When David Packard - chairman of Hewlett Packard - said, “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department,” he certainly opened up a can of worms. If not the marketing department, then who’s in charge of marketing?
Well, Apple has Steve Jobs - a brilliant marketer who also happens to be the CEO. As such, he’s relatively unconstrained and that’s worked out pretty well to say the least. But how many marketers can truly be trusted with that kind of latitude? Very few, IMO.
To be brutally honest, most of the marketing executives I’ve worked with over the years weren’t what I would call extraordinarily competent. Why that is, I don’t really know. But in the technology industry, for example, managers from other disciplines - like engineering and sales - are often tapped for key marketing jobs. Or even worse - MBAs are hired right out of school.
I think the core problem might be that most managers, executives, CEOs, board directors, you name it, have no idea what constitutes marketing aptitude. Marketing’s one of those elusive functions that few executives understand, so how would they even know what to look for in a highly qualified marketer?
Well, I think it probably takes one to know one, so here’s my guide to …
What Constitutes Marketing Aptitude
- Business and operational savvy. Visceral understanding of what constitutes business success, strong finance streak, capable of P&L responsibility and flawless execution.
- Passion for the product. Passion for every aspect of the product or service the company markets. Detailed knowledge of the competitive marketplace and what it takes to win.
- Big picture. Keen understanding of all the moving parts of the entire industry’s food chain, logistics, and infrastructure.
- Inspirational and insightful. A visionary capable of big insightful ideas, plus recognizing and inspiring them (and innovation) in others.
- Customer savvy. Passion and empathy for the customer relationship and the user experience.
- Promotion savvy. Intuitive understanding of what it takes to get above the noise, create a buzz, and build a brand. Detailed knowledge of all major promotion vehicles from grass roots to mass market.
- Communications skills. Adept at communicating vision, ideas, and emotions to a broad range of audiences from the board of directors and employees to customers and partners.
- Leadership skills. Capable of driving diverse groups of highly opinionated individuals to consensus and action.
- Left brain - right brain balance. Marketing intelligence combines the ability to think, reason, and act logically and methodically, with the ability to connect emotionally and inspirationally with one’s self and others.
Now that you’ve seen the laundry list of what constitutes marketing aptitude, is it any wonder that great marketers are few and far between? I mean, how many people do you know that even remotely fit this description?
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