"During Microsoft’s climb to the top of the software industry, rapid-fire product cycles often happened without much front-end input from the folks in marketing. Engineers would develop new software, pack it with bells and whistles, decide on an acceptable number of bugs and toss it over to marketing for a press release and a launch event."
CMO Magazine, “The Ultimate Bug Fix”
Does this feel familiar? It is a problem that many of us recognize: marketing is simply there to announce this wonderful product (great news!) and the customers are supposed to line up to buy whatever we have built.
If the marketing role is so narrowly defined, who could argue with the logic of using these resources to help close sales?
Of course, this is not the case in every company and if so, it just has to change, and now Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has gone public with a commitment to “be excellent in marketing execution.” So, if even the technology industry is growing up and starting to understand what other mature industries have understood for a long time, marketing superiority delivers a sustainable, defensible and competitive advantage to those who master it.
It won’t be easy to develop the skills and cultural changes that will enable this new role. Microsoft estimates that they are currently “halfway through what may ultimately be a 10-year journey” to reinvent their marketing organization.
Where are you in the process?
How can we set up a great sales support systems, without losing all marketing resources towards individual sales support?
How can you keep your marketing department visible, service orientated and still focused on the core business?
How can we set up a great sales support systems, without losing all marketing resources towards individual sales support?
How can you keep your marketing department visible, service orientated and still focused on the core business?
Marketing generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves. It sounds so easy but many marketers didn't make it!
Johan Jonker
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