The most obvious driver of dysfunction or inefficiencies within a marketing organization is misaligned goals and incentives. The clearest and most common example I run across when working with clients is the user experience vs. online marketing battle. You may not know it exists, but if you do any business online it most likely does.

Here is a quick way to see if you have a problem that may be gating your success:

1. Is there a group or person who is responsible for designing, building, and updating your company’s website?
2. Is there a group or person who is responsible for acquiring, cross-selling & retaining customers online for your brand?
3. Are these TWO separate people or groups?

In some organizations IT is still responsible for the website, in many others there is a “specialized” group who is responsible for user (I hate the word user) or customer experience and who may or may not leverage IT to heavy technology lifting. Most companies have grown past the first scenario of IT solely owning the site and have brought in some sort of customer experience function in house and I commend them for that.

Where that plan breaks down is marketing. I strongly believe a website today is a marketing platform not an online brochure, and certainly not simply an online application. Consider your physical RETAIL space, and your virtual RETAIL space obviously have some differences, but they typically have one common goal RETAILING.

In the physical world the facilities group does not have “full control” of the store, there is more to the store than carpet, wallpaper and plumbing. There is no mistaking that it’s all about making those cash registers ring and putting smiles on customers faces. You have security issues (remember Winona Rider). You have complex systems like inventory management, terminals, servers etc., but you never hear “Keep the marketing department out of our turf…this is beyond them”

This will be the first of a long list of post dedicated to discussing how we should redesign the traditional marketing department. It’s no secret that CMO’s are dropping like flies from many organizations, frankly because the old proven tactics are just simply not as effective anymore. Companies are crying for new blood in marketing, but it’s right under their noses. Management says “we need more accountability for our marketing dollars, we need to embrace more robust analytics, we need to be more nimble, and we need to relate to the new consumer”.

Consider this, not so long ago the interactive group was not so popular. They have had to fight for every dollar, they have embraced technology, and have been doing a lot more with less. They have grown past “telling and selling” and have learned how to have “marketing conversations” with your customers. We all know message integration is key, and every one in your marketing department should leverage these new channels. Putting an old school marketer in charge of interactive is like giving a toddler the keys to your car either useless or dangerous, while giving a great email marketer direct mail is child’s play. Consider where your next CMO should come from.

Lets get right to it. I think the concept of an interactive shop has a shelf life. Somewhere between 3-5 years is my bet. The reality is all advertising will run on technology eventually, and eventually is unfolding right now. The new CMO, and his or her whole crew will know how to market across channels. Every single product manager, every analyst, the media guy even the janitor on the marketing floor understands you have to use more than direct mail to do the job now. Yes, I said the marketing floor because there will not be an “interactive department”. That would be a silly concept, it would be like saying the folks on this side use email, and the other side of the floor still uses paper and a fax machine for everything. This new marketing floor will need an agency partner. It can’t be a one-dimensional interactive shop, and it certainly wont be the “two martini lunch” Madison Avenue shop of old. It will look like something new.

Let’s face it most people by now get it, they get the concepts behind media and creative optimization. They know all about multi variant testing, advanced targeting and eCRM. They understand how to better assess ROI, they sometimes get some of the interdependencies between channels, and some even know how the technology behind some of this stuff works.

What’s surprising to me is how few of these smart people actually practice any of this on a regular basis. I have some thoughts why they don’t … it’s hard work.

The operational aspect of this new marketing world is a bitch. It took people years to learn how to get an ad in the paper without screwing it up. Back in the day I remember type setting by hand, then came film, line screens, separations, blue lines, crop marks, bleeds, and registration marks. Then it got easier for us, but you still needed to learn about Postcript, Syquest and Zip Disks, and don’t forget to embed those fonts. With direct mail you had to lean a bunch of rules around, weight, insignia etc.

In hindsight that was all child’s play compared to what it takes us to pull off a campaign today. Just walk through all the steps, vendors, and technologies you would have to involve to trigger an email offer to a customer based on what they were browsing for on our website in real time. If you could answer that I’m impressed, if you could pull that off in less than 3-4 days in your organization you should win a marketer of the year award.

That should actually be easier than it is today for most marketers, and it can be if you focus on getting the plumbing right. What does your marketing technology ecosystem look like? Have you focused on the data that these investments can potentially empower you with, or have you also thought though the operational workflow for you and your team? What good is knowing that if you changed this message TODAY it could yield another million bucks in revenue, to then learn it will take you three weeks to make that bloody change?

Optimizing thru spreadsheets is so five years ago.

The downturn of many “once great” companies can be attributed to simple ignorance. This particular form of ignorance is a product of arrogance, the arrogance to think, “we make products or services that people want” when they never bothered to ask their customers if in fact the still wanted them.

Consider how the mighty have fallen. Not too long ago every corner Mom & Pop video rental shop was put out of business and replaced by a blue and yellow phenomenon called Blockbuster, there was one of these bad boys in every corner. Again not to long ago we can still picture these guys in their boardroom boasting about how they ruled the world. Then this little thing called NetFlix happened. They obviously did not see it coming, at least not until it was perhaps too late.

The point I want to make is that they should have. There is really no excuse. You don’t need a crystal ball for this, all you need to do is pay attention. Shifts in consumer behaviors don’t happen overnight, but you can always count on the fact people change.

Companies spend an ungodly amount of time and effort keeping tabs on what their competitors are up to. It’s amazing to me how little effort they actually spend understanding their customers.

This week was “bring you Son or Daughter to work” week. It occurred to me companies should institute a new holiday – and it should be scheduled everyday.

If I have not made my point here are a few more clues – The newspaper industry, the music industry, the airline industry, and buggy whips!

No more surprises  - declare today – “Take your customer to work day”

One recent study in the US suggested more than two thirds of marketers had zero formal marketing training or education. Zero!

We at Sapient also recently did a survey and asked marketers whether they thought too few people in marketing have strategic marketing competencies. An incredible 77 percent of those surveyed strongly agreed this was a problem.

This may not surprise you, but it disturbs me. Imagine if 70% of the folks in your finance department did not have a finance degree. Would it make you nervous if 70% of the folks in your legal department did not pass the BAR exam.

Marketing is a discipline like finance or law; it’s not a sensibility people are born with or a god given talent. Have you ever heard “She is a good person, very creative, and great with people, she would do well in marketing don’t you think? Next time you hear this, Run.

Now I'm not saying some degree in marketing deems you competent, my point is more around being a student of marketing. Someone who reads, pays attention to trends, appreciated good work and participates in new media.

People think Marketing is easy. It’s not. We have to work hard at it. A good doctor studies as much now as they did in medical school. There are new procedures to learn, new theories, new medicines etc.  A good marketer should have the same thirst for knowledge to stay on top of their game. Consumer behavior, media markets, channel mix, and technologies and analytics evolve every day.

Look around your marketing department. How many people have been doing the same thing the same way for over two years? How many marketing professionals are truly among you?

In doing a search on CMO, looking for some information about chief marketing officers, up popped a story about Disney’s nationwide contest for its first ever Disney Parks CMO – a chief magic official. 

The CMO job responsibilities: traveling to Disneyland and Walt Disney resorts to help create magical experiences for guests, participate in events and be a behind-the-scenes wizard with the Walt Disney Imagineers.

More than 1,300 people entered the contest. Peter Yu, one of the finalists, got high marks for his infomercial promoting a fictional CMO College called the Magical Institute & Center for Knowledge, Education & literacY (MICKEY, sort of.) Classes included “How to Whistle While You Work,” and “How to Fastpass Your Way to the Top.”  Not bad ideas for we marketers. But it was high school teacher Justin Muchoney who won based on his ideas on how to connect people with the Disney Magic.

His wining idea came down to five concepts that he believes can be shared with people in many ways, big and small:

1.     Exuberance.
2.     Optimism.
3.     Vision.
4.     Passion.
5.     Innovative Magic.

Explaining why he’s the man for the job, Justin wrote, “It is my supreme goal in life to create unforgettable experiences that draw people closer together. I aspire to build deep and meaningful relationships and to help people experience the awesome wonders life has to offer. I constantly dream up new events experiences or even moments when the people I encounter can join together and share in a memorable adventure.”

Justin may be more experienced in leading the high school marching band, but his concepts are as relevant for today’s chief marketing officer as Disney’s chief magic official. Create experiences for people that are memorable. That they rave about with other people. That they keep coming back to in order to buy more of.

Justin also may be onto something about the potential value of the five concepts to how we think of ourselves as marketing leaders, in shaping marketing strategy, and in creating focus for your people and agencies.

• Be passionate and exuberant about the value your brand is providing to your customers. (If you can’t be – is it you or do you need to improve the brand?)
• Be innovative and visionary about constantly improving the current offering and customer experience. (Blockbuster brought a more innovative approach to traditional video rental stores, but then go eclipsed by Netflix.)
• Above all, be optimistic in believing what’s possible. People follow optimists, get energy from them, want to buy from them and work with and for them.