Question

Topic: Strategy

Marketing Dilemma

Posted by Anonymous on 12/11/2007 at 1:09 PM ET 25 Points
Hello everyone. I’m new to Marketing Profs and joined the site to see if there’s anyone in my similar situation (who I can get advice from). Currently I work at a company where the marketing department numbers two – me and my boss, the marketing director. Now, most of his time is spent developing our product leaving me as a pseudo marketing director. Needless to say I feel that my experience level isn’t high enough to be in this position. But I make due.

Now that you have some background, here is the situation:

We are a software developer selling to the worldwide market. Our customer database is non-existent and contains inaccurate, incomplete, outdated information. There are no tracking systems in place to monitor marketing ROI. Our resellers outside the US do their own marketing, but there’s no system in place to communicate with them. Most of my time is spent working with US publications (PR and Advertising) which don’t yield many results because there is no US sales force backing my marketing.

I spend my time going round and round in circles tying to make a difference here, but with no real direction (by bosses provide none) and no research. I feel dead in the water.

That said here’s my idea to get things moving:

1. Immediately stop all marketing projects in the US
2. Work get the information in our customer database verified and filled
3. Work with resellers to implement a system where I become the “head” of their marketing systems
4. Develop an information tracking system and disseminate it amongst resellers to the resellers to gauge the effectiveness of their advertising

My questions are:

1. Is there anyone else in a hopeless-looking situation like this?
2. Does my plan of action seem appropriate for the situation?
3. What would some of you differently?

I realize there might be some gaps of information here. So if there’s something I didn’t make clear, let me know.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 12/11/2007 at 1:45 PM Accepted
    Your situation is probably not that uncommon. I have been in close to the same situation a few times before.

    I know it can be frustrating. You can't track the value of the work (and determine ways to improve the work) without taking more control. But there is a cost of that control - and that happens at the sales end. This is a trade off - if marketing gets too much control, the marketing programs are more effective, but it puts barriers (sometimes large) on sales - which doesn't help the overall goal of growing the business. I would look at ways to make incremental improvements that don't radically effect other groups within the org just yet.

    Some concrete thoughts:
    > 1. Immediately stop all marketing projects in the US
    I would NOT do this, unless you knew for sure that the current marketing programs were not effective. You could be stopping marketing programs that are working (whether bringing in leads or just building your brand), which would hurt the business more than the waste of ineffective programs.

    > 3. Work with resellers to implement a system where
    > I become the “head” of their marketing systems
    You said that resellers were used outside the US (are they also used inside the US?). The ones outside the US I would leave doing as they have been. It doesn't sound like you really have a good handle even on your local market - and foreign markets can be very different. Let them keep running as they are for now and focus on learning about, and improving, the local markets. The foreign resellers may not be sharing info which bothers you, but they are experts on how to go to market in their regions, which you likely aren't.

    How do you go to market in the US? You say you don't have a local sales force, so I assume you use resellers?

    Assuming you sell through resellers, which means you have very limited control of the info, you can still get some idea of effectiveness of programs by tracking number of leads. For example, if you send out bingo cards (the card packs that are sent by magazines to their lists), you can have the cards come back to you, who marks down the number of leads and then forwards to the appropriate. Same can be done with trade shows that you guys run (as opposed to ones where the reseller is putting up the money).
  • Posted on 12/11/2007 at 1:55 PM Author
    Peter, thanks for your reply.

    In regards to #3, our company has no US sales force (reseller or internal). We take orders if customers call in, but that's it. We advertise in trade publications, write press releases and work to get articles published. I agree we have no handle on the local market. However, management does not want to invest the time or effort in developing it.

    And to clarify my idea. The role I would play with our international resellers would be more information broker and less managerial. I guess "head" implies I'd be telling them what to do, but in reality I think I'd just be gathering information about their successes and providing that data to other resellers around the world to use in marketing materials and case studies. I'd also be supporting them in other capacities, like designing collateral pieces and writing copy for English-speaking countries.

    What was the similar situation you found yourself in prior ?
  • Posted by michael on 12/11/2007 at 2:13 PM Member
    Dave,

    What would you do if it was YOUR company? Sometimes you have to step out of your role to determine what you should be doing. If your market is all international, why spend money here in the US?

    You may have to rebuild your database on your own time. Are you willing to do that?

    I've been here before. In many ways I enjoyed the challenge.

    Michael
  • Posted by Frank Hurtte on 12/11/2007 at 3:07 PM Member
    I would be careful as you plan on pulling information from independant resellers. The issue becomes- many of these folks view selling information as their security in life.

    Be prepared with somekind of agreement prior to approaching them. the agreement needs to cover them against you deciding to go direct in the near future.
  • Posted on 12/11/2007 at 3:15 PM Author
    Wow...guess I chose the right marketing community. :-) Thanks for all your replies. You've all been a great help.
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