You all know the Red Shirt phenomenon yes? If you don’t, not to worry, I’ll wait here
while you go earn some geek cred. Okay,
yes, it’s from Star Trek – starting with the original series and a tradition continued into many of the other television shows and movies.
It basically starts with Kirk, Spock and McCoy agreeing to beam down to a planet's surface to investigate some anomaly. To accompany them, they enlist an ensign, a security detail or some engineering officer. Whatever their “department”, they are inevitably wearing a red shirt. There’s a wikipedia article on this. And, of course you can’t miss the Family Guy treatment of it.
So... What does this have to do with marketing....
We all know there are fundamental changes going on in marketing. From our shift in digital tactics to the focus on engagement and conversational marketing, myriad measurement techniques and the introduction of content marketing – we’ve got a lot on our plates.
But I was visiting a client last week, and while we were waiting for the meeting to begin, she began furiously typing into her Blackberry. “Politics”, she apologized as she looked up briefly from the screen. "Gotta make nice with the CFO".
Even with this new paradigm of marketing, we still have to attend departmental meetings, interact with the other members of our landing party – and of course cooperate with them to get marketing projects completed. So, the next time you walk into the conference room and everyone is settling in and trying to figure out why GoToMeeting/Webex isn’t exactly working, look around at your peers from the other departments. Chances are there’s Finance, Technology/IT, Operations/R&D and of course – you.
So, who’s wearing the Red Shirt?
I just finished blogging a four part series on what your CEO needs to know about your marketing plans. But, among your peers, what are the best practices for making sure that Marketing doesn’t get vaporized before the second act starts.
Interacting with Finance
In a study conducted last year, when asked if CMO’s should have a larger budget, 60% of CFO’s said “no”. And, you just know there was that tone when they said too right? In fact, only 22% said they should have more money. And, if you look, there are hundreds of articles about how marketing needs to carefully work with Finance – to gain their confidence. Three years ago only 10% had confidence that marketing provided any ROI at all - and certainly that number hasn't changed much in the last 24 months.
In fact, Adweek had an article last Spring called CFO’s Aren’t Big Fans of Marketing. I know I've personally heard that phrase from a few marketers at mid-sized organizations. But, imagine for one moment, walking into the CEO’s office and saying – “you know, we in marketing aren’t a big fan of Finance”. As Dr. Phil might say “how’d that work out for ya?”
This is, no doubt, one of the biggest reasons that measurability has become so important – and why analytics has become one of the most misused pieces of the marketing toolbox.
But making sure your relationship with finance is secure is one of the keys to not becoming a Red Shirt. As your marketing strategies shift this year, and become more social, content and engagement focused – the tendency will be for these tactics to drift into a more squishy (that’s a technical term) ROI. But these experiments are no less important than the hard, numbers-based ROI Search Engine Marketing that you're also doing. So make sure that these engagement processes all have some goal-oriented, bottom-line focus. This includes developing that dashboard that shows how social/engagement/content marketing costs are not only producing more leads, but also driving down sales costs. And, don’t be shy about educating finance on the finer details of brand value and engagement. There are real, hard numbers to be derived there.
Interacting with IT/Technology
Okay, let’s just face it – IT/Technology is Spock in this metaphor and Spock tends to view those of us in marketing as failing to understand the true complexity of how technology works. And, they have true disdain for our unrealistic expectations of what can be accomplished given the relative budget, capabilities and skill sets of the existing staff. As Spock often said “Nowhere am I so desperately needed as among a shipload of illogical humans”. Replace "humans" with "marketers" and you've got the classic IT/Technology guy.
Most of this can be attributed to the fact that marketing and
IT/Technology are typically rewarded on different financial metrics. Marketers
are usually measured on revenue generation and the IT organization on cost.
Marketing wants to blow the budget on the first class flight to
The relationship between marketing and IT improves dramatically when you're on the same team. One tip is that if you can manage to align staff with IT/Technology and dedicate technology focused people to marketing and reward them as you would the marketing team - it can do more than just give you an advocate. It can provide you the leverage to do things that are "outside the box", or more creative than you might otherwise be able to do. If you can't afford another headcount - perhaps you can just change reporting structures a bit so that there's an IT/Technology person with a dotted line to marketing.
And, remember marketers, IT is typically structured as a support organization -- so saddling them with implementing a new piece of technology that they do not understand is not only unfair -- it is destined to fail. Before you begin any marketing tech project, clearly define the role (and desire) of the IT organization's ability to integrate -- and support -- the new solution. This includes both the technology aspects and the strategic aspects. For example, how will IT help optimize your new content management solution for search engine optimization? This is where your dedicated IT Resource can also fit in nicely. A new technology vendor should supplement and complement the IT team-- not threaten them.
And, maybe you can consider mixing up the metrics a little bit – that will help build the bridge between you, IT/Technology and Finance. We've changed the success metrics for marketing at least nine times in the last two years right? So, why haven't IT's success metrics changed for the last 10 years? Their job is at least as demanding as ours, so let's get them invested in the success, not just the efficiency, of the organization. Getting IT involved in the revenue generating part of success will not only win you some converts, but might just surprise you with their willingness to "try some new cool things."
Interacting with Customer Service & R&D
I lump these last two together – because the keys to not ending up on the business end of their phasers are so similar.
Similar to the relationship with CFO’s, studies show that R&D and Services people complain that marketing provides poor data while being insistent about new features or new services that they can’t even back up with that data. Further, marketers complain that R&D and/or Services are slow, can’t service customers well and can’t provide a good client reference. Basically, according to marketers - if things go well, R&D and Customer Service get the credit – and if things are going poorly, Marketing can’t sell it.
Working with these folks is a balancing act – and it might just be the toughest job for the marketer. Depending on your business, these people can be highly technical, highly creative or a bit of both. But, the key is that if you can start to work with them and solicit their opinion – and get them invested in your ideas – then you can engage much more fully. Remember, it was Mr. Scott who said “Captains are like children. They want everything now and they want it their way. The secret is to give them only what they need. Not what they want”.
The key to getting what you want from R&D and Services is setting joint expectations about products, services AND marketing together from the customer’s eyes. This is a point of view you can all center on.
And, balance the thinking. Don’t take too much control – lest you make the engineers feel like your inhibiting their creativity. But don’t give up too much control – lest you be saddled with a product or service that’s incredibly efficient, and impossible to sell. It’s a balance – and let the customer be the driving factor.
Get those folks out of their cubes and in front of a customer. Let them hear first hand from the advertising agency, the PR Folks – get them blogging, tweeting and invested in the new social media process. Get them invested in being the expert content marketing P.O.V. of the organization. Let them walk a mile in your shoes and understand what it’s like.
Beam Me Up Scotty!
Of course the key in any business is the shared passion, direction and risk for moving forward and succeeding. That’s what we’re all after.
In short – Captain Kirk said it best (watch it in pure classic Shatner) in one of my all time favorite episodes – Return To Tomorrow. He said: “Dr. McCoy is right in pointing out the enormous danger potential… But I must point out.. the possibility… the potential for knowledge and advancement is equally great. Risk… Risk is our business. That’s what this starship is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her….”
In today's market, we can't just be noisier - we really do need to be different. We need to engage the entire team to participate in the marketing process. Get them involved in all aspects of the risks, the content and the engagement. We need to.. ahem... boldly go where no one has gone before.
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