Avoid These Pitfalls And Become A Great Decision-Maker

Avoid These Pitfalls And Become A Great Decision-Maker

I have observed three main barriers to great decision-making in the world of business – and specifically in Marketing. Conquer these by following a Marketing By Objectives approach, and you will rise to the top of your profession.

Field Propensity (Ethnocentricity).  Ethnocentricity is a term that describes the basic human tendency to perceive one’s own group as “superior.” In a Marketing context, it characterizes a localized point of view.  Staff working in the field feel they can make “fast” decisions as they know “what is best.” The problem associated with this approach is lack of accuracy in aligning with a company’s overall goals (including region, division and corporation). The field people will consider their decisions to be highly accurate – because they meet their own goals. Most often these ignore include over-arching goals such as multicultural marketing, employee benefits and product distribution, unless they happen to align with the local goals. The point is that there usually is no defined process in place to help an entire organization realize all its goals – thus, “ethnocentricity” reigns.

Field Perception (Lack of Relevancy). What I term Field Perception reflects much of what I have discovered in work with sub-headquarters organizations. Whether or not a marketing decision is slow or fast, people in the field will consider it highly inaccurate. They perceiveheadquarters as being “out of touch.” Thus the decision will lack any relevancy to the field, which will generate little or no support for the program.

Fear of Process. Whether the accuracy of a decision-making process is low or high, one thing is certain – the Field believes it will incur unacceptable delay.  Thus, an often-heard rationale is, “We’ll miss many opportunities because of this slowness.  It is better to quickly react to the offer and get the good deal than to be accurate across all organization boundaries.”

All three of these undesirable outcomes are the product of lack of organization and communication.  

If we were to look at the same organization that lacks process control in marketing, we would often find a highly defined process for capital equipment approvals.  The decision to buy a $100,000 piece of factory equipment is not a whimsical affair to be made by one person who thinks they need more technology or better machinery. These decisions are carefully thought through and calculated against the return on the investment.

A rational Management By Objectives approach that takes into account strategic positioning and fact-based decision making can turn a program into a dynamic contributor to the marketing mix.

How Marketers can keep up with changing consumer tastes in social media.

Adjust to Changing Consumer Landscape

In a previous blog, we discussed how to adjust your Marketing By Objectives tools for changing corporate goals – such as a new executive team.

Such an event may require you to craft a new strategic approach.

But when the consumer landscape changes – as it seems to do daily – you usually can respond nimbly simply by changing tactics.

After all, the corporate strategy remains intact – you are selling a known set of products and services, generally to the same types of customers.

But the way those customers consume your marketing message may change dramatically.

Fortunately, your MBO tools are equipped to keep pace.

This is why it makes more sense to keep your goals and objectives “media-neutral.” Instead of a goal like “reach 10,000 consumers per month through Facebook,” use wording that gives you more flexibility – such as “social media.”

Then when the next big things comes up, you’re ready to plug it into your mix and evaluate its performance as normal.

Here are some key points to take into account:

-       Weighting. Some media channels will produce a better response than others. These should receive higher weighting to help guide your investment strategy. However, be ready to adjust these “tactical” weights quickly, because your consumers won’t be wedded to any specific channel for long. If performance is dropping in one specific social medium, but its weight is dropping as well, you’ll know you needn’t make it a priority.

-       Wheat from chaff. Social media’s fluid nature requires you to be just as responsive. Watch for the performance curve to level off and start to drop. That’s your signal to re-evaluate the mix. Don’t be more loyal to a channel than your customers are. Data is your friend here.

-       New customers. Things get more serious if your customer mix starts changing. This usually will require you to revisit goals, not just tactics. Communication with your counterparts in Sales and Planning will help immensely.

You can’t stay ahead of social media trends – unless you have an unlimited budget. If that’s the case, congratulations!

But for the rest of us, it’s sufficient to remain nimble, watch for red flags, and be ready to shift investments quickly. That argues in favor of avoiding long-term commitments, even at the risk of paying slightly higher rates in the short term.

An investment that’s not producing customers – no matter how cheap the price – is money wasted.

Changing Corporate Goals

How to Deal With Changing Corporate Goals

It has become relatively commonplace – the top leadership changes, and the new CEO has substantially different ideas about the company’s direction.

Your carefully constructed strategic Marketing plan just got the rug yanked out from under it.

What to do? Use your Marketing By Objectives approach to become one of the first and most important players on board with the new reality.

The process doesn’t change. Only the inputs must be adjusted.

If the CEO issues a strategy document, you have all of the new information at your fingertips. Read it thoroughly (twice) and pick out the elements that should or could be supported by Marketing.

If the new direction is revealed piecemeal, you’ll have a greater challenge, as you’ll have to perform the strategic review after each major announcement.

Here are some key points to take into account:

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      Weighting. The weighting distribution will change, even if most goals remain the same. This is a simple but essential adjustment to your Marketing By Objectives master plan. Once your insert the new weightings, examine what this does to your existing programs’ scores. If any score drops precipitously, it’s obviously a red flag to begin considering exit strategies.

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      New objectives. Compile a list of every new objective first, prioritize them, then compare each of them in light of your previous list. Prioritizing first assures you will make the most efficient use of your time. If it is apparent that some of the new goals will have relatively low weighting, it may be sensible to consider them later – perhaps even next year.

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      Pet programs. If any of your marketing programs were weighted artificially high because of top executive preferences, now is the time to reconsider them more objectively. The corollary obviously is to be aware of potential preferences among the new executive team.

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      Sharpen your tools. You worked hard to create a system that works, so try to make it work with the new inputs. But be sensitive to the human tendency to hang on too long – if the old tools simply won’t work, start over. You’ll very likely find strong support among the new executive team for launching an initiative to support their vision.

Transitions are stressful. Let your Marketing By Objectives process take away the emotional component and let you become a key player in the new regime.

Can I Still Seize Marketing Opportunities?

Can I Still Seize Marketing Opportunities?

A strategic approach to marketing, firmly guided by corporate goals, sounds very sensible.

But marketing is supposed to foster creativity. Will following a Six Sigma marketing process mean I can’t seize sexy new marketing opportunities?

Actually, quite the opposite is true – a Marketing By Objectives program that has the full backing of executive management empowers you to rapidly evaluate, act on and justify out-of-the-box marketing opportunities.

Think of it as “pre-approval.”

You’ve already shown the evaluation and weighting process that assures all marketing programs will contribute tangible results.

The hard decisions about strategic direction have already been made. Tactical execution then falls under the mantle of the experts – the marketing department.

Any new program simply slots into the appropriate place in your marketing matrix.

To make this work, you simply need to establish a goals-driven evaluation process. Key considerations should include:

• -       Target audience
• -       Scale
• -       Cost vs. available budget
• -       Expected return
• -       The corporate goals being supported, and their weightings
• -       The degree of support each can expect to receive
• -       Quick SWOT Analysis

Your intimate familiarity with the goals and their weightings should enable you to complete an evaluation of this sort in a few hours.

It’s very likely you will need additional information, but the analysis also will identify the exact questions you should ask – and the answers will determine whether the opportunity is a good fit for your marketing strategy.

This is a very attractive alternative to the labor-intensive internal sales process you might otherwise face.

Here’s How to Handle Data From Social Media

Here’s How to Handle Data From Social Media

Data is the decision-maker’s friend – until it gets overwhelming.

The rise of social media as a marketing tool is a case in point. Social media programs can generate all the data you’d ever want.

How you handle that data determines how well it serves you. That’s where the dashboard really shows its worth.

Remember, the dashboard is designed to present data in an actionable format. This means consolidating the important results into meaningful categories.

In the case of social media, it’s often best to channel the data into one or more familiar categories, in order to help you focus on the big picture – rather than getting caught up in the race for ever-larger numbers. This also helps you to communicate the significance to corporate executives, who won’t be as familiar with the ever-changing terminology, and really are primarily focused on results.

Let’s take the purchase funnel as an example. Most executives are going to be familiar with the concept of a purchase funnel, and how it is used by the company’s marketing department.

Broadly speaking, the purchase funnel may include these categories:

• -       Awareness
• -       Opinion
• -       Consideration
• -       Preference
• -       Purchase
• -       Loyalty
• -       Advocacy

And the goal, of course, is to fill the funnel with more qualified prospects, and drive those prospects through the “narrow end” as purchasers.

Social media certainly can help to raise awareness, getting more prospects into the funnel, and help to generate positive opinions, drive consideration, cement loyalty, etc.

Assign your social media data streams to the levels that are most appropriate. Then you’ll know which funnel elements you are supporting, and to what degree.

For example, some social media programs will be designed to raise awareness. Others will try to build loyalty among existing customers.

By improving performance at each level of the funnel, you are delivering real value. Measure and report that value, then hold your programs accountable.

The payoff will be in the bottom line.