Crisis of confidence in marketing
In business, trust is a very delicate and important part of everyday work. Losing trust in the eyes of your customers can destroy the entire business, and rebuilding that trust will take years. As a society, we are highly aware of positions where trust is high – we trust doctors, lawyers, pilots etc., mostly because these experts always carry out their work based on data, science, and law.
However, trust in marketing and marketers is usually very low. In one of its studies, the Fournaise Group discovered that 80% of CEOs do not trust marketers and they are dissatisfied with their work. Marketing as a career has lost its credibility and it is not just an opinion of few. According to the survey by HubSpot Research, only 3% of businesspeople consider marketers as trustworthy.
At the same time, marketers are chronic overworkers, juggling several different projects at a time. Yet, owners do not see an immediate return on investment.
It is important to emphasize here that marketing includes strategy, tactical planning, project management, analysis, metrics, feedback, auditing, communication, coordinating, content creation, creativity, digital and non-digital marketing, public relations, hands-on activities… the list goes on.
However, no matter how hard marketers try, if the company does not value these activities, the ineffective cycle continues. But marketing is not an island. It simply cannot work on its own. It needs two-way communication, cooperation at the management level and working together with other departments in the business.
“The main reason why entrepreneurs are dissatisfied with marketing is that in marketing 80% of their resources are spent on day-to-day activities and advertising. They do not proactively work with internal and external clients. As a result, they overlook activities that concern marketing and sales more broadly and effectively. That is why marketing is seen as a cost department, and is not allowed to deal with its main objective: supporting the organization in its communication, sales, and customer service processes throughout.”
Mari-Liis Vaher, an internationally experienced marketing expert, creator of the Powerful Marketer Program
Information, balance and well-informed decisions
If marketers want to be trusted, it is not just a matter of working with relevant data, but it is necessary to reach the desired outcome through the right and relevant information and specific decisions. Excess noise must be removed from marketing and a balance must be maintained in everything that marketing directly and indirectly affects within the company (not just in advertising).
Marketers must be willing to work on evaluating the company’s sales results and compare them to direct and indirect marketing activities. Business manager or owner may not always know or be able to evaluate it, so the marketer’s job is to guide and show the connections accordingly. Marketers must take on more responsibility than just running ads and campaigns. If the company does not allow it, then it is up to the marketer to ask the right questions and guide the management accordingly.
If marketers are not willing to take on this responsibly of proactive planning and integrated sales and communication strategy, then the trust won’t come nor will it increase in time.
No matter how many hours you work overtime, how much time you spend on reacting to urgent matters and stressing – the best decisions always come through balance and information. Marketer needs to know what affects this balance both personally and professionally to be able to distinguish between information, opinion and fact by asking the right questions and guiding the management to really think through the value of marketing.
Marketing as the heart of the company
Talent in marketing creates great campaigns. But intelligence and teamwork in all departments of the company create long-term success.
With right communication, marketing pumps profitability into each one of these departments, including motivating the internal and external clients to take action. Marketing addresses many functions necessary for operations, customer service, sales, research, branding, advertising, public relations, digital data analysis, communication, etc. When all these functions are mixed and mutually supportive, companies achieve a healthy and well-deserved level of customer involvement, loyalty and thus higher conversions or sales in their target market.
Powerful Marketer Program, the online professional development program encourages marketers to take responsibility for the well-being of their company. Not by just advertising and spending money, but by thinking through questions like:
- What are the psychological foundations of marketing, sales and customer service, and how are they connected in the eyes of internal and external customers?
- What steps in marketing can be changed, replaced or skipped during a crisis and a time of change, while still maintaining the big picture and keeping the most important activities running?
- What boosts marketers’ confidence and security in their work?
- What helps marketers to be less anxious and stressed, while managing their time and day-to-day work more effectively?
- What should be the questions that the marketing department should ask inside and outside the company? In other words, how to make sales, service, communication work in such a way that it helps to make the right decisions in marketing and vice versa?
- How to put together your company’s strategy, i.e. long-term vision and a tactical plan to achieve it?
- What does every public relations manager need to know about a person’s life cycle, and their psychological and physiological influences? What are the most common personality types, how to recognize them and how to communicate with them? How does networking help increase company’s marketing and sales results, and how to become a great networker?
- How to effectively manage the seemingly endless tasks, different projects and people involved in your marketing activities?
These and many other issues are the focus of the Powerful Marketer Program (PMP) which helps marketers to grow personally and professionally. The program is one of a kind, based on more than 200 sources, bringing together the most important topics for any marketer who is eager to grow into a leadership position.
It focuses on 5 key areas:
- psychology and mindset
- subconscious support system in sales, customer service and marketing
- professionalism and strategic marketing skills
- communication psychology and networking
- leadership skills, team and time management
For a beginner, this approach to marketing is the starting point for setting goals for their journey, but for the experienced marketer, it is an opportunity for reflection to see if there are areas that could be improved. The content of the program has been put together in such a way that it regularly supports key areas that are relevant to marketers. It means, when you come back to it after some time, you will find a new point of strength. In other words, it has the leverage and wisdom to help you at every stage of experience. In many ways, a very unique approach to marketing and business in general, and from the point of view of getting to know a person, very versatile and necessary, regardless of your industry.
Tiina Naarits-Linn, psychologist and crisis counselor, mentor of the PMP creation process
The entire learning process is based on research and principles of various industry leaders:
- Psychologists, like Daniel Kahneman, Carol Dweck, Dan Ariely;
- Skilled marketers, like Seth Godin, Philip Kotler, Gerald Zaltman;
- Powerful leaders, like Brian Tracy, Lewis Howes, Rory Vaden, Robert Kiyosaki, Hal Elrod, John Maxwell, Simon Sinek and many others!
The program is not another short training you take on, but a transformational journey of your personal and professional lifestyle. In addition to the content, we have also received very good feedback on our action items, with a total number of 55 of them (incl. tests, printouts, tools and worksheets), as they allow you to implement what you have learned and put everything in practice straight away.
Laura Kukemelk, the co-founder of the Powerful Marketers brand
The program is in English and everyone can access it 24/7. If you wish, you can go through the program together with a coach, to keep you accountable throughout the process! Find out more from the Powerful Marketer Program page.
