Marketing Is Not A Spectator Sport
No matter what marketing efforts you pursue in support of your organization’s strategy and objectives, and no matter who is in charge of implementation, the marketing function is not something you can disengage from and just hand off to “someone else” to fully take care of. You and your entire organization must be engaged!
Unlike your insurance, printing, or accounting – which are often outsourced in their entirety, each and every person in your organization should be involved (to some degree) with your marketing efforts. For example, your company’s image, reputation, and success all depend on many things, including what you provide, how team members interact with customers, and what your operation looks like (both physically and online) – All of these are part of marketing!
Here are a few ideas to help the ‘marketing’ be less like what people observe (or maybe even not aware of), and become more like something they engage in to make it more effective:
- Ask employees – at all levels – to provide information on what they experience while they go about their daily activities and discuss the employees’ feedback with your marketing team.
- Share with your employees the marketing efforts the company is pursuing (or ask the marketing team to do that)
- Ask the team members in other departments to participate and support marketing efforts whenever possible, especially on social media and informing customers of initiatives.
- Periodically let all employees know what outcomes the marketing efforts have yielded.
- Solicit your employees’ input on the ongoing marketing efforts and any other marketing ideas they might have and share those with the marketing team.
- Make sure that other functions within the organization fully utilize the fruits of the marketing efforts, by following up with leads, replying to
inquiries, using branded collateral, participating in events, etc.
Marketing cannot and should not operate in isolation. It must be consistently ‘fed’ information from those who make whatever it is you deliver, have the experiences with customers, and more. Likewise, everyone should know what the marketing team is doing, and they should support these efforts to fully benefit from what is being done.
Fractional CMO & Marketing will be happy to discuss your marketing efforts and how you get more return on your marketing investment by engaging the entire organization – Just give us a call!
Duke Merhavy, MBA, Ph.D.
President & Chief Marketing Officer
What Is Fractional CMO & Marketing?
Fractional CMO & Marketing is ‘Your Outsourced Marketing Department’ when you need expert marketing leadership and marketing services to accelerate growth and improve profitability, but you’re not quite ready to hire a full-time Chief Marketing Officer or your own marketing department.
Our unique arrangement is the most efficient, innovative, and cost-effective formula for you. Click on the image to the left to watch a short video.
We Help When You Need To:
- Establish brand awareness, recognition, and preference
- Differentiate your brand from the competition
- Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Develop lasting relationships with customers
- Introduce new products
Holiday Ads and Nostalgia – Observations
By Ginger Mace, Editor and Producer
This past winter holiday season, many of our favorite, traditional advertisements were dusted off from December 2019 and years prior. They made their usual and expected appearances on our TVs, and rudely interrupted what we were watching on YouTube (which was somewhat annoying, but the nostalgia we felt pretty much overruled any genuine irritation).
Corona’s palm trees, Coca Cola’s polar bears, Budweiser’s Clydesdales, and the surprise interaction between M&Ms and Santa Claus that causes Kris Kringle to faint are all constants we have seen, whether in a pandemic year or not. Hershey’s, however, decided to alter their very popular and tenured Kisses ad with a new iteration called “Bells to Blossoms”. As you probably remember from seeing it countless times prior to 2020, 9 Hershey Kisses, taking on the tone of bells, ‘play’ the festive favorite “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, and one silver-wrapped Kiss conducts the piece. In 2020 this stalwort-since-1989 Hershey’s commercial was drastically changed, and a mere 4 seconds in, the bells are replaced by horns, and a small hand grabs a red foil Kiss, and pulls it out of the frame. We then see a sweet-and-smiling daughter and father preparing unwrapped Kisses for their final fate, the ‘blossom’ part of a Peanut Butter Blossom cookie.
While we can all agree that’s a tasty treat, many fans did not take kindly to the change, but they did take to Change.org to create a petition asking for a return to the original commercial, and to social media (especially Twitter) to express their feelings:
@bhause171: “Every year I look forward to the Hershey Kisses Christmas commercial. I always pause to listen to [its] familiar melody as it brings back cherished Christmas memories. So, this year, when so many traditions can’t be celebrated, @Hersheys decides to revamp it. #Thanks2020”, along with a broken-heart emoji.
@EddiePeezy: “THEY UPDATED THE HERSHEYS KISS COMMERICIAL, AKA MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS COMMERCIAL 😢😢😢😢 THIS YEAR CAN GO STRAIGHT TO HELL”
@StephRanno: “Hershey’s update of their iconic “Christmas Bells” ad is apparently the final straw for many stressed out, pandemic-weary chocolate lovers.”
@kemenhiser: “Hershey’s redoing their Christmas commercial is personally the last straw of 2020 for me”
The backlash was so strong, NBC’s The Today Show and other news and entertainment programs actually did stories on it. The lesson here seems to be “in a difficult year with so many alterations and restrictions to the way we conduct our everyday lives, don’t change the nostalgic ads we have come to know and love”.
We’re pretty sure that there will be some notable differences in advertisements and sponsorships between 2020’s Super Bowl LIV and this year’s game between the NFC and AFC champions. Next month, we’ll take a look at Super Bowl LV, from this same perspective.
Top 10 Signs A Fractional CMO Could Benefit Your Company
Your business could receive great value from engaging a Fractional CMO in many different circumstances. Do any of the following sound familiar, or describe the situation at your company?
1. The organization is growing and could do so more and faster with the expertise of a C-level marketing executive, but the budget for a full-time one doesn’t exist
2. Founder, CEO, Executive Director, Owner, or a similar title goes with your name, and you’re handling the marketing too
3. Both the sales and marketing functions are handled by the same, lone individual
4. Departments within your company don’t seem to be aligned with, interested in, or invested in marketing efforts (current ones or at all)
5. The business is in a rut, and you could use some fresh eyes looking at the situation
6 There is an influx of opportunities and projects you want current staff to focus on, but don’t want to stall marketing efforts
7. You have a Marketing Associate or Marketing Manager on staff already, but they could use some direction to take things up a few notches
8. It’s time to change direction, seek investments, and seek out prospects in new target markets
9. Revenue is down, or a major business-altering event has happened (such as repeated pandemic closures or replacing the organization’s management team)
10. What worked in the past to drive sales isn’t working anymore
We encourage you to reach out to us if any of these scenarios are applicable to your organization. It only costs your time to chat with us about the situation you’re facing, and if you like what you hear, we offer a free marketing needs assessment!
Take Advantage of Us
Call us at 888-412-2236 or use the button below to request a complimentary Marketing Needs Assessment, or to ask us a question regarding your most pressing marketing or sales challenges.
