Marketer, Know Thyself: The Power of Periodic Self-Evaluation

The sign on the back of the truck asks, “How's my driving?” A card in the hotel room invites guests to comment on their stay. The wireless phone guy keeps inquiring, “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?”

What if you posted a sign in your organization that read, “How's my marketing?” Would you like what you heard? And would you know what to do with the information you got back?

People have expectations for what marketing should be doing and how it figures into the company's success. But these don't always jive with how marketing views itself and its role.

Such disconnects can spell trouble, often raising doubts about how well marketing is tuned into the realities of the organization around it. “My play was a complete success,” quipped playwright Ashleigh Brilliant. “The audience was a failure.”

Whether rational and well-founded or not, “expectation gaps” between marketing and other groups can limit the former's effectiveness and the quality of its relationships with the latter.

So understanding and managing expectations, while time consuming and often fraught with dangers, should be an important priority for marketing that will help it to head off serious troubles before they start.

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Basil Harris, Jr. is the founder and president of MarketStreams (www.marketstreams.com), a strategic and product marketing consulting firm based in New Hampshire. He can be reached at bharrisjr@marketstreams.com