Driving revenue and attaining corporate goals is the evolving role of the marketing function — replacing the fluffy “branders” of old. But is that how marketers see themselves? And if not, do we know how our self-perceptions impact the prime role of value creation by marketing?
Apparently, a large gap still remains in marketing’s readiness to fulfill this prime role:
- Only 7% of marketers have a detailed job description, opportunity to advance and clear career path opportunities
- 3 of 4 marketers are not receiving the training and development they need for competence and success
- 74% of marketers don’t see “what’s in it for me” regarding marketing strategies
- 61% say the right people aren’t in the right position
- 51% say management is poor in one way or another
- 58% of companies don’t have a formal process for acquiring and keeping good marketers
Given the evolving importance of marketing, empowering marketers to become all that they can be is critical to ensuring that marketers’ perceptions match their reality.
The first thing we have to do is take a hard look at ourselves and figure out (a) what we do know and (b) what we don’t know. A good tool to do this is the Johari Window, bringing these dimensions to life in a straightforward and practical illustration.
Marketing Value That’s Visible — or Not
There are two key ideas behind the Johari Window:
- By disclosing information about yourselves as a marketing function, you can build trust with others.
- Through feedback from your stakeholders, you can learn about how your marketing team can add more value and drive impactful results.
The 4 quadrants of marketing’s Johari Window are:
- Open Area (Quadrant 1)
This quadrant represents the things that both marketing and other functions know in common about the marketing organization. This includes your “public” history, the four Ps, standard processes and outputs, skills and attitudes. - Blind Area (Quadrant 2)
This quadrant represents things about marketing that marketing isn’t aware of, but that are known by others.This can include simple information that you do not know, like corporate ROI expectations, or it can involve deep issues that are often difficult for groups to face directly, and yet can be seen by others, like how long it takes to complete a promotion for launch. - Hidden Area (Quadrant 3)
This quadrant represents things that marketing knows about itself, but that other functions don’t know. For instance marketing operational process issues, budget details and allocations etc. - Unknown Area (Quadrant 4)
This last quadrant represents things that are unknown by marketing, and are unknown by other cross functions. For example, technical product developments that are changing market dynamics, or corporate operational issues that are impacting resources.
By expanding the OPEN quadrant as a result of an increasingly open and positive working environment, marketing can make great strides toward increasing its value and impact to the company.
Statistics from “2012 Executive Guide to Marketing Personnel”, by MarketingSherpa/MECLABS
