Even the best marketing departments sometimes struggle to achieve the results they want. A campaign may not go exactly the way you envision, or your competitors may have more fortitude than you thought. There are several ways that you can boost a struggling marketing department, all of which are worth considering.
But which ones are going to work best for your business?
Step One: Consider Your Big-Picture Options
First, you should think about the big picture options that are available to you. There are many different avenues you can take for revitalizing a marketing department that’s struggling to see good results.
For some organizations, the right move is a change in leadership. Hiring a new leader or restructuring your marketing department hierarchy could be exactly what you need to get some new perspective and direction. For other organizations, there’s nothing wrong with existing direction or leadership, and the problem is more related to available resources or competitive pressures.
It’s also possible to hire a fractional CMO. A fractional CMO is very similar to a traditional CMO, but they’re much less expensive and more flexible. You can hire them as a kind of consultant, as a temporary CMO, or as an additional resource for your marketing department to utilize.
In any case, a fractional CMO is going to have the experience and qualifications necessary to help you figure out what’s going wrong in your marketing department and how to fix it. In fact, they can address almost any root causes of poor marketing department performance, from a lack of effective leadership to lack of access to sufficient resources.
However, a fractional CMO is not the right move for every organization or every situation. Lay out your available options carefully as you approach the next steps of the process.
Step Two: Do a Root Cause Analysis
Without a sufficient root cause analysis, it’s going to be very difficult for you to make any meaningful change to your marketing department or your overall marketing approach. That’s simply because you can’t solve a problem unless you fully understand what the problem is.
Yes, your marketing department is struggling, but how is it struggling and why is it struggling? Is it a leadership problem? Is it a goal problem? Is it a resource availability problem? Is it a strategy problem or an execution problem? Is it a problem somewhat outside the scope of your control, such as changing audience attitudes, an unfavorable economic environment, or new competitive pressure?
The better you understand the true causes of your marketing struggles, the better you’ll be able to overcome them. Of course, it’s not always easy to tell which factors are impacting your marketing department or which of those factors is most important. Don’t be afraid to take your time and invest in this process so that you can arrive at a better understanding of what’s going on.
Step Three: Begin Implementing
After your root cause analysis, you should have some good ideas for how to get started. For many businesses, these are some of the best possible approaches:
- Branding changes. Sometimes, the issue is with your core brand identity. In these cases, a rebranding initiative or brand refresh could be exactly what you need.
- Strategic changes. You might also need to address the high-level strategies that dictate your marketing campaigns. For example, do you need to be more aggressive in your approach? Do you need to reach people across more channels? Do you need to be more forward about your competitive advantages?
- New tactics. New tactics may also resolve some of your marketing pains. Are there new channels, platforms, or messaging styles that could support better results?
- Execution changes. And of course, you can also change your ground-level execution. Even minor changes to your copywriting and design choices can make a massive impact on your results.
- Experimentation. Experiments can be highly valuable in helping you determine which variables are effective or ineffective in pursuing your marketing goals. With ample experimentation, you should be able to figure out the perfect strategies for appealing to your target audience.
- Measurement and analysis changes. You may also need to make changes to how you measure and analyze your marketing results. Data analytics are indispensable in the modern age, and even slight gaps and errors in your approach can bear significant weight on your marketing department.
Repairing and supporting a struggling marketing department isn’t always easy, especially if you’re not sure where the struggle is coming from or how to protect the long-term interests of your marketing department. However, with the help of effective leaders and consultants, and with consistent implementation of new changes, you should be able to create an environment that more favorably supports the marketing results you want.
Founder Dinis Guarda
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