Marketing vs. Operations - Can't We All Just Get Along?

I have a newsflash to all marketers of businesses large and small: Marketing campaigns DO NOT cure cancer. They don't create world peace and can't solve worldwide hunger issues. At best, effective marketing raises sales of a product or service, or increases awareness of an issue. But in order for all these things to happen, there must be good communication and a peaceful co-existence of the Hatfields and McCoys of business: Marketing staff vs. Operations staff...

The bottom line is, as much as marketing gurus hate to admit, there isn't a marketing budget big enough to cure problems caused by a business' operationally weak links. If sales are down, you must first consider a problem in the operations side of the business (i.e. delivery, customer service, quality control) before you spend money on any kind of advertising. You have to ask, how good is my product - really? How is our customer service? How is our delivery system? Can we really stand behind the product we sell? If your answer to any one of these questions is less than an unenthusiastic "awesome!", then you need to fine tune those areas before spending one more dime on marketing. In fact, a successful marketing campaign that encourages people to purchase your product or service, only to find that the product or service is faulty or the service delivery is poor, will hurt your business in the long run through negative word of mouth advertising, which is the most powerful kind of marketing there is.

Here is an example: a small financial institution whose staff has just enough work to keep them busy for an eight-hour day, decides to launch a second-chance checking account in a low-income neighborhood. Their target audience is people who've struggled to maintain a checking account in the past, but are willing to pay some higher fees on an account in order to establish a positive banking history (much like a good credit history). So this bank, who is locally owned and needs more customers, launches a campaign for a product that seems almost too good to be true - a second-chance checking account, complete with ATM access, with relatively low monthly fees. After a successful marketing campaign, the response pours in. The bank's staff, who, before this time, had just enough work to keep busy, is now innundated with work from this campaign and struggling to stay ahead of the demand, resulting in not only slow response back to the potential customer, but resulting in errors in processing many of the new accounts as well. Operationally speaking, the campaign was a nightmare because there was ineffective communication between the marketer, who was going full blazes, and the operations staff, who failed to say they didn't have enough people to keep up with the demand.

Here's another example: the small business owner who thinks he can effectively be the CEO/Hiring Manager/Copywriter/Graphic Designer all at once. I have worked with this kind of person before. He or she wants to have the last say on every marketing piece that goes out, even if there is too much copy on the billboard, even if she wants her pretty grandchild to be on the cover of the brochure, etc. There is a reason you're the president of the company - you have the skill set to run the business! But you may not have the skills necessary to run an effective marketing campaign. That's when you need to hire someone to do it for you while you delegate and oversee the process, but don't get so intimately involved that the marketing pieces look sub-standard, all while "groupthink" takes effect and nobody has the nerve to tell you to butt out. (Nicely, that is!)

The way to solve the problem is communication: have your marketing and operations people ALWAYS in consultation with each other. Marketers NEED to learn HOW their company works, no matter how boring it sounds. Operations staff NEEDS to learn HOW advertising impacts the growth of their company - which ultimately impacts their paychecks!

Remember, marketing will NOT solve your operations problems, and operations people should NOT be in charge of your creative efforts! But with mutual respect and effective communication, they can peacefully co-exist under the same roof. There is a book for relationships and marriage out there called "His Needs, Her Needs" whose principles can be applied to the business world as well. Read it and you'll see.  Yes, I'm totally serious.