Firejuice founder, Bernard Jansen, explains how small to medium businesses will benefit from managing their marketing internally as well as who should be in charge of the marketing function.
Research conducted by Firejuice amongst entrepreneurs shows that only 24% of businesses do marketing internally while the other 76% don’t employ a marketing person for the business.
Benefits of internalising marketing
The most important reason to consider doing your own marketing, is because marketing is a business function and it should sit inside the business for this very reason. You manage your finances, your procurement, your sales – and so you should manage your (own) marketing too. This way, marketing can be a truly integrated business function.
Secondly, you can take ownership of how you spend your marketing and what effect it has. The ball is in your court and you need to make your marketing work. When managing your own marketing, there are far fewer secrets – you know what you are doing, and you can see the results or lack thereof, directly.
Who should head up the marketing function?
Marketing, at its core, is a strategic function and should be guided by no one other than the CEO. Think about it: choosing target markets, deciding how to position against competitors and selecting appropriate messaging is something that the most important person in the business should be actively involved in.
Despite this, very few business owners have studied marketing. They don’t know the theory behind customer segmentation, target marketing, brand positioning and marketing messaging.
The role of marketing consultants
It is vital for strategic marketing consultants to assist company executives over a short period to align the marketing function to the business strategy and then leave them to manage it themselves.
Marketing consulting should start as a business discussion on the company vision and growth ambitions and then filter down into marketing strategy, communication tactics and eventually sales execution.
As a business owner, you should stop daydreaming about employing a senior marketer in your business. You are that person. The real trick is to know that marketing, like any other field of business, has decades of history behind it and sometimes it helps to rope in outside help for a limited time to get things on-track. You don’t need a marketing director, just a marketing consultant.
