Sleep Marketing

Many of us end up so bogged down with the minutia of the job that we are happy just to send (whatever our instincts). We kinda know deep down that the messages we send out into the world are not connecting as effectively as they might.  Like being in a dream, where you want to run but your feet feel like lead and everything is in slow motion and dulled to the senses.  It’s scary and weirdly safe at the same time.  The reason it seems somehow detached is because the connection between marketing & sales is not clear.  Each as a very different structure, and marketers are often running in separate circles than the sales teams and account managers.  This leads to a lack of specific goals for marketing departments, linked to actual business transacted.

There’s also a problem in many large corporations, in that the quarterly sales targets belong to sales men and women.  This means that they are acutely aware that their relationships with key decision makers are worth cold hard cash, and they protect them with everything they’ve got. Account managers and sales teams own the customer relationship.  Building more humanity into the marketing can help warm the whole brand up to the prospect, and create a kind of “remote intimacy” that counts for something when customers need to review contracts, or account managers move on to work for competitors.  There’s a personality at work in the relationship apart from that of the salesman.

It’s not like you’ve been in a bunker for the last ten years. You’re very aware of the party going on outside your particular goldfish bowl.  Between the social media consultants, the gurus, the professional B2B and Internal Comms industry bodies, the thought leaders speaking at events you can’t afford the time (or fees) to attend, and the cool marketing tools you’re not allowed to invest in, you are constantly nagged by a feeling that your company’s marketing just might suck.

The science and art around building customer loyalty and interest in prospects has enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance over the last three years or so. When I say renaissance, we have been here before. Back in the days when it took a village to raise a child, when Dunbar’s number was the number of people in that village (Dunbar’s Number is the suggested maximum number of people it’s possible to hold meaningful social relationships with), and a handshake was enough to guarantee a contract, we knew where everyone’s value lay. 

…Excerpt from Jim shields latest book 'Once More With Feeling'. To find out more about this book please email anyone@twistandshout.co.uk