How Mature is Your Marketing Function?

The sun is shining (pass the ice lollies!), and recruitment businesses are making hay again. But, what does this mean when the pendulum swings? Looking at the past 16 months or so, the brands who are now thriving are the ones who put their brand awareness and market positioning first. 

Whether that was a LinkedIn live, thought-provoking content, or some good old PR, the brands who invested in getting their business front and centre are the ones who are now reaping the benefits. So, it will be no surprise that when the market’s current boom hits a steadier (albeit slower) rhythm, acing your brand awareness and market positioning will be the key to success.

At Marmalade we're all advocates of the trustworthy AIDA model (see, those degrees can come in handy!), and it's no more important than after a crisis such as the pandemic. 

On the flip side of those brands who are thriving are the ones who are fighting; fighting to keep up, with little in their business that could sustain the huge knocks of an economic crisis. Meanwhile, there are the ones who clicked ‘cruise mode’ and are sitting back, waiting until the storm weathers. However, as UK restrictions lift and businesses adapt to potentially living with COVID, the storm may indeed not weather at all - at least not in the way some businesses are hoping.

All in all, these organisations are the unfortunate ones that have been through too much pain to ever recover. For those recruitment businesses, either a phoenix out of the flames or those raising altitude, it's vital that marketing maturity isn't overlooked. 

What is marketing maturity, you say? Before you guess, it’s not the combined age of your marketing team, and it’s more than how many wrinkles are in those pages of ‘Marketing for Dummies’ that your MD bought in 2006.

Essentially, your marketing maturity is your approach to your marketing and how much time and effort you invest in it. Put bluntly, it’s no more than a toddler with a case of the terrible twos if you think posting your latest roles on Twitter makes for a great campaign. 

If that sounds like your approach, you should consider growing up - seriously. Just like a child, you need to nurture and educate your marketing function with a more informed approach - one that will get you the return on investment that your SLT will be looking for.

Still feel like you’re stuck in the school days? Not to worry - we’ve outlined the 3 key areas to more mature marketing below:

Strategy

Having a formal plan is non-negotiable. It doesn't have to be a weighty document - remember, more words don’t necessarily mean more value. It should be succinct and focus on the main areas. 

Start with the goal and objectives of the business - you should know this off the top of your head from all the board meetings that they get bandied around in. For example, maybe your director wants to grow in a new market, or launch a certain service offering. This is the golden ticket information you need.  

Structure this strategic plan into areas of focus that will meet the objectives you've set. To take the example of launching a new service further - what would your aims look like in relation to success of the launch? Your end result would be for the service to be promoted and gaining traction, so you need to make the right noise. Think of your strategy as the starting point that opens up how you will reach the objectives you want to meet - and that will give you the idea of what success looks like. 

Tactical Delivery

So, you know what you want to achieve, and you’ve formulated an idea of what success looks like - so, now you need to take the how further. Maybe your idea of success in your strategy is to reach a certain amount of traffic to a particular landing page promoting a new service?

Well, to get there you’ll need a landing page to direct visitors to. It sounds simple, but planning out all the activities that will support the strategy ahead of time will give you a clear roadmap to success.

The key to these first two steps is that by taking your business goals and objectives, you can start to formulate what success looks like, and how you will get there - voila, one freshly served strategy, complete with a tactical plan.

Performance Review and Improvement 

Are you ticking more boxes off the list than you're adding? Throughout the marketing process, you will continuously unearth challenges and issues that you didn't know existed. Think of the marketing stone being lifted and all the bugs (well, virtual ones anyway) revealing themselves. We only know what we know until we lift the lid. Marketing isn't responsible for the bugs by the way, we can just get blamed and we take it on the chin!

However, by setting out key milestones on your roadmap, you can make sure that all your tech is in order and your teams are as best supported as they can possibly be to hit those all important goals and objectives - and most importantly, you’ll be able to flag issues before they even arise (and get them sorted ahead of time, of course).

And another thing that these reviews reward you? The chance to change direction. It’s scary, we know. A lot of business owners and department managers are sometimes afraid to change course, but it’s something we encourage. Marketing is both a science and an art at the same time, a fine balance that sometimes goes off-kilter. So, in those scenarios, you need to smash some things to smithereens and take different action - and that’s okay. 

 The best thing to do is to back yourself - trust your instinct as the expert in the area, and lead with that knowledge in tow. Or outsource the task to a recruitment marketing partner. 

And that’s the crux of it all - backing what you know, combined with the passion for your business and lessons learnt from previous successes (and failures, they’re equally important). Much like as humans grow, progressing a marketing function isn’t always plain sailing - yet, it’s vital to help business to thrive. 

Still feel like your marketing function is more ‘infant’ and less ‘innovative’?

Speak to us, we can help you take your activities from Huggies to huge success in no time. Just don’t try to call after 5PM - some of the team may be picking up their own kids from after-school club.