We believe that one of the most overlooked means to achieve your business goals is through an extensive examination of your marketing department's functionality.

One successful marketing program does not a winning business make. Many marketing campaigns are superbly conceived and implemented, thanks to outstanding individual performance and occasional great teamwork. But if this success is not replicated in other programs, that one defining event becomes nothing but a fond memory. A pattern of consistent planning and implementation by the marketing organization, internalized into best practices, is key to gaining mindshare, building marketplace traction and delivering ROI.

Marketing processes and systems are often afterthoughts. The most respected and valued marketing employees in emerging companies tend to specialize in a particular discipline or are jacks-of-all trades who can do just about anything well enough (the more jobs you can do yourself, the more secure your position). Those individuals with a strong sense of urgency often have a "doers" mentality, leaving them little time or inclination to implement sustaining systems. While doers are in control, things work out . . . until the doer is completely overwhelmed or has jumped ship to a new opportunity, leaving the company in the lurch.

Marketing metrics: define them or they will be defined for you. Technology entrepreneurs are biased toward the tangible, while venture capitalists need to know how their investment is being spent and C-level executives want their staff focused on the highest-leverage activities. Today's "age of transparency" is also the age of justification. While defining and measuring metrics is more common in larger corporations, any size marketing organization can come under intense scrutiny to spend its budget responsibly and explain expenditures with compelling rationale. Defining and measuring success is the best way to keep the investors and C-level execs satisfied while enabling the marketing organization to do its job.

Consistently great corporate marketing performance is all about "team." Analyze the best creative campaigns and you'll find key contributions have come from many places. Investigate the best-executed strategic marketing plans and you'll discover they clicked because of company-wide buy-in. Check out marketing organizations that are exceeding goals, yet still have energy to spare, and you'll find the common denominator is team, not individual. Collaboration, synergy and passion may sound like platitudes, but they are also attributes at the core of successful marketing organizations.

We welcome the opportunity to bring marketing excellence to companies like yours using our unique approach to Marketing Operations. Call us at 408-243-7881 or e-mail info@mopartners.com for more information.

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