I've recently become involved in delivering sales training to account managers and sales managers in a large organisation, and I've been reminded of the tension (some would say animosity) that exists between the two key business disciplines of sales and marketing.  Strange perhaps, given they are so closely related, but I guess it is their very inter-dependence that means it is easy to blame each other when things are not going well.

When I was running marketing programmes back in BT I was often guilty of cursing my counterparts in Sales, but the truth is that the best results came when we really managed to work together and get the end-to-end process of customer engagement running smoothly.  Complex hierarchies and over-inflated egos don't help matters of course.

Marketing's role is to make sales happen more easily:  to create an environment in which the customer is informed and convinced of the value of your company's offer and is moved to buy (not once but again and again if possible).  I heard once, not sure where, that selling is making people buy what you have but that marketing is selling them what they want.  This is a subtle but important distinction - especially when everyone is tightening their belts. 

The more significant and complex the purchase then the greater the emphasis on the sales person, but in some cases, of course, customers buy direct without human sales support (not counting the person on the cash register who may, or may not, add additional value).  At the end of the day people buy from people and the quality of the interaction with your sales and service personnel will directly affect your success.

In smaller companies the lines between sales and marketing become increasingly blurred, and are often functions performed by one and the same person or people.  Hopefully this helps to remove some of the antagonism mentioned earlier, but it emphasises the importance of looking at the end to end customer experience.  That means reviewing every touchpoint the customer has with your organisation: in the press, in signage, in signage, on the phone, by email, in packaging, invoicing.  Every aspect of your business.   At each and every point you need to demonstrate your ability to deliver the value the customer is looking for.

Successful marketing will drive successful selling - but could all come to nothing unless the two disciplines are working in tandem.  A healthy tension can demand improvements from both sides, but too much tension can sabotage results.  What's the relationship between sales and marketing like in your team?

Don't get me wrong - I do realise that some people are going to suffer considerably in the economic downturn.  But my sympathy or pity will not change that for them one jot.  They say don't waste energy on things you cannot control, and for many of us the recession will be a much needed wake up call, a chance to re-evaluate what we're doing and why, and emerge in much better shape.  The downside of the good times is that you don't have to try too hard and can become lazy and inefficient - particularly in marketing. 

Now I'm not about to suggest that the only way is to spend yourself out of a recession, marketing is not just about spending on promotions, and there is no point chucking good money after bad.  But I am saying this is a good time to get back to basics.  If the downturn is giving you time on your hands, and this can be true of all businesses large and small, then what better time to review and update your marketing/business strategy and plan to ensure your limited resources are directed at the best returns.

I was reading another blog the other day (I have become quite a fan of the genre) and came across this quote which I have confirmed is from Peter Drucker:

"Because its purpose is to create a customer, your business has two purposes and two purposes only: marketing and innovation.  Marketing and innovation make you money, generate sales, produce profit.  Everything else is an expense .."

So what could be more important than putting in the effort to getting your marketing right?  Here are some simple first steps to getting your marketing act together:

1. What market are you in?  Take a good hard look at the customers you are targeting.  How has it changed recently?  Is it growing?  Shrinking?  Is it still right for you? 
2. Revisit the products you offer into this market.  Are you meeting real needs and offering good value?  Remember we don't always go for the cheapest price.
3. Look after your existing customer first as they are your best and most reliable source of business.  Understand how they are being affected and what you can do to help them solve their problems.
4. Update your marketing plan in line with what you have learned in steps 1-3.  You may spot new opportunities and may realise you can stop things that are not working for you.

 In times of crisis the strong survive - make sure you are one of them!

If you're going to invest time and energy in anything then you want to know that it is bringing you just reward.  But measuring the effectiveness of marketing activities can be a tricky business - I have read some long and boring books on the subject, most of which can be summarised as ‘there's no easy answer'!  And the greater the number of things that you do, the harder it is to isolate which of them is making the difference.  While it is tempting to dive into the nitty gritty of collecting data and analysing costs per customer I don't believe this approach will ever give you the full story. 

Because marketing works across every aspect of your business, and because it deals with creating emotional and intangible reactions in unpredictable humans, only the biggest businesses have the funds to invest in detailed measurement across the board.  For most businesses I would advocate mixing a logical approach with a more intuitive and instinctive one - be prepared to recognise that some things you will not be able to ‘prove' are working, but you'll do them because you know in your gut they are the right thing to do.

In actual fact the first issue that comes up when I talk to people about measurement and results, is that they are not really sure what results they expected to deliver in the first place. Your business goals may be aspirational (e.g. to be the leading supplier of x in the South East) but your objectives need to be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound.  Typically you might set an absolute or growth target for revenue, profit or market position/share.  So a good objective might be worded along the following lines ‘To grow revenue from £100,000 to £200,000 at 20% gross margin by 2010'.

All your business plans should be built to deliver this objective, be they marketing, finance or HR.  Knowing what you can afford to invest in terms of marketing budget before you develop your marketing plan will help you make difficult choices about which activities will be most effective from across the mix: product/service improvements, pricing offers or discounts, new distribution channels or promotions. 

If you then work through your marketing plan systematically then you will have a clear set of activities to focus on and against which you can set lower level objectives along the lines of numbers of visitors to the website, responses to ads, etc. Once again beware how you interpret these results, however, because the more well planned and integrated your activities the harder it is to separate out their individual performance.  For instance, a customer contacts you, saying they've seen your ad, and wants to meet/buy.  It might be that they noticed the ad because they read about you some months back in an article in the local paper that was the result of a press release you sent out.  They may also have visited your website and checked for information in the past, but now are ready to buy.  And what happens next in the sales and delivery cycle may be a big decider on whether they ever buy from you again!

Which is why I say start with the big picture, and check progress against this continually.  Use individual measures to adjust programmes to keep it all heading in the right direction.  At the end of the day you want to be able to stand back and say ‘I did all these things, spent this amount of money and achieved x against my objective'.  

Remember ‘If you don't know where you are going any road will take you there'!  If you're not sure where you are going then please let me know if I can help you work it out!

I mentioned before how important it is to have a marketing strategy and plan - no matter how small your business - if you want to grow.  But it can be hard to know where to start.  A framework you might find useful for part of it, and that you might have already heard of, is the ‘Marketing Mix' or 4 Ps. 

It was back in the 1960s that Professor E. Jerome McCarthy of Harvard Business School identified and neatly labelled the key elements of the Marketing Mix: product, price, place and promotion.  Over the years new Ps have been added seeking to improve the way the mix works across all markets, with some text books now listing up to 15!  People, Process and Physical Evidence were created to deal with specific issues in service marketing, and not content with 7 Ps The Chartered Institute of Marketing, in their 10 minute guides, also includes Positioning, specifically for small businesses, which is how your customers see you and your products.  So that brings us up to 8. 

But to me that spoils the original simplicity of the approach and I believe a good start on covering all the bases is to use the original 4 Ps and being specific about the product/service, target market and business goals you are creating the plan for.  Typing ‘marketing mix' or ‘4 Ps' into Google will offer you detailed descriptions and guidance, so I'll just give a quick overview here.  But don't forget, they are all interdependent and a decision taken in one area will likely have implications in another.

Product
This describes the product or service that you are offering that provides value to the customer, and should include how you plan to develop the product to provide new benefits or respond to changes in the needs of the marketplace.  It covers how it looks, feels and is experienced by the customer.  So even for tangible products it will include service elements such as guarantees and after sales service. 

Price
Deceptively simple, but pricing can be a minefield for businesses.  Providing value to the customer is once again a critical objective - you know from your own purchases, I'm sure, that you do not always buy the cheapest.  But aside from having to generate profit, price also positions you against your competitors and sets expectations with customers that you will have to deliver on through the other Ps.  You may need to be flexible in your pricing to win key business, or want to create compelling offers for customers that will speed up their decision to buy.

Place
Shops, online, personal selling are all channels that can be used to distribute products or services and it is likely that your business will be using several different strategies for taking it's services to market.  You may be selling direct or via intermediaries, or both.  But once again your decisions start with understanding how your target customer needs to get hold of your product, and how you can make the experience of buying your product as simple and straightforward as possible.

Promotion
Typically this is what people think of when they think of marketing.  What materials and media are you going to use to get your message in front of your customers?  It covers a wide range of activities including branding, advertising, PR, websites, brochures and events.  It can also be the area where you spend most money so needs to be carefully directed to support the other areas of the marketing mix and, most importantly, the effectiveness needs to be measured so that you can decide what you do more of less of in the future.

Your Marketing Plan can be as long or short as you like, but your aim is to come up with a Mix of Ps that will achieve your business goals (a topic I will expand on another time).  The 4 Ps are internal factors that you can control, but they have to be adapted to what is happening in the external marketplace.  Using this framework will ensure you think of marketing as more than just advertising and selling by forcing you to consider what value you are really offering to the customers you are targeting.

But once you have your plan you then have to make sure you use it!  Don't make it an academic exercise and file it away.  Create a set of actions you will implement and carry them out.  And review it on a regular basis - remember the external marketplace is not standing still and you need to be flexible enough and in touch enough to respond to changes to stay ahead of the game.

"We don't do marketing. We tried advertising and it didn't work." This is something I hear regularly from small businesses. But it is not so. If you are offering a product or service that a particular group of customers are prepared to pay money for, then you are doing marketing.

Without labouring technical definitions of marketing, of which there are several, it is fair to say that a general use definition often focuses just on advertising and selling.  And this is not just in small businesses; even in large corporates marketing can be interpreted by many as just being about communication.

"Right product, right price, right place, right time," was the simple mantra that we used when I started my marketing training.Communication is not just about time of course, method is also critical and there are more choices of media today than ever before.  The key thing to note is, however, the mention of product, price and place.  Including these aspects in your marketing broadens out the scope considerably to encompass everything at the heart of your business. These are what have the power to make you unique in the market and are central to the business performance of companies large and small.Great marketing gets great results.

But what does definition matter?  If your business is successfully growing - which we will assume to mean making more sales and gaining more customers - does it matter if you call what you do marketing or not?  You may be working on instinct about what the customers want and how you should develop your offer to them, rather than by strict implementation of a marketing strategy and plan, but results are what really matter.  And just the thought of finding time to create a strategy and plan when you are rushed off your feet dealing with the day to day issues of running a business might be enough to make you dismiss it as 'not for me' or at least 'not today'.

While a business is small it may not matter, but if you have aspirations to grow (and standing still is not feasible in a competitive market) then being clear about what you are doing and why becomes increasingly important.  You need to know what customers you are after, what they want from you, and what activities are being effective in what circumstances.  Understanding and improving on results as you go forward.  Creating a marketing strategy and plan is just a grand way of saying you have written down some goals and some ideas on how to achieve them.  Perhaps most importantly this exercise can help you decide what you are not going to do when you are faced with too many options and 'never to be repeated' promotional opportunities.

Realising that you are doing marketing is the first step to doing more and better.  The next step is to create your own strategy and plan.Advice and help on doing this is available from most small business advisors, for example Business Link, or other marketing companies and is something I'll come back to in a later blog.  It does not have to be a fat, wonderfully formatted document, but it does need to be written down and referred to often to make it work for you.  So, answer this honestly, do you have a marketing plan for your business? If not, then I suggest you stop, take a step back, and create something that suits your needs.  Then you'll be able to say "I do do marketing", and you'll have the results to prove it.