I've been away from the marketing blogosphere for a while now because I've been, well, marketing. We just got our second book (in two months) to the printer and are pushing really hard to bring up our new web site along with several other tactical and strategic initiatives. So, I've been remiss not just in taking part in the conversation but in even paying attention to the conversation. However, I decided to rejoin the internet world and take a peek at what some of the folks I admire are talking about.
Suzanne Lowe has had SEVEN posts on the subject of "what should be expected of 'marketing experts'". (Parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven)
I haven't read them all but the seventh post caught my eye and I have to say "way to go, Suzanne!" It deals with thought leadership and piqued my interest because this has been a differentiation strategy for Mercer Capital for some time. While we have certainly embarked upon "a puffed up writing activity" from time to time, most of our content is leading-edge for our industry.
I also love the last three points of the post which I reproduce here with a few comments from yours truly in brackets which are based solely upon my own experience:
"For a firm that wants to tap "the thought leadership white space," it will take
- a marketer who is extremely well grounded in that firm's service portfolio, and who knows where those services fit in the panoply of intellectual capital and services that the clients can access [BWP comment: YES! However, a firm's management should realize that, depending upon a firm's service lines, it can take a long time (years) to really understand those services and how they both interrelate to the firm's other service lines and their market potential. Experienced marketers from your industry are a must here.]
- the firm's management to support the marketer's deep interaction with the firm's practitioners, to both mine the knowledge that resides in the practitioner's heads and to prod and push where it appears that intellectual capital is dated [BWP comment: Activities like this can certainly seem like "one more thing to do" for a fee-earner, yet they are vital. A marketer has to lead the charge with firm management.]
- a firm's management to support that marketer's contact with clients to gain new perspectives about what's really new and simultaneously beneficial [Again, a hearty YES! I don't see the downside of this if the marketer is knowledgeable about the client and/or industry. I make it a point to do this as much as possible. Again, I believe the marketer has to take the first step here. Without the initiative, the fee-earners just won't think about it].
These marketers are what I would call 'experts.' "
Great job Suzanne. Now, I'm going to go back and read Parts I-VI.
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