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Time To Read: 4 minutes

I Lead Our Marketing Team, But I Have No Idea What I’m Doing.

 
This week, we dedicated our blog to those of you who lead your marketing department but could use some help (basically anyone who does marketing). We share five points for how you can lead your team better. 

Advocate for Excellence within your Organization

It is not just managing the products that we’re selling or the companies that we’re working for, but actually advocating for them. Whenever you can be an advocate for what these companies are doing or what your company is doing then the product will sell. Advocate for excellence within your organization. We can’t stress enough how important it is to you, as the marketing director, to go around to your team and analyze. If you see holes, uniquely bring those up and get them fixed. Be proud of your product and be an advocate.

Determine who your Customers are and Focus

Determine who your customers are in focus marketing. Understanding your customers and how they make decisions is impeccable. Around here we use personas, a way we perceive our customers to make purchasing decisions. Laying all of the details out helps us identify who we’re going after to really know the audience that we want to target. Identify personas and who your target audience is and you’ll always see a better return using data. Let’s get practical. Take a step and try to identify some personas for your own company.

Learn the Voice and Tone of your Organization

Learn the voice and tone of your organization. Develop the voice of the product or the service of your selling. It is very different than how you as an individual would speak as yourself. Let me give one of the best examples I’ve ever seen. A guy that really gets it is currently the CEO of Justin Brands. Justin Brands consist of Justin Boots, Tony Llama, Nocona, and several other boot brands that you may know. I was going to meet with him for lunch and in my mind I envision a guy in jeans, boots and maybe a polo. Instead, he jumps out of his electric car wearing a suit; a complete businessman. He, however, speaks for the brand and speaks everything that the brand stands for. He gets it. His lifestyle may not link up to the brand, but his voice and tone does.

Be an Amazing Storyteller

I would suggest learning from the sales department of your organization. It is more likely they’re most versed in what you guys do. They have to talk to clients all day about it and try to sell products. The reason storytelling is so important is because marketing is storytelling. Sometimes you can make the most boring thing exciting. A great example recently occurred. One of our clients raises, trains, competes and sells bucking bulls. One of their cows, Lacey, gave birth to her first Red Laces bull. Unfortunately, the bull was stillborn. During birth, Lacey’s legs fell asleep inhibiting her ability to stand and cutting off circulation in her legs. The last two days they had been doing everything in their power to help Lacey, from IVs to cranes. We decided this would be a good behind-the-scenes story to tell people. Hundreds followed along in the story as they shared her progress. This was one of the most successful social media things we’ve ever done for them because we took a story and used its’ natural momentum. Being an amazing storyteller is telling a story about your organization whether you know it or not. You’re not just writing content about your business, you’re telling a story about what your business is.

Know your Strengths and Weaknesses

Lastly, focus on your strengths and weaknesses are by understanding what you’re good at and  find ways to outsource the things you’re not good at. In marketing we’ve seen that there’s half of people that are very creative and and the other half that are very structured (focused on management of a project. Typically there’s no one that is good at both. Know your strengths and admit where you’re weak so you can bring people around you who can help accomplish what needs to be done. If you’re the marketing director and you lean more towards creative with people who need you to be more technical, bring someone who can be your technical thinking on board or outsource. We can’t stress enough how it will change the game if you do.

So if you feel stressed, we want to give you words of encouragement. As long as your leadership knows you’ve got their back, and you’ve got the company’s back, then you will thrive. We know a lot of you are in the marketing director role because of how creative you are. Working with a lot of technical people is harder than you thought, but keep your head up and get some help if needed. As long as you’re an advocate of your company and product, you’ll be more than okay!

To hear the full version, head over to our podcast, click here.

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