The role of the Marketing Director had been sufficiently complex before the double crisis in health and economics this year emerged.
On average, Marketing Directors are the shortest remaining members of senior management. Boards of directors want them to do great things. They are expected to be customer champions, front line advocates of the brand, in-house ethics and culture models, and heads of initiatives that drive the company’s growth. By contrast, only 26% of Marketing Directors are regularly invited to board meetings, according to a study conducted by Deloitte. Expectations are high, but reach and impact are low.
Coping with all of this in today’s environment has become even more difficult. As businesses strive to rebuild product, channel and demand strategies amid quarantines, isolation, and changing consumer needs, Marketing Directors need to be prepared to drive growth and create resilient marketing plans. The question to ask is: Does the Marketing Director role have the support needed for success?
To understand how Marketing Directors can break the cycle of high expectations and limited influence, we spoke with board members of more than 50 Fortune 1000 companies last year. This year, we met with Marketing Directors from various industries to find out how they are affected by COVID-19. We explained the information we obtained in detail in the report below. This information points to ways in which Marketing Directors can restructure their positions and become leaders in digital transformation. While this may be difficult, the findings prove that, contrary to the challenges posed by COVID-19, no one is more prepared to help companies survive and deal with any situation than a Marketing Director.
What has changed for marketing directors?
There is only one thing that has not changed: Growing the business is still the Marketing Director’s goal. As one Marketing Director put it, “The role of the Marketing Director these days is actually to be the Growth Director for the company.” Marketing Director plays a more critical role than ever in formulating and managing strategies to achieve sustainable and profitable growth. During any given week or month, the Marketing Director spends most of his time managing the business, solving problems and working with teams to seize immediate and long-term growth opportunities that can be seen, and prepare the company for future success. He usually spends the rest of his time managing and supporting employees.
What has changed has been how to drive business growth. COVID-19 disrupted supply chains and led to major changes in shopping patterns. Without any preparation, marketers had to adapt by pausing or canceling campaigns, finding new messages that were relevant and relevant to the situation, and adjusting themselves to a new reality in which digital and contactless shopping behavior is spreading rapidly.
Retailers have long been powering e-commerce solutions, but with the pandemic, millions of new consumers have turned to online shopping, digital brand interactions, contactless payments, and omnichannel order fulfillment methods (e.g. car delivery, in-store pickup).
As consumer shopping continues to move online, Marketing Directors in the consumer products industry stepped up their previous efforts to capitalize on “direct to consumer” growth opportunities. “COVID has accelerated trends that have already emerged,” says a marketing department manager for a consumer products company. “We had a plan to act on this, and now we have to implement it faster.”
For the automotive industry, these changes revealed the role of analysis in the role of the Marketing Director. “It has sped up online shopping,” says the Marketing Director of one of the auto brands for COVID-19: “It has also accelerated the understanding of the importance of a robust analytics team that can help review all data and transform that data into actionable, business-forward analytics. . ”
In the midst of the pandemic, the US was shaken by nationwide protests against centuries-old injustices in the race. This development has led to a new focus on diversity in institutions. Regardless of the industry, while many Marketing Directors are already doing what is required in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion, they are now making even more initiatives focused on a long-term investment to reflect these core values. These include improving retention, increasing leadership diversity, and focusing on participatory recruitment strategies.
In 2020, Marketing Directors found themselves challenged to build resilience in their organizations, not only to avoid short-term dangers, but also to achieve sustainable growth towards an uncertain future. Because of these changing priorities, it is very important today for Marketing Directors to manage these new expectations together with their boards of directors.
5 Marketing Director model
So what should a Marketing Director do? Since the Marketing Director cannot do every job at the same time, it would be best to focus on your strengths and expectations of the board. Deloitte tested five different models that can help Marketing Directors do just that. Immediately engaging the CEO and the board of directors to understand what they care about most and to develop ideas or get advice from them will help you understand which model will drive your company to success.
Should your company’s Marketing Director be the customer champion, or in other words, a leader in favor of providing customers with data, information, and analysis in a way that will drive business growth? This type of Marketing Director focuses on delivering a high quality, personalized experience for their clients and creates campaigns that empower clients and deliver measurable results.
Or should your Marketing Director be a growth provider focused on achieving sustainable growth for the organization with campaigns that bring more customers and contribute to collective growth?
Does the board want the Director of Marketing to be an innovation catalyst focused on developing groundbreaking proposals for customers, experimenting with new technologies, data and techniques? These types of Marketing Directors transform the customer experience while also improving internal processes.
For some companies, especially new startups or former companies in a top-down strategic regeneration mode, Marketing Directors need to be enablers who develop solid marketing opportunities and employ excellent teams with deep expertise in data and analysis.
Finally, many boards expect Marketing Directors to be storytelling directors who create stories that promote the brand and establish the company’s position and relevance with compelling content.
For new ventures or old companies in a top-to-bottom strategic regeneration mode, Marketing Directors need to be enablers.
You can be two of these at the same time, but not all of them. Consensus with the CEO and board of directors on what your company needs now will help ensure first step and long-term success.
Now is the time to redefine the responsibilities of the Marketing Director by period.
In our environment, some Marketing Directors feel they have a right to put aside old processes or ways of thinking and instead explore new ideas and growth paths such as digital transformation.
Accordingly, most Marketing Directors will focus primarily on innovation and growth, in other words, building data and analytics-based marketing organizations that can broadly read customer signals and make them actionable in real time. In a dynamic market, this is the environment where Marketing Directors can help organizations grow and remain resilient. Now Stage Marketing Directors.
