It's football season! I love football and have my favorite teams from high school, and college, up to pro. We've had many great years and some not so great. The teams work hard to achieve their winning seasons.
I spoke with a gentleman recently who asked where we are headquartered and when he learned we're in Indianapolis he asked if I was a Colts fan. Of course I am! He spoke about the team effort it takes to win a Super Bowl and likened it to marketing efforts. I wondered where he was headed with the comparison. He said the team must communicate well, they must be physically fit, have great play books, great offense, great defense, great special teams, not to mention the coaches, etc.
His marketing team needs to first be physically fit and get rid of the baggage that is weighing them down. He wants to switch from spreadsheets and sticky notes to marketing automation software. His team needs visibility into their marketing efforts to communicate well - be it their financial management, project management/workflow, online marketing, reviews and approvals, etc. They need a great play book and have everyone on the same page...a marketing events calendar. It takes campaigns to drive prospects to them... offense. It takes lead management to handle the leads and convert them to sales... defense back to offense. It takes great special teams...creative marketing, database marketers, etc. and posting numbers on the scoreboard all comes down to ROI in marketing.
I had not thought of marketing as a football team, but they do need to be a well-oiled machine to get the job done and win the sales that their company is looking to capture. If you need some coaching on how your team can increase your top line revenue, let us know.
Aprimo software manages all aspects of marketing. Let us know how we can help. We would love to huddle! Oh!....and go Colts!
Ok so with the responsibility of teenagers comes the need to make sure that you know what they are doing at all times. They use to attend a very small, private school in the city and now they are at a big sprawling high school. The old school has a website that was in-navigable. Not only that, but I could never get someones email address and never had a clue as to what was going on at the school.
Now, this new, huge high school is completely interactive. They have everything a parent could hope for and it is all online. First, there is a microsite for just me and my kids. Also, when in doubt I can find the school through social media like Facebook. Love it!
Just the other day I told the school that I was worried about one of the girls fitting in. Just like that all of her teachers are automatically sending me updates, daily. Kind of like marketing automation tools for schools. Since my girls are sophomores, the school's marketing automation tools trigger event marketing to me - like when my girls are in a play, or there is a game to attend or if there is a club that just started that they might be interested in. I love it.
We were worried about making the big leap from small school to megatropolis but I am happy we did. I especially dig the school's marketing events calendar and their continous marketing automation keeping us well informed and up to date.
Hey...that reminds me...as the lead generation guru here at
Aprimo...I need to hop on my phone and see how we can help!
When I graduated from college and entered the business world four years ago, I would've readily admitted that I didn't know much at all about corporate America. There were things I knew I didn't know, like how people managed to work in the same job for years. My experience, to that point, included various jobs that each lasted between four and six months. But, for the most part, I didn't know what I didn't know.
I didn't know that there were thousands of unique job titles in marketing that I could explore with my marketing degree, and I didn't know what those job titles were or meant. Marketing Research. Marketing Communications. Media and Public Relations. Marketing Campaigns. Inside Sales. Graphics. Web Content Management. Product Marketing. Event Management. (I like the sound of that last one...)
I also didn't know there would be applications and programs and software that would help me accomplish and organize my day-to-day work life, let alone that one of those software programs would fall under the marketing operations software umbrella. I definitely didn't know that I'd be working for a company that develops an industry leading product under that umbrella.
At Aprimo, we drink our own champagne. We develop and sell marketing operations software, and our marketing department uses it. I was introduced to "ARC," our internal implementation of the software, Aprimo Resource Center, on my first day. In those days, using ARC, meant researching, verifying and updating customer and prospect data in our database. Today, it means a hundred different things. I can't manage the planning and logistics of an event without it! I mean, I could. But I'd rather not.
When we're evaluating a new event, we use the proposal process. When we've decided to host or sponsor an event, we track the financial forecast, what we've committed to spend and what we've actually spent. When we need to make sure that ten team members are working efficiently on different aspects of an event, we use a workflow that sends reminders, captures completed work and approvals, and dynamically adjusts if the timeline changes or a new step is inserted. This is not simply project management, people!
I wonder... where do you find yourself today? Maybe, you're like me four years ago and are still trying to figure out what marketing operations software is. (If that's the case, I wonder how you stumbled across my blog...) Maybe you do know what you don't know, you know you need to learn more and find a solution that best fits your organization, but haven't done anything about it yet. Or maybe you're a perfect specimen of a marketer, with effective marketing operations software in place, and we could all learn a thing or two from you. So where do you find yourself and what do you know?
I recently decided to tackle a challenge I was sure I could handle. Sure, I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I knew I could do it. I could eat Bub's Big Ugly burger in one sitting and get my picture on the wall. The Big Ugly is a 16-oz. burger (after it's been cooked) and they don't make hamburger buns big enough for this thing. The meat hangs out on all sides, dwarfing the already-huge bun. Five of us went to lunch that day. Two took the challenge. Only one left victorious, and it wasn't me.
As I sat there eating, I realized something strange. My lunch was an event. It should be published on a marketing events calendar somewhere. "Kati Eats the Big Ugly at Bub's, Carmel, Indiana, 12:00." It should be published and tickets should be sold.
The simple act of eating a midday meal had become a spectator sport complete with colleague photographers and interviews. While I worked on my burger, we talked about how I was feeling (full), whether or not I would finish (of course I would!) and the fact that my male coworker had finished a while ago (show-off).
Okay, so maybe it wasn't actually newsworthy. No one would've paid to see it. But plenty of real events in my day-to-day work are newsworthy. With the help of
Aprimo software, I long ago created my marketing events calendar. It allows me to track events, whether traditional events (physical meetings of people) or launch days for email campaigns. It enables me to view our events in one place and share it with others. It helps me schedule events in a way that best utilizes our team members, facilities and investments. I need visibility into all these things, and I get that with my marketing events calendar.
No, I didn't finish the Big Ugly on my first try. But I did eat 13 ounces of beef and two-thirds of the bun. I just needed more time, and didn't have it. One day, in the not-too-distant future, I will dominate this burger and my picture
will be seen on that wall. Maybe that day deserves to appear on my marketing events calendar.
OK, last time, I discussed the perils of the one-man Marketing Department.
How do you get it all done, with so many initiatives on your plate?
Let's discuss the other end of the spectrum for a minute:
You are in charge of
Online Marketing, or Marketing Lead Management, or Marketing Finance, in a department of hundreds of marketers. Or you are Creative Director of your in-house creative group, or Traffic Manager, or in charge of Marketing Events.
How do you get through the maze of approval levels?
Who signs off this week for last weeks expenditures?
How do you finalize who is going to what event, and what the expected deliverables are?
And, oh, what is the ROI???
How do you work through the organization to get your work done?
One way is to develop relationships with the appropriate people in the groups you must work with. This takes time, but always seems to work in the long run.
Another way is to learn the short-cuts in your organization. What is the best day to hit up Accounting to get the latest forecasts and sales figures? What can you do to help your sales team, so that they are more likely to help you when you need it?
What are some ways that you have learned to "work the system"?
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