360 Degree Marketing


Compass

You know about 360 Degree Management, right? The concept that, at the same time as your manager is providing feedback on you, you are providing feedback on your manager. There is a Dilbert cartoon that sums it up where the pointy haired manager is saying to Dilbert that anything that is said about him as a manager will in no way impact Dilbert’s own appraisal. He will be judged solely on his work and performance in the job. So when Dilbert tells him what a bad manager he actually is, how he bullies them, and how unsupportive, de-motivating and generally incapable he is as a manager, the pointy haired boss simply says ‘that’s funny – your performance in the job and work overall seems to be going way down!’ But however sceptical you may find me on the value and effectiveness of 360 degree feedback (and I’m sure some of it works for some people) I am a real believer in something I call 360 Degree Marketing™.

 

I coined this phrase because some time ago I began to realise that to be truly effective at marketing we needed to think far beyond target markets, consumers, customers and segments.

 

Let me explain.

 

Markets are all around us. The idea that, as marketers, we simply need to focus on our external customers and prospects is mistaken, because in this connected world of ours, markets go way beyond this limited view. Think of the whole market and look around you all 360 degrees. It might help to think of it in terms of an old fashioned ship’s compass (or a high tech one if you prefer). When you do that you can plot markets at each point of the compass rose and this is what, for me, that compass looks like:



 

There are, then, four distinct points that we need to consider in 360 Degree Marketing™ and they consist of:

1. External Markets (our traditional market focus)
2. Internal Markets (our own organisation)
3. Suppliers (their support and continued faith in our organisation is key)
4. Stakeholders (the many organisations that influence the well being of our business)

In a connected world they are all inter-related and networked up.  So what we say to one part of this 360 Degree market has impact and implications on many or all of the others.  Yet for most marketers their focus is almost exclusively the traditional external markets. The other points of my 360 degree compass barely register So it may pay to review each of these in turn.

 

 

90 Degrees - The External Market

 

This involves the marketing that all marketers know and love.  As you’ll know, the overall approach to make marketing work for you involves understanding your customers and prospective customers (their needs and wants, their aspirations and goals, and their challenges and ‘pain’) and working out what you can make and supply in response to this at a price that they would be willing to pay.  Then it is simply about making sure that they know you supply this stuff and persuading them to buy it.  I say ‘simply’ and, put in those terms, it sounds simple enough, but of course there’s a life’s work involved in learning how to do that well, getting it right, and making it happen.  Which is why the universities and business schools make so much money teaching the topic and why there are endless books, articles and blogs on how to do it and make it work for you.  Incidentally, if you want fresh marketing communications ideas and especially (but not exclusively) on new media, then you could do a lot worse than subscribe to Marketing Profs (you’ll find their home page by clicking here).

 

Either way I probably don’t need to add much to your thinking and knowledge here.  If you do want to read more about Coussins Associates’ various views on the traditional marketing mix and improving your performance then please click here to visit our website. 

 

 

180 Degrees - The Internal Market


This is solely about marketing to your own organisation.  It took me a long while to get this, but internal marketing is vitally important.  In fact, in sales and service dominated companies it is probably more important than external marketing.  However, in my experience, it is something that most marketers completely neglect or do very poorly.  For some reason or another, when it comes to marketing within our own organisation we just don’t do it.  We don’t use our marketing skills and marketing smarts to persuade. Oh sure we tell people about our campaigns, and we may even flag to sales and other departments what is coming up in our marketing communications schedules.  But in terms of treating them as we would a market place, and using our skills to understand their needs and concerns, make things that help and work for them and then communicate benefits and persuade them - in my experience very few marketers have any strategy for this.

But the rewards for everyone involved are substantial, because if you focus some of your marketing skills on persuading your own organisation you can get:

 

  • Better motivated and enthusiastic sales and customer service staff
  • More effective sales programmes
  • Increade loyalty and co-operation from your operational team
  • A better aligned and motivated R&D team
  • Full support for your ideas, product and service developments and campaigns from the finance guys
  • A supportive and engaged senior and non-executive management
  • All the benefits of an integrated commercial 'community' fully aligned and working together

 

Let’s start by taking a segmented approach to this market place and look at the key 6 segments in a brief overview.  The six key segments consist of:

 

1. Marketing to sales

2. Marketing to support sales

3. Marketing to service/customer facing staff

4. Marketing to finance

5. Marketing to the board and the senior management

6. Marketing to the rest of the organisation

 

As you can see there’s a lot to this topic and probably too much to cover here in any detail but the following will serve as a starting point at least. 

 

1.      Marketing To Sales

 

It is interesting to note that in a recent survey conducted  by research company Frost and Sullivan, ‘Improving Sales and Marketing Integration’ was the third most important topic for marketing professionals around the world who are members of their Growth Team (more about the topic that was voted number one by these same respondents later).  There was also a fascinating article in Harvard Business Review in April 2006 written by  the father of marketing (or perhaps Grandfather of marketing now) Philip Kotler, together with author of Spin Selling, Neil Rackham, and Suj Krishnaswamy, and Suj Chandrasekhar PhD.  The title of that piece ‘Ending The War between Sales and Marketing’ was a little more direct.  But either way, as you can see, it is a topic whose time has come.

 

My view is that if you can get sales to buy into the concept of your company brand or ethos and to truly believe in the benefits and values of your products or services then you are a long way towards communicating your brand and the products and solutions you offer to the marketplace. 

 

I spent some of my career working in sales, as a field salesman and sales manager.  Later I combined the roles working as VP for Sales and Marketing.  One thing I learned in my time in these roles and that was that sales people are, for the most part, very easy to sell to.  They want to believe.  After all, convincing the customer or prospect is largely down to them.  If they believe in the product and are convinced then how much easier is it going to be for them to convince their customers?  

 

So all we have to do here is to use some of our marketing smarts and expertise to sell to them.  Listen to the issues and challenges that they face.  Understand their ‘pain’ and what they want to achieve for themselves – all just as we would in any other market.  Then give them some ownership during the development process (whether that be for a product or service or your values) and a stake in the success of the products, services or brands.  Tell them about the benefits (the benefits to them not the benefits to the customer) of the product or services we are asking them to sell.  Persuade them of the value (to them) of the company or brand values.  Use all your marketing communications skills to market to them.  Think about ‘communications campaigns’ focused just on them (emailers, posters, presentations, webinars, launch presentations, in car audio newscasts, conferences, even direct mail) about all of this and execute them regularly.  You’ll find the time you spend on this work pays you back many times over. 

 

2.      Marketing To Support Sales

 

This is a little more obvious, but it is still something that many marketers only do rather passively.  We promote and communicate to our market place and the resulting leads and enquiries get passed to the sales team.  We may manage that process or it may simply happen automatically as an intended consequence of our activities.  Some marketers may go further.  They may also provide the sales team with quick reference guides, specifications and brochures all to help them to be more effective in their sales efforts.  But what I’m proposing here goes way beyond this.

 

I would suggest you spend some time with sales to understand how they work and what they do.  Combine your planning to jointly decide the priorities in relation to markets and segments.  Find out their views on the segments’ motivations and attitudes in relation to your products and solutions.  Go out with them on sales calls and visits.  See how they structure their sales approach and what they need to support that work.  Then construct the marketing communications campaigns, working out how the sales leads will be passed to them, managed and how you get feedback. 

 

Work out what materials they could use at point of sales – do they need a brochure to leave behind, or simply a fact sheet?  Would a PowerPoint presentation work better for them or both fact sheet and presentation?  What about a demo?  If your product or service is a complex business to business sell then what about providing material to support the credentials presentations and proposal documents?  If the deal is worth it, then how about getting your copy and design team to produce a specially created brochure or presentation document?  Nowadays with short run digital printing the costs of this can be recovered many times over if the contract values are favourable. 

 

Then there are the ‘cheat sheets’ that you can provide to them including ‘how to deal with frequently asked questions’; ‘the ten most common objections you may face and how you could respond’; ‘feature benefit quick reference sheet’; ‘product comparison and how we outperform the competitors’; ‘profile of the customer problems that this product or service resolves’; even ’10 questions to ask to probe for this product need’.  You see, there’s lots more you could do to help support your sales team in the process of the sale.

 

By working more closely with our key internal customers – the sales teams, then we can not only improve the organisation’s success overall, but the cost effectiveness of our efforts and the respect in which our marketing team is held.  By marketing to the sales team we end up making them an ally rather than a critic and that must be good for everyone.  

 

3. Marketing to Service/Customer Facing Staff

 

These teams, like sales, need to share the values of the organisation and live up to the promises you make.  A lot of this is to do with levels of customer service provided.  So if you use the cliché about having a passion for excellent customer service, then these people need to understand what this means to them in their daily work and how they will deliver it.  If you promise that you ‘always go the extra mile’ (to use yet another cliché) then these are the teams that need to live up to that and know what ‘going the extra mile’ looks like.  So you not only need to tell them about the values of the organisation (which is what most organisations do), but sell them the idea of those values.  Make them believe in them.  Help them to understand what that might look like and ensure that they have understood all this and believe it too. 

 

Far too often organisations do not follow through on this which means that the interpretation and execution of your key values are left to the individuals involved, to their attitudes and to chance.  According to my research so many organisations fail to live up to and deliver on their promises because they fail to get those key workers, the very people responsible for delivery of these values, to understand or believe in them.

 

As with the values, so with the products and services you provide.  These teams also need to understand and believe in the products, services and solutions just as much as the sales teams.  If they don’t believe in them or understand them, then don’t expect them to be able to sell or support them.  However tempting it is to assume that they understand and believe, or, worse still, simply expect them to because that is what they are paid to do, try hard to resist the temptation.  It is our job as marketers to ensure that these key employees have all that they need to do their job effectively and we must include them in our list of key markets.

 

4. Marketing to Finance

 

You don’t need me to tell you that the finance team is important.  They are the people who hold the purse strings that control your budgets.  The fuel that makes marketing work.  Yet too often marketing simply see the finance guys as the people responsible for ‘raining on our parade’.  We see them as ‘bean counters’ with no respect for, or understanding of, our work.  People who could never appreciate the value of a good creative idea or market insight, busy reducing everything, ‘Spock like’, to a list of pros, cons, and numbers.  Yet if you take a moment to look at this the other way round you find that many of them regard us as ill disciplined spendthrifts who have no understanding of proper fiscal diligence.  They see marketing as a business expense with no or little ROI and overall the whole marketing team as having a very lax approach to governance.

 

Small wonder then, that the same Frost and Sullivan Growth Club research found the number 1 challenge facing most businesses was to ‘justify the ROI on marketing budgets’.

 

For my part I have always welcomed input from the finance team.  Why? Well because they add considerable value if you can bring them on-side.  They help you to work out what has worked well and what you need to change.  If you make them friends rather than enemies you can work with them to help you to improve what you do and how you do it.  And once they support you then you’ll find that most of the rest of the management will follow.

 

So how do you do that?  Well a good starting point is to have some real key performance indicators for your marketing communications activity and preferably things like target ROIs for your campaigns.  If you get used to working to target costs per enquiry and target costs per sale for your marketing communications, that will begin to win them over and prove you are sincere about offering a decent return for the organisation’s investment in your communications campaigns.  Get them to help you with developing the business case for your new product developments rather than doing it alone.  Or, more negatively, leaving them to be a part of the review team happily dismembering your idea or development.  Learn a little more about key financial metrics and how they work if you feel you don’t know them well enough. Stuff like Internal Rates of Return (IRR) or Net Present Value (NPV).  Get their expertise working for you rather than against you. 

 

You see it does all come back to marketing again.  Finding out what their issues, concerns and needs are and then making sure we have solutions that deal with these.  Showing we understand and empathise.  You’ll find it will make all the difference.

 

5. Marketing to the Board and the Senior Management

 

Have you been telling the board or your senior managers how well you have been doing for the business?  If not then why not?  They are only going to know about the details of your success if someone tells them.  And as a large part of marketing is about communicating then why should that someone not be you, the marketers?  Especially now you have won over the support of the sales, customer service and the finance guys?

 

Here too it is about thinking what works for them.  What their issues, needs and challenges are.  So the information you provide should be key data (not every little campaign of course) and in easily digestible forms.  Key numbers, examples of major campaign material, responses, new customer wins, new project wins and plaudits won (ideally from customers rather than industry bodies as the former means much more).  Keeping senior managers and key board members in the loop and up to date outside of any meeting papers you have to produce will help to keep them onside and supportive of what you and your marketing team are doing.

 

6. Marketing to the Rest of the Organisation

 

Unfortunately it’s not just sales and finance that can have a low opinion of marketing and what marketing does.  For example, operations staff seem to think we understand nothing of their challenges in relation to producing the products and services we market.  Most R & D teams think we understand nothing of the technical issues involved in turning an idea into a product or service.  Don’t believe me? Take a look at that bellwether of the 21st century organisation Dilbert.   Who are the departments constantly lambasting marketing?  R&D, engineering and production.  So we need to work harder with them to find out how we can bring them on-side and get their support.  And also how we ensure that they and all the others are right behind the brand and the organisation, supporting us all the way.

 

 

270 Degrees - The Suppliers

 

This one is normally the one that blows most people away.  Why market to the suppliers?  They’re our suppliers for goodness sake.  They should be grateful for whatever orders we give them.  It’s them that should be marketing to us not us to them.  We control their success.  It’s them that should be worried about our issues and challenges not us about theirs.

 

Well not necessarily.  You’ll know from your own point of view that when your customers deal considerately with you, you tend to work harder for them.  If they are loyal to you, you tend to be more loyal to them, more involved with and interested in them.  So it will be the same for your suppliers.

 

If you want them to work with and support you, to offer you the best deals on their products and services, to see you as a key customer that they admire and like and want to go the extra mile for, then you need to convince them of your worth (and that means much more than simply the order value).  You need to tell them about your successes and to sell them the idea of seeing you as one of their key customers.  You want them, too, to believe in your future.  Where possible you might want their help and support in your campaigning, in offering you discounts and special deals and in giving you exclusives and even financial support.  To do all of this you need to market the benefits of doing business with your organisation to them and keep doing it so that they too support you in all you are doing. 

 

All of this is especially true for organisations involved in wholesaling, distribution or who are a providing a channel to the consumer.  As you can only be as good as the products that are supplied to you and the organisations that supply them, then you are completely dependent on them.  Without their wholehearted support your business will always be held back and your potential limited.

 

360 Degrees - The Stakeholders

 

You may well recognise this term, but, in fact, I’ve borrowed this from my work with public sector and not for profit organisations.  It simply refers to all of those who have a stake in your organisation.  At first sight you may be thinking that this merely means your shareholders, but, in fact your stakeholder group is almost certainly wider than this.  In fact the term ‘stakeholders’ classically refers to:

 

  • Staff
  • Suppliers
  • Shareholders (and the analysts that advise them)
  • Other investors and backers (banks and bondholders)
  • The local communities in which you operate
  • Unions
  • Any Government organisations and agencies with an interest in your field
  • Any professional or industry body you belong to or has an impact on your business

 

As we’ve already dealt with the first two elsewhere in the context of 360 Degree Marketing™, it is the remaining six which concern us here.

 

And here again it is about working out what it is that each of these groups are interested in and concerned with that should guide our marketing work in this respect. 

 

Now I’m sure many of you have investor relations teams that deal with the shareholders on a daily basis and goodness knows that there are a whole fistful of rules and regulations about what you can and cannot tell them about the business (and even how and when you tell them), but that still doesn’t mean that all communications shouldn’t be steeped in a marketing approach.  And likewise with the banks.  The only time most businesses talk in any detail with their banks is when they need something from them.  Surely banks would be more inclined to give you that ‘something’ if they too believed in your business and understood how successful you were.  Keeping them up to date about your plans and your success stories, inviting them along to product launches or key events all will help you to be seen as a reliable and strong company with an understanding of their needs and concerns. 

 

The local communities in which you operate are also a key market.  It is from this community source that you will most likely be drawing you employees.  It is their local economy and infrastructure that will benefit when you spend, employ, and buy local services.  It will be their support and goodwill you will need to ensure your future plans are a success whether that be for business expansion or contraction. So it will pay you to take time to ensure that they are included in your communications plans and understand the benefits you deliver as a part of that community.  Again you may have plans and resources that focus on this as with your investor relations teams, but I’m sure that they would welcome your support if that is the case.  And if you don’t have such teams, then, as elsewhere, some good marketing practices and principles would go a long way to winning and keeping their support.  What they want to hear about is your support for them, your plans that will help them to make their businesses and lives better, and your commitment to their community which, after all, you are directly a part of.

 

If you are doing all the right things when you market internally within your organisation and externally to your local community or communities, then you may already be going some way dealing with communications to the unions.  But keeping these key stakeholders carefully and tactfully up to date with current (and future) plans is really important.  With them working against you, your commercial life can be seriously disrupted, but with their help and support, the whole business can function more easily and effectively.  The 360 Degree Marketing™ concept strongly advocates a pre-emptive approach to marketing to your union stakeholders.  Waiting until there is a crisis is far too late.  What do we recommend you communicate about?  Well, here too, the basic rules of marketing apply.  What are they likely to be interested in and what are their concerns, needs and aspirations? Start from this viewpoint and you begin to work up a long list which would include expansion plans (more employment means more members for them), employee training and development plans (investing in their members), employee welfare schemes, the workings and outcomes of works council meetings and initiatives, pro bono and charity work, environmental policies and on and on.  By keeping them up to date with what is going on in your organisation in these respects you create a better and more trusting working environment for you both.

 

Any government organisations and agencies with an interest in your field must also represent an important stakeholder audience.  Their interest can be harnessed for your own marketing of course (though take care here as politicians have a habit of hi-jacking your message to support or enhance messages of their own).  But this is more about making sure that they understand what you are doing, why you are doing it and why they need support you.  It’s about telling them why what you are doing is good for them and good for the communities that they serve.  It is about them seeing you as an informed industry leader and a source of information and expertise in your area.  It is about making sure that they represent your point of view, needs and interests to their political colleagues and leaders.  And all of this applies no matter what the size of your business (if you are a small local company, then start with your local representative).  Having the support or at the very least the understanding of influential political groups can help you and your organisation in many important areas.   

 

Finally, you also need to market to the professional bodies, associations, and groups that have a voice in your sector.  Whether they represent you or your customers, you need to have a good working relationship with them.  You need to ensure that they perceive you positively and are broadly supportive of your organisation and what it is trying to do.  So you need to include them in your marketing strategy and your communications.  Keep them up to date with your developments.  Encourage them to think of you as an informed and important industry leader.  Share your thought leadership pieces with them.  Let them know about your new developments and plans.  Tell them about your new products and services.  The more you have them on-side and supportive, the more they can help to position you as you want to be seen by your market, your competitors and your own company.

 

 

Finally

 

Some of you who are old enough might have been thinking that some of this sounds a bit familiar.  Well, there really is nothing new under the sun to coin a nice biblical phrase.  What seems like millennia ago, there was marketing and then there was Public Relations with a capital P and a capital R.  PR meant all of the publics that an organisation related to.  Marketing focused on customers. And anyone who worked in marketing in those days would have recognised that a large part of this 360 Degree Marketing™ concept revisits and borrows from that thinking.  Over the past years public relations has begun to be used inter-changeably for press relations and much about how an organisation relates to all of its publics has been forgotten.  That’s a shame. 

 

But there is a part of this that I like to think is new, or at least will serve as a timely reminder.  Thinking about our colleagues inside the organisation as a market place in its own right, with segments and segment needs is, I think, vitally important for the 21st century marketer.  Getting their support and buy in to our marketing and having them onside rather than hostile and negative must be a real plus.  Marketing to our suppliers can only have positive results and few, if any, organisations that I know of, have any plans in this respect at all.

 

So, if we could just work a bit harder to think about the less obvious markets, segments and customers and use our marketing smarts to market to them too, just think how much more successful we could all be.