Marketing and sales are complementary to each other. They are like two strong pillars of brand building. As we have already covered effective sales management tips in our previous blogs, we are going to cover a few effective tips to succeed as a marketing manager.
So, let’s start…
1. Market Yourself First
While the responsibilities of a sales team and marketing team can be totally different or overlap as per the company, one thing is certain. That is, though sales is not exactly the domain of a marketing manager, studying the art of selling is important for them as well. As long as you don’t work hand in hand with the sales team and don’t ‘sell’ your creative ideas to sales team members, you can’t succeed alone.
For instance, if sales reps give you essential data on potential prospects, highest-grossing clients and areas, analyze that data thoroughly and collaborate with the sales team to work out best-possible future strategies and plans. This won’t only help strengthen your relations with the sales team but also expand the customer base. Eventually, your brand outreach and revenue will go up.
2. Know Your Customers
Knowing your target customers and the market is crucial. Assess your existing customer base and analyze their purchasing preferences and behavioral pattern.
Collect data on:
– Problem areas of the target audience
– Issues and expectations of current customers from your sales team.
For this data, good coordination with the sales team is necessary.
Once you have such actionable data at your disposal, create the buyers’ persona. A buyer’s persona is a realistic representation of people who would probably buy your products and services. It helps segment your market well and target your potential customers more effectively. The same data can also help fine-tune your buyer’s persona and formulate stronger marketing strategies ahead.
3. Target Customers Territory-Wise
As a marketing manager, you might not have full knowledge of all customers in different territories. For that, you can take help of the sales team or territory managers. By using a mapping tool like Dynamics 365 Map Integration, the sales team can create a list of potential customers in a particular territory and hand them over to you. After you get a territory-wise list of potential customers, you can plan effective strategies to target them and boost your conversions.
4. Know Your Competition
Any business you take is not a single-person race where you have to compete only against yourself! There are always several companies out there that can give you a tough competition and pose a ‘big’ challenge. Therefore, knowing your competitors well is of vital importance for you as a marketing manager.
To start with, analyze your competitors’ marketing strategies on a deeper level. Some of the strategies like ad campaigns or banners are easily noticeable while other strategies like website design, product offerings, etc. will need more in-depth research.
When you have full knowledge of their online, offline, and PR strategies; you’ll be able to understand what works with your customer base and will be able to create better campaigns.
Besides, you can also brainstorm out-of-the-box ideas that your competitors haven’t come up with yet to have an edge over them. For this, you can invite suggestions and inputs from the sales and support teams also.
5. Set Marketing Goals and Achieve Them
As a marketing manager, setting marketing goals for a given period is indispensable. As without proper goals in place, measuring your progress is impossible.
Only with predefined goals and plans to achieve in given deadlines, you can stay motivated, track your performance, and channelize your marketing efforts in the right direction.
However, setting goals alone won’t suffice. You should make sure that the goals you set are realistic and achievable. Or else you won’t be able to ‘deliver’ and leave yourself and your team feeling demotivated.
So, always:
– Set only ‘realistic’ goals by considering factors like your brand value, team’s potential, budget allocations, etc. Don’t go too ‘high’ or too ‘low’.
– Plan it ‘well’. As a goal without a plan is just ‘another’ dream.
Consider asking for the advice of all your team members and inputs from the sales and support teams as well to ensure that your final strategies never miss the mark.
6. Maintain the ‘Balance’
At times, you may face a situation where there is no option but to walk a tightrope between your higher management and customers. In such scenarios, ensure that you keep working on your approach of projecting your ideas effectively before your management while considering your customer satisfaction in mind at the same time.
Though this may be challenging sometimes, it is still possible. Considering your customers’ needs and expectations, formulating strategies, tweaking them as per suggestions and inputs from the higher management, and preparing a powerful roadmap can help you overcome the differences and strike the ‘balance’.
7. Stay Well-Informed
In today’s world of rapidly evolving technology, keeping yourself updated with the marketing tools. Be it a mapping tool like our Dynamics 365 map integration, MappyField 365, or a task scheduler software like our Dynamics CRM calendar plugin, Calendar 365, or any other; you should be acquainted with them all.
Besides gaining a sound knowledge of all useful marketing tools, learning about the latest marketing practices and strategies matters too. And for that, you can always get a plethora of sources of information like marketing blogs, journals, articles, forums, and more to refer to.
This way, matching your pace with that of the evolution of the marketing sector won’t only help you but also your company.
Ready to Lead as a Marketing Manager?
The job of a marketing manager requires a combination of intuition, intelligence, most importantly – the art of ‘creating’ and ‘selling’ ideas. Though the role of a marketing manager may seem tough at first glance, it is ‘actually’ not once you get the hang of it. By following the above-discussed tips and taking the help of marketing tools and in-trend strategies, you can streamline your marketing efforts and emerge as a successful marketing manager.
Want to add a mapping tool to your arsenal?
To integrate our CRM mapping tool, you can contact us at [email protected] and our team will get back to you within 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can take a tour of our MappyField 365 tool.
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