How do I manage my marketing person when I don’t really fully understand what they are doing?

This question can apply across your whole business, when the area that a certain staff member is working in is not your area of expertise.

But marketing does seem to be one of those areas, where business owners or managers can feel that the marketing person is not really doing much, mainly because you can’t see the results as easily as you can for other areas of the business.

Here are some tips on working with them:

• Don’t just give them free rein to go off and do what they want to do just because it’s not your thing – what they want to do might be very different from what you want.
• Sit down with them and explain where you see your brand going.
• Ask them to explain to you where they see the brand going and what areas need focus.
• Ask them to produce a marketing plan with a budget for the year – each activity should have a budget, as should each area of spending, right down to things like artwork.
• The plan and budget should be in a calendar so that you can see what is happening where (and how much it is costing). You can then use this as part of the marketing manager’s KPIs.
• Set up regular meetings with them (depending on your comfort level – this could be weekly) to get updates on any new products and to check their progress against the plan.
• You might want them to produce project timelines for new products. This means that they understand what is involved and you can ensure that they are meeting deadlines.
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions. For example: Why do we need a Facebook page? What do we get out of it? You don’t need to know about the topic to quiz them on it, if they are doing their role properly then they will know the answers.

Marketing is important to your brand/business (although loving marketing, I am a little biased). It’s not one BIG SCARY area of your business, and you don’t need to be an expert to get your staff to produce good results.

Free marketing plan review

Plus, this week I am willing to review your marketing plans for free (because I like you) and give you feedback if you want to check that your staff have got it right… just email it to me at Lara@MyMocks.com (this is not an ongoing forever deal, send it in before 10 July, 2009).

Lara Solomon is the founder of Mocks, mobile phone socks www.MyMocks.com and author of Brand New Day – the Highs & Lows of Starting a Small Business. Lara’s business LaRoo was the winner of the NSW Telstra Micro-Business Award in 2008.

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