives.
    What marketing initiatives are working better today than yesterday?
    • Anything that shows proof – customer testimonials, case studies, success stories. Develop a formalized plan to reach customers – embrace them in a sophisticated program that makes them an advocate for your product/service.What does the customer get? Visibility,great partnership building.
    • Anything that the customer or independent source says has more value than what we say about ourselves.
    • Have members of your marketing team become subject matter experts on particular industries. Get to know the key players, buying process, buyer thinking. Become a trusted advisor to sales – that builds more credibility with sales and with the customer.
    • Turn industry experts into marketing people.

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