7 Deadly Sins of Marketing

The 7 Deadly Sins of Marketing

• Marketing departments must justify their existence• Now more than ever

• Perceived lack of accountability

• Easy target for cuts

• Marketers untrained in statistics

• Broken systems frustrate measurement

• Many hesitate to invest in evaluating program success

© 2012 Marketing Operations Partners, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SIN #1: Ill-Defined Metrics

• Age of the “Individual Contributor Director”• Big title, scare resources, little authority

• “Do more with less” mentality• Marketers feel overwhelmed, burned out, ready to jump ship

• Over-dependency on heroes, martyrs & superstars• High turnover, costly mistakes, silos of knowledge

• Collapsed programs as key people leave or burn out

• Potential winning programs left abandoned from lack of owner


SIN #2:Slammed Resources

• Marketing depends on accurate info, a historical view and pattern recognition

• Knowledge in many marketing organizations is scattered all over the place

• When people leave, huge chunks of organizational knowledge is lost

• Info loss is major productivity killer and contributes to less effective decision-making

• Previous marketing investments are wasted when lost insight must be regained or reacquired


SIN #3: Leaky Institutional Memory

• Marketing is valued for creativity but increasingly constrained in expressing it

• Inspired creativity is supported by strong collaborative processes

• Creative burden on one outbound marketer (the “individual contributor director”) limits out of the box thinking

• Poor knowledge management impacts creativity

• Lack of agreement and direction in company (mission, vision, values) also inhibits creativity


SIN #4: Constipated Creativity

• Most enterprises operate in silos and are not structured for effective collaboration• Competitive, power and control-type structures pit colleague-against-

colleague

• Poor alignment of rewards systems only perpetuates this status quo

• Internal communication processes often lack authenticity and accountability

• Communication disabilities and misalignment from within naturally flow outward to customers, investors, the market, etc.

Source: * IDC Executive Brief, “Tech Marketers: Use the Marketing Mix to Build Awareness Plus Demand”, February 2004


SIN #5: Dysfunctional Relationships

• According to IDC*, marketing outsourcing is becoming more common, as vendors seek to maintain or expand program execution without incurring additional full-time employee costs

• Most successful organizations can point to effective long-term marketing supplier relationships as key

• Conversely, a pattern of failed supplier relationships often indicates marketing department failure, rather than poor vendor performance

• The “bring everything in-house strategy”

• The myth that superstar performers are also superstar managers


SIN #5: Dysfunctional Relationship (continue)

Source: * IDC Executive Brief, “Tech Marketers: Use the Marketing Mix to Build Awareness Plus Demand”, February 2004

• Many corporate marketing budgets leave program budget on the table or allocate it to the wrong initiatives

• Time consuming to manage budget effectively

• Each marketing spend-decision creates more work

• Doubt about ability to successfully justify expenditure to management

• Focus instinctively on high-visibility activities and C-level “requests” over fiscal management

• Most decision-making processes are not explicit, leading to a lack of accountability


SIN #6: Poor Decision-Making

• Many companies align fate with success of too few marketing programs

• Over-reliance on any one particular program can derail a company if key program loses momentum

• Many potentially high-leverage programs never get off the ground• For example, customer references, lead nurturing

• Companies attempting to do all their marketing online are violating two well-known principals:

• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

• Meet the buyer in the channel in which they are most motivated to buy, not the one in which you are most motivated to sell


SIN #7: Inadequate Marketing Portfolio

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7 Deadly Sins of Marketing

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