A friend told me about an online industry community she had invested her firm's money and time in over the past year. She has worked hard to cajole her colleagues into producing blogs on their areas of expertise, take part in discussion threads and even post videos from conferences and C level executives.
In spite of this effort, she just couldn’t seem to get her business behind the channel. In particular, her firm consistently failed to input to the topics the community were most engaged about as effectively as her competitors.
Despite the success of her company’s competitors had shown in increased engagement and sales, despite the investment already made and the apparent opportunity the growing community presented; A committee of recently appointed managers cancelled the initiative's budget, because changing the way her organisation operated was seen to be 'just too hard.'
I learned early in my career as a marketing manager at one of the largest organisations in the world that just because something was hard to do, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. This wasn’t the mantra of the business, but my line manager. A man in his late thirties that had risen rapidly to run a pan European US$200 million turnover division and was perceived by his peers to have the alchemist's touch. How had he done this, he changed the businesses he ran to be responsive to whatever clients valued. Even if that meant finding new ways of working.
So often in marketing we look to external solutions to achieve our commercial objectives. A different place to advertise, a new event, a bigger or better web site to push our products and services. When in fact, we should simply address the hardest challenge of them all first; Create an effective business that engages in and responds to what our communities are really interested in.
In spite of this effort, she just couldn’t seem to get her business behind the channel. In particular, her firm consistently failed to input to the topics the community were most engaged about as effectively as her competitors.
Despite the success of her company’s competitors had shown in increased engagement and sales, despite the investment already made and the apparent opportunity the growing community presented; A committee of recently appointed managers cancelled the initiative's budget, because changing the way her organisation operated was seen to be 'just too hard.'
I learned early in my career as a marketing manager at one of the largest organisations in the world that just because something was hard to do, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. This wasn’t the mantra of the business, but my line manager. A man in his late thirties that had risen rapidly to run a pan European US$200 million turnover division and was perceived by his peers to have the alchemist's touch. How had he done this, he changed the businesses he ran to be responsive to whatever clients valued. Even if that meant finding new ways of working.
So often in marketing we look to external solutions to achieve our commercial objectives. A different place to advertise, a new event, a bigger or better web site to push our products and services. When in fact, we should simply address the hardest challenge of them all first; Create an effective business that engages in and responds to what our communities are really interested in.
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