Who rules - Preference or Performance Marketing?
Companies who are still keeping two separate team strategies between performance and preference marketing are setting themselves up for longer term failure
Such companies are failing to connect the dots between full funnel marketing and over simplifying the consumer decision making process and mindset.
This is especially in the digital ad space where borders are blurred or non-existent and privacy settings no longer allow for precision targeting the way we desire.
Preference and performance simply should go hand in hand as end day, we don’t simply blow marketing dollars for the sake of it. What’s awareness to someone is consideration to another and conversion to someone else, depending on the decision making journey your customer sits in relation to the product or service and your company.
This is certainly not that new, when I went through the Google certification course back in 2019 but am still surprised that some are only talking about this in recent years.
What’s more shocking is the way some companies are still insisting on measuring marketing returns on investment by not having attribution beyond vanity impressions, page views and clicks on pretext that it’s just for awareness. On the other end of the spectrum is insisting that if a certain ad doesn’t result in immediate conversion, then it’s a failed campaign on pretext it’s for performance.
Whatever happened to looking at the funnel, who you really are trying to target, where in the decision making funnel they are at, how compelling is whatever you are offering, and ensure you are connecting the dots on your messaging in different formats, in order to determine the right metrics to measure at each touchpoint?
Example – this week, you have an ad talking about how xx product will help solve xx issue that customers face today. A few days later, you have another ad referring to the same product promoted on a site that your target customers frequent. A few days later, you serve up another ad that has a tactical offer with a buy by xx date.
Companies who know who they are targeting and who are responding to their ads versus those who aren’t, will create segmented lists that differentiate the two. They will use one for remarketing with differentiated messaging to help catch their target customers along the funnel with the above messaging and offer so they maximize their media budget. This process should ideally be automated.
Another critical thing to do is to try to get target customers to sign up and start a relationship with you, by giving them reason to of course through insights, tips or deals that matter to them, especially critical with the sunsetting of cookies.
This goes hand in hand with understanding their digital footprint so you have a multi-dimensional view of your target customers as real people with interests, preferences and needs, beyond outdated attributes like age.
All in all, companies need to invest in the full funnel and have different measurements for each stage of the funnel.
About the Author
Mad About Marketing Consulting
Ally for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.
The Sandwiched Leadership
The majority of us who have been working for at least two decades and grown into people management roles can probably identify with what I’m about to say.
Not all of us are able to move into the C-Suite level at this point, meaning the bulk of us would be sitting somewhere in mid to upper mid management with direct and indirect reports.
Concurrently, we would also have both direct and indirect managers hovering above us and around us.
This makes us a sandwiched leadership as we constantly need to think about upwards and downwards management and best ways to manage both without tipping that intricate balance.
Team management is not something for everyone nor does having the title automatically makes you a ‘real’ manager.
Having been in roles where I have inherited teams and grown teams from scratch, each has its own unique challenges but also satisfaction when the team flourishes over time.
Team management is also not about micromanaging or throwing them into the pits and leaving them to their own demise. Again, it’s a fine line as it depends as well between individuals. One man’s meat is another man’s poison as we say.
It’s also not about talking down or talking up for that matter but about paving the way to enable your team’s success while managing your bosses’ expectations and enabling their own success.
We are not expected to know everything and be a specialist in every single area that we’re managing but rather, we need to have the strategic view, forward looking vision and appreciation of the ground up challenges and pitfalls to be addressed.
The majority of our time is spent anticipating issues and identifying ways to prevent or address them. We also need to balance the dynamics of the team’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, chemistry and expectations towards each other. The last part is simply shielding them from the upper management’s own expectations, pressures and politics so they can function seamlessly.
It’s not a walk in the park and one thing at least to me for sure is that one can never effectively lead a team to succeed without genuinely caring for them as people.
With that said, I think the sandwiched managers have it the hardest and it’s also not surprising that many have given up, especially when they don’t get the appreciation or support needed from their managers as well as their own teams.
Some simply decided to go back to being individual contributors while others might decide to just venture out to smaller companies where they can be the top management instead with a more manageable leadership structure.
There’s no right or wrong but companies who truly cherish talent and their people should pay more attention to the sandwiched managers before it’s too late.
In my upcoming post(s), I’ll highlight a few key challenges facing sandwiched managers, the impact they have on business continuity and culture, as well as how companies can better support them.
About the Author
Mad About Marketing Consulting
Ally for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.
The Dying Empathetic Leadership
Empathy is something not every senior management or leader has unfortunately and it’s very telling in their behind-the-scenes speech and actions.
In all my years of working, I have come across very few truly empathetic leaders who are genuine in their treatment of their employees and customers.
Some I wish I can work with them longer when I choose to move on for other reasons as I know they would have taught me a lot more than I know now in terms of thinking, doing and communicating with empathy.
Empathy is something not every senior management or leader has unfortunately and it’s very telling in their behind-the-scenes speech and actions.
It’s undervalued simply because leaders don’t really get rated on their ability to connect with their employees and treat them with empathy.
I have witnessed many failures in terms of leaders in 1) not communicating emphatically to their people, 2) not showing true empathy in trying to understand the challenges faced by their workforce and 3) not listening with empathy when their employees provide feedback through forums.
It ends up being lip service or more trying to appear to do what is expected of them to look good and not because they genuinely care.
Classic examples are when there are organizational layoffs or restructuring.
The onset of how decisions are made have nothing to do with empathy but rather the bottom line of cost, profitability and returns.
That is why things never really change for the better in the longer term for most organizations and their leaders that make decisions without empathy.
Over the years, I have been privy to how such decisions are made, sometimes callously and without even sound logic. Rather, it’s more a stop-gap and band-aid approach where true impact on the people are not even considered in the decision making process.
What is worse though is the way such changes are communicated or not communicated to the workforce.
They talk about stock prices, shareholders equity and customers but forget their employees, the backbone of the company carrying that mission on their shoulders and believing in the promises made during the town halls, leadership emails and pep talks.
Poorly worded communications, which is as clear as mud and clueless management sitting around trying to find the right things to say or lend some insights to their team doesn’t help either.
Good, solid, reliable and empathetic corporate communications is a dying art in this sense.
For any self respecting CEO, my advice is to at least make sure you have a solid and empathetic communications advisor if you, yourself are not empathetic by nature.
Empathy might not bring you immediate revenue but it will have longer term benefits to the organization as you will make decisions that actually solve problems for both your customers and employees for the longer term.
Less attrition, less churn and more sustainable growth.
About the Author
Mad About Marketing Consulting
Ally for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.