The Effective Marketer

According to dictionary.com, the word effective means “adequate to accomplish a purpose; producing the intended or expected result”. An effective marketer, therefore, is someone who can accomplish his/her goals and produce the results set forth by the company. Notice I didn’t say ‘marketing results’, I’m referring to the Corporate goals because no marketing can be effective if it doesn’t contribute to the overall goals of the company. Mark Stevens, in his book “Your Marketing Sucks” has very good examples of what I mean and this is an issue for a future post. Let’s get back to the premise of this post, that is, an effective marketer can achieve and contribute to the company’s goals.

So is “effective marketing” the same as “effective marketer“? Aha! Now we are getting somewhere. The answer, my dear friends, is a resounding NO!

You could have effective marketing campaigns that drive sales up 100% and win awards and accolades but still have an inneffective marketer at helm. Blogs, magazine articles, whole books were written on marketing strategies and tactics and how to tweak your website to get higher Google rankings, how to use Guerilla Marketing and all the other interesting tools in the marketer arsenal but those are mainly that: tools. Without good judgement, they are a waste of resources. 

The effective marketer, therefore, uses the tools at his or her disposal in the wisest way possible. Not only that, but choosing the right tools is but a small part of the marketer’s job, especially if such person is in management or supervises people. The management of the marketing team (or any other human resources available to the marketer) is probably the most important task one has in his or her hands. The people are what will ensure the correct use of the marketing tool, the success of the marketing department, and subsequently, the success of the marketer in question.

Getting back on track

There is a lot to cover and that’s what this blog is for. Just to finalize the train of thought initiated a few senteces above, you can have an effective marketing campaign but an inneffective marketer because the campaign results may be out of that marketer’s control. Or, the team carrying out the campaign is good and has made sure that the campaign was corrected in time and launched successfully despite their manager’s inability to lead them. We all have experienced in our careers some kind of abismal leadership and have (we hope!) survived to tell the story.

The effective marketer, on the other hand, is not a guarantee of effective marketing but it is a much better judge of what will make his or her marketing department successful. Effective marketers still struggle with conditions sometimes out of their control (economic climate, budget cuts, etc.) but is nevertheless able to make the most out of it. As we post and discuss these ideas, it will become clearer how one can become effective and great at what he or she does. Your contribution, therefore, is essential! Let’s begin our journey to becoming effective marketers!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 4th, 2009 at 1:45 am and is filed under Marketing Management, Marketing Planning, Marketing ROI, Marketing Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.