What is the “optimal” marketing organization? is a question that I get asked very often. It is a great question, but it misses a bigger issue.
Marketing in professional service firms can be MESSY. Marketing departments are tossed hither and yon as firms wrestle with how much to invest in Marketing or whether it should exist at all. Firm leaders ask, “Should we focus on sales?” “Should we organize Marketing by practice, industry, geography–or all three?” “Should Marketing be centralized?” “Should we have a shared services model or should we specialize?” “Do we need more doers or more thinkers?” “Should we use CRM or not?” The questions– and the reorganizations– go on ad infinitum.
Typical Marketing Responsibilities
Most partners and practice leaders I know are exasperated. They ask me questions like:
- “What is the best marketing structure for a firm of our size?”
- “What functional marketing skills [strategy, communications, proposals, CRM, social media, design] should we have?”
- “How much should we spend?”
- “Do we need to be more strategic or tactical?”
My response is always the same: “What do you want your marketing function to achieve?” Most often, they say, “GROW!” Naturally. I ask them:
- “Is it growth from current clients you want or from new clients?
- Or maybe it’s new services?
- Or new markets?
- Is it acquisitions?
- What is your growth starting point? Do you retain 90 percent, 50 percent, or 5 percent of your existing clients?”
These are not profound or difficult questions, but they are seldom asked and less frequently answered. As a result, firms get a discombobulated Marketing team running around trying to meet the whims of partners and demanding practice leaders—all with “a top priority.”
“We need to build our brand, generate leads, develop a strong referral base, maintain loyal clients, develop new products and services, and grow my practice.” That sounds great. My wife wants her anti-aging cream to do a lot for her too– all within the next 14 days– but what’s really possible? (she did approve that inclusion by the way)
What is the state of your current marketing organization?
Do you have a sales force? How does it work with marketing? What technology is in place? Is your brand relevant in the markets you want to pursue? Do you have a clear understanding of ROI for each element of your marketing mix? What is the headcount? What is the budget: one percent of revenues? Two percent? Five percent?
The roles you need on your marketing team
When you are trying to build the “optimal” marketing organization, you must begin with clarity about what you want. If you want growth (and, most often, people do), where does the business plan identify and prioritize it? If you want to build the brand, then what part of brand needs building: brand awareness, familiarity or consideration? If you want leads, then how many? If you want to launch new services, are they solutions, capabilities or products? If understanding client satisfaction and building a referral base is what you want, then do you want to focus on all clients, top clients or new clients?
Takeaway
You can’t build the “optimal” marketing function until you have collective clarity on where you are and where you want to go. Once the firm has become clear on its growth priority, developing an effective and efficient function is relatively straightforward. The leadership, functional skills, strategies and tactics fall into place.
The final marketing function will be as specialized as the organizational structure, culture and budget will allow. With clarity, you can begin to align performance metrics, assess current strengths and weaknesses and begin prioritizing the people, process and technology you will need for your optimal marketing function. Either way, you must begin with the ultimate goal to clean up the mess.
Be prudent.
