Marketing Strategy - Too Busy for It?

As a marketing professional do you ever find yourself in a situation where you are too busy to stand back and put thought into the long term direction of your marketing campaign or department? If you are take comfort in knowing that you are not alone.

It's easy to become reactive in the marketing world - last minute ad runs in a magazine - just because there was a 60% price reduction, probably isn't the smartest approach to marketing. In addition, I've seen marketing professionals under pressure from the sales department to conduct above the line marketing such as advertising - I call this ‘window dressing', no real substance or rational thought behind this great expense.

So how do marketing professionals stop this runaway train of reactive marketing?

• Try and take time out for planning, allocate at least 2 hours a week either early morning or late afternoon. Work from home one day a week and focus on strategy, without it marketers will lose control and will have no choice but to engage in reactive marketing.
  
• Get to them before they get to you! Invite departments such as sales to make suggestions and give their opinions, take their suggestions on board - but don't make promises. Use this time to educate them in a non-pressure environment on the importance of having a strategic marketing plan and what activities you are doing that will benefit their goals.
  
• Get help with tactics! Ok this might be tough for marketing departments who have tight budgets, but think of this way, if you are working on printing badges, creating adverts, ordering mouse mats - isn't your resource an expensive resource for these tasks?  Time is valuable, and the strategic elements of marketing are being neglected.  Delegate these tasks to a contractor and focus on the meat of marketing - such as strategic direction and working with other departments to help steer the direction of the company.
  These are just a few points to think about when that ‘reactive' marketing feeling takes hold. Please feel free to agree or disagree with me, I'm not saying this is the case with every marketer, but I've seen it happen a lot out there in marketplace!
  
  Stay Strategic!