I don’t gamble, but I’m willing to bet on something:
Every business has struggled with marketing. Whether problems persisted or were nipped in the bud, marketing tends to be the most common headache for businesses big and small. I started marketing departments for a nonprofit, cybersecurity firm, a B2B healthcare company, a fintech app, and have been the CMO for a fintech company, a health tech startup, a dev ops company, an ed-tech startup, among others, and in every scenario, marketing seems to be the biggest conundrum.
Working as the head of marketing for nearly 15 years at this point, I can say that, regardless of industry, 99% of companies struggle with the exact same marketing issue — and it’s not strategy.
Most marketing problems are the result of poor processes.
When the marketing department isn’t executing, non-marketing decision-makers often blame strategy when the real issues are with the processes in place for a specific marketing function.
For instance: social media person is expected to post X posts per week. They need approval from person A, person B, and then need to incorporate any edits per feedback, get final approval, and post. However, person A might be the COO, who’s strapped for time and struggles to return feedback. Posts are backlogged, and when content isn’t going out on social media, the marketing department, or person responsible for that specific marketing function, is blamed.
Highly skilled tactical marketers — copywriters, SEO experts, social media managers — struggle with execution when there is a weak foundational process in place. Yet, the time it takes to restructure processes, and the potential costs involved to equip marketing teams with the right tools, is often underappreciated.
Building a process is a process in itself, especially when it comes to executing a marketing strategy.
In general, here’s how you go about developing processes:
- List out different aspects of marketing you do now, and have capacity to do
- Have an all-teams meeting to align on marketing goals
- Listen to the pain points your marketing team is currently facing
- Develop and define your overall marketing strategy, and strategies for each individual marketing function
- Develop and define processes for your overall strategy and strategies for each individual marketing functio
The key to smooth sailing and effortless growth comes down to how much time you devote to developing detailed processes for every aspect of your marketing efforts. Taking the time to build strong processes will drastically decrease the amount of issues that come out of the department, and make it significantly easier to scale effectively.
In fact, detailed processes are the only way to scale your business.
In the most basic sense, scaling is increasing output. To move the needle, there needs to be an increase in input.
When it comes to marketing, increased input goes beyond adding new marketing functions to your marketing departments’ plate. Increased input could mean equipping your marketing team with more tools to use or more man-power by way of hiring or outsourcing.
Regardless, improving the efficiency and complexity of processes from a foundational standpoint will save you from the growing pains that come with scaling.
If you’re having trouble with your marketing department, consider your processes.
Analyze each function inside the marketing department, how it works, what the issues are, and how each affects the results of strategy.
Overestimate the amount of time necessary to re-structure processes to ensure you can be hyper-detailed. Let your marketing manager take the lead, and work with them to ensure there is no ambiguity around the process for each strategy.
Again, it takes time, but it will save you the headache in the long-run.