Marketeers – You FAILED!

If you are reading this post right now – it’s one of 3 reasons:

1. you’ve subscribed to my blog and you’re sort of stuck with reading it since you got it via email!
2. you are usually interested with what i have to say
3. as a marketer, you were insulted and intrigued by the subject

Regardless of what brought you here, I hope I can share part of my experience with you on how I believe, as Marketeers, we have failed on multiple occasions because we forget our most important customers – our internal customers! If your company is like most of the companies I worked for, then the marketing department is probably perceived by all other functions as the “money draining department” and the people working in it have their noses stuck in the clouds and thinks less of everybody else – and that is especially true when it comes to the sales department.

As marketeers, we are guilty of negligence when it comes to communicating our plans to the sales team!  Ironically, they should be our primary concern – they are the key success drivers to any marketing promotion. What good is it to have the best marketing campaign and have no one to sell it for you! Who gets your product on the shelves? Who gets you the best place to display your promotion? Who fights on your behalf with the in-store merchandisers? The sales team (trade marketer) does! So if they are not convinced, guess what happens to your “great” campaign – it will FAIL!

The next time you sit down to work on your next big hit, make sure to involve the sales team with you from an early stage to get their feedback and insight – don’t forget, they are your eyes & ears in the market and they should be your primary source of  market intelligence! Sometimes as markekteers, we get consumed by the “flashiness” of a campaign and we forget to test its practicality! On the other hand, that’s the first thing that the sales department looks for!  Think About It!