Benefits of internalising marketing

The most important reason why to consider doing your own marketing is because it is a business function — it should sit inside the business for this very reason. You manage your finances, your procurement, your sales and so you should manage your marketing too. This way, it can be a truly integrated business function.

Secondly, you can take ownership of how you spend your marketing and what effect it has. The ball is in your court and you need to make your marketing work. When managing your own marketing, there are far fewer secrets. You know what you are doing and you can see the results or lack thereof directly.

Heading up the marketing function

A significant question to ask is who should be the head of marketing. At its core, it is a strategic function and should be guided by no one other than the CEO. Think about it — choosing target markets, deciding how to position against competitors and selecting appropriate messaging is something that the most important person in the business should be actively involved in.

Despite this, very few business owners have studied marketing. They don't know the theory behind customer segmentation, target marketing, brand positioning and marketing messaging. Too often they think that "being the boss" means "being the boss" when instead it is "doing the marketing".

The role of marketing consultants

It is vital for strategic marketing consultants to assist company executives over a short period to align the marketing function to the business strategy — and then leave them to manage it themselves.

Marketing consulting should start as a business discussion on the company vision and growth ambitions and then filter down into marketing strategy, communication tactics and, eventually, sales execution.

As a business owner, you should stop daydreaming about employing a senior marketer in your business. You are that person. The real trick is to know that marketing — like any other field of business — has decades of history behind it and sometimes it helps to rope in outside help for a limited time to get things on-track. You don't need a marketing director, just a marketing consultant.

The research conducted by Firejuice can be viewed here.

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*Image courtesy of Vecteezy