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Happy New Year! I don't know if I was just cranky because I was wrestling with the idea of whether or not I should have created New Year's resolutions, but I read something yesterday from Hubspot that made me literally roll my eyes and mutter "you've got to be freaking kidding me."
Hubspot recently published an eBook called "20 Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2013 and Beyond," Prediction #4 is Marketing Becomes More Accountable for Revenue Generation and the primary point was that "Marketing will play a more critical role in contributing to revenue generation." Really?!!? Is that your future?
Where I come from, marketing is first and foremost about growing sales. Always has been. Always will be.
Maybe that's because I learned my marketing chops at a consumer products company like Clorox where the Brand teams were considered to be the "brand champions" and "hub of the wheel" in determining how to grow sales, grow volume, grow profits and grow market share. We on the marketing teams were the strategic leaders of the businesses that we worked on.
Even after I left Clorox, my performance has almost always been measured by sales growth (comp store sales growth at Peet's Coffee for instance). Even at a small company such as CocoaBella Chocolates, my bonus was tied to sales growth numbers. In the one case, at Cartridge World, where my performance was not measured by sales growth, I strongly recommended to my boss that he start evaluating me based on comp sales store growth.
Has marketing changed since I worked at Clorox? Absolutely. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that activities such as branding, graphic design, social media marketing, heck, even sales, promotions, content development, inbound marketing and public relations are not important. I'm saying that those are merely ends to a means, tactics you might consider along the way towards growing sales. There are LOTS of ways to grow revenue.
If you're a business owner looking to grow sales, hire a consultant or marketing manager who has that focus and experience. Unless you're building a large team of marketing experts who are focused on executing tactics, don't hire somebody who is a tactical expert.
If you're looking for a marketing consultant or marketing project manager who will be decisively focused on creating programs that grow your sales and profits, send me an email and let's discuss whether I'm a good fit to help you. Let's work together to make 2013 a memorably successful year.