Marketing voodoo...the fluff formerly known as collateral...and why we made the logo blue.

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A friend and colleague was recently describing common failings noticed at marketing departments, especially in startups, with a number of companies where he has consulted (not as a marketer).

His first observation:
What marketing VPs do often looks like voodoo to him. And a lot of it looks like a me-too game. "If I pull up our website, and a competitor's website, they sound like the same company. And I can't tell what either company actually does."

His second observation:
When he asks honest questions about the how and why of marketing tactics that are going out the door, he often gets a huffy response.

Now, even a patient professional (in any discipline) can tire of being second guessed within their zone of expertise. But I think my friend is correct in viewing these 2 observations as signs of trouble in a marketing effort. Here's why.

- Even if your strategy has all the validity in the world, if the rest of the company doesn't understand the marketing message, you're in trouble.

The rest of the company doesn't necessarily have to understand why the CIO picked Microsoft or why the COO closed the plant in Guangdong province. (Though it's better if I understand how these visible decisions serve the same larger strategy that my daily chores do.) However, the marketing message is closely tied to the entire company's strategic purpose. We shouldn't all parrot the same canned phrases to describe why customers buy from us. But if we really have no shared ideas about what our customers expect to get from us in exchange for their money and trust...that's going to breed problems in delivery. Marketing messages are greatly handicapped if they are concocted in a vaccuum. They are much more powerful when rooted in past operational results, and in companywide shared beliefs (okay, how about overlapping beliefs?) about customer needs.

- Differentiation isn't what I say it is in my meticulously crafted positioning statements. It is what my customers say it is.

Quite frankly, good line managers and strong sales people know more about the customer than their marketing executives do. They also know more about what the company does and how the sausage gets made. Carefully observe the reaction of your delivery organization and sales people to a big redesign of your website (or other marketing materials). I would argue that any silence, hesitation, question, or concern they express is a red flag.

If they want to know why the logo is blue, well, you may not need the most sophisticated of answers to that. If they think the logo is ugly, it's worth hearing why. If they don't understand your tactics, you can be gracious about others' lack of expertise in your profession. And not everyone has to love your tactics.

But if good people in other parts of the company don't see a connection between what you're telling your customers and what those people think the company is about, then drill down and understand that one.

Even if your campaign tactics and strategic approach are "right", getting questioned about them creates a chance to lead. You're never going to be through building that shared (OK, overlapping) vision of what the customer needs and what we're all supposed to be doing about it.