When hiring marketing people their primary focus should be on generating leads. Marketing people are great at spending money on ‘awareness’ and ‘image’ neither of which generate leads. Your marketing needs to be measured and the best measure is ‘leads generated’ each month. Your job description and key task expectations are therefore critical – before you hire the individual or firm – get this right and you will be smiling – pay lots for a flash web site and a brochure designer – and you will be paying feel good dollars for feel bad results. Both Mike Pero and Steve Lang (Tony’s Tyres) are great New Zealand examples of marketing success – but they paid and got results. Marketing needs to be budgeted and measured. The financial position of a company will usually be a manifestation of its effectiveness with its marketing and prospecting.

The role of your marketing team

• Grow and maintain the prospect database
• Manage the client database
• Liaise with outstanding Branding people
• Develop and distribute the regular newsletter
• Manage the website
• Manage the social media messaging
• Create and contact ‘centres of influence’
• Distribute videos, blogs, articles
• Liaise with PR and Journalists for releases, blogs, articles of relevance
• Manage workshops and events (organise and follow through)
• Manage the client care programme – (the regular contact plan)
• Book appointments – for nurturing events (breakfasts, coffees)
• Generate leads per month using the above strategies (determine the number)