Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

Starting A Marketing Department From Scratch

Posted by Anonymous on 7/1/2008 at 6:08 AM ET 250 Points
I am a new Managing Director for a web-design firm whos primary competency is in mobile web integration for websites (B2B mostly). We rely heavily on word of mouth and leads from our close network of business friends. Our board is majority software engineer and most of our staff are developers. I am one of two business strategists, and have been gunning for more focus on sales and marketing / advertising, and allowing everyone else to focus on the technology our company uses. I have decided to create our own Marketing Department, we are starting with no structure in place for marketing.

I need to provide the company with board meeting objectives, to do lists for my two staff members, and mini goals to start to define and create a marketing structure and strategy. But I do not know where to begin or what these meeting objectives should be. I am really working alone and trying to open communication and brainstorm with our board about what I need from them.

I need to create a day-to day list of responsibilities and goals for the Marketing team as well. The two staff members I was given to work with are not marketing experts, and I was told for this initial phase we will need to work with what we have. Where should I begin to help manage my staff in their day to day marketing efforts and research (a to do list or a job descrioption for each).

The other necessity I need to create is a way to communicate with our more technical team. Perhaps a list of questions to discuss at a meetings with our board of software engineer experts. How can I clearly focus our meetings so they do not become so technical, I need some advice or some clear specific steps to bringing order to the department, while including the company techies. We are havcing trouble growing or implementing markeitng becuase of this lack of clear do-commands for the technical directors. Any advice would be great.

Lastly, We do not have a solid sales process and are clarifying this now. The issue is that the technical software support of tracking development changes and what software we are to use or build with, has always been voted as first most important, second to a solid sales process, it has been agreed to be the first step. I personally agree we must support but at some point the sales must begin as well, and cannot begin without a clear process in place simultaneously. I seek direction in this area as well. My expertise is in customer service departments, zand less in how to work with technical engineers and unify the two so that both areas are satisfied.

I have not met resistance yet, however I am asked to clearly bring fourth a plan of actions. Any advice on where to begin? What kinds of positions should I give my two staff memebrs and any strategic ideas on what their duties should be?

Thank you!

Maria Duponte
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 7/1/2008 at 8:33 AM Accepted
    Hi Maria,

    You are asking great questions. That is a wonderful first step.

    In reading your post, however, you mentioned you had two people working for you, and that they didn't have a marketing background. In order to address this specific issue, I would like to know what their background is in.

    What are their talents, strengths, skills, etc?

    Kris
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 7/1/2008 at 9:50 AM Accepted
    I would start by seeing what metrics you're currently measuring with your products and your own marketing. This will provide both a baseline for your future marketing efforts and involve engineering in the feedback loop of measurement. Your reports to engineering can likewise be in numbers: besides sales and leads, conversions, keyword searches, online mentions, etc.
  • Posted by melissa.paulik on 7/1/2008 at 10:24 AM Accepted
    Kris asked exactly the same question as I was going to ask. We need to know what you have to work with.

    In my career, I have worked with a lot of small software companies with no budgets and no background in marketing. In general, the best piece of advice I can give is not to create too grand of a plan. You can really dig yourself into a hole by trying to be too many things if you haven't covered the basics and built up your team's skills sets.

    As a foundation for anything that you do in the future, you should start with solid messaging. What is it that you are selling to your customers and why should they care? Based on the way you described your company i would guess you have all kinds of technical specs and explanations. Marketing needs to turn that into the "so what"" for the customer. Everything else you do will be built off of that.

    If you have the budget for training, I highly recommend getting your entire team to Pragmatic Marketing. The basic class will give you a good foundation for what a marketing team is supposed to do. From there, you can figure out what you can do with the skills you have on staff today.

    All the best!

    Melissa
  • Posted on 7/1/2008 at 1:14 PM Author
    Thank you for your questions, Both staff memebrs are technical people, one with a background in software engineering. The other has graphics and some sales experience in softwareThey are both task oriented.


    As for our metrics used to determine products and marketing now, we generally compare the cost of development, the estimated value of the customer, as wel as we decide weight is added to moves and marketing methods that will enhance or reinforce our market position.

    Determining what products to push seems to depend entirely on what the development teams of our company is working on most of the time so we can reuse code before it is old. This keeps us relaint on old work in order to promote new work, and Id like to see us more proactive. becuase of our differences we are kept as a business in reaction marketing, but for a task oriented person this is clear direction.

    Our messaging for each sale is currently clear (after we meet for several months) but I would like to come up with a game plan for gathering these sale ieas quickly and turning them into do-commands for everyone and solid direction. I think our last sale was rather small bu bcuase of the disorder at meetings, our board was meeting for 4-6 hours each time regarding the nature and direction, and everyone had great peices of ideas, but we got no where as it had taken too long thus far and the discussion was not given a very clear objective. I'd like to come up with a list of steps, like a project format, that we can follow with small milestones and clear step to achieving a sense of direction.

    Hopefully this answers your questions.

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