10 Questions your Marketing Manager should be able to Answer

Marketing is easy. Answering questions about marketing is not. It's a little like trying to describe what is going on when you are walking*. Here are some questions that often go begging for answers. It is not an extensive list, but they should get you thinking.**

1) What leads your creative marketing, organizational documents or collateral documents?

If you are a restaurant, does your menu market your business or is it your word of mouth? If you are an artist is it your work or your "outlandish" behaviour? If you are a seller of widgets is it their functionality, or how they solve a problem for your ideal user?

2) Are you “brand guardians” or “creative marketers”?

A brand is not a logo. A brand is a totality of the way you are responded to in the marketplace. If you are a guardian, how you work inside the constraints is key. If you are a creative marketer worth your salt, you'll end up being a brand guardian eventually.

3) Is it time to challenge the use of your brand?

Be careful when you answer this one. There are many stakeholders and one of them is signing the front of your paycheck. Strategic and Marketing plans required.

4) Do you have your brand pillars and do you refer to them?

Steve Jobs (Apple), Sk8r cultr (Mountain Dew), Shock and awe - now defunct (George W. Bush), You want to go where everyone knows your name (Cheers).

5) Do you know your organizations values? Mission? Goals?

If you do not know where you are going any road will take you there.

6) Does your organization benchmark your marketing efforts?

If only 50% works, it is important to know which 50.

7) Do we have regular strategic meetings?

Not too often. That can be the sign of a rudderless ship.

8) Why are you using the tried and true?

Not necessarily a bad thing if you are doing the same pieces year after year, but you better have an answer ready.

9) What are your primary marketing tools?

If every tool in your kit has an invoice attached, you need another profession.

10) What is your annual spend for promotion?

And what else could you do with that money?

************************************************************************************************************************

*When you walk you kind of throw yourself forward into a face plant with your back leg trusting that the front one will stop you from hurting yourself.

*Special thanks to the evolved thinking of Chimpanzee Marketing for leading the Branding and Marketing Strategy Workshop on May 30, 2012. Presented by Chimpanzee Marketing & the Culture in Niagara Group.