I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of a package of 10,000 bees on April 2nd to start my first hive in Massachusetts. I’ve attended beekeeping classes, purchased and painted my hive, and donned my veil and gloves to observe a working hive, in hopes of becoming a competent beekeeper. However, my real job is to help marketing organizations realize the full potential of customer value. To that end, I can’t help but draw parallels to a working and productive (honey producing) hive, or apiary.
In this age of multi-channel, multi-wave and even multi-brand campaigning, marketing organizations need to focus on aligning the enterprise (not just the marketing department) to achieve integrated customer marketing. Roles and responsibilities need to be defined, communicated and enforced. Without this alignment, the business enterprise, just like a hive, will fail to produce customer value (or honey).
Key areas to focus on include:
Creating a single point of ownership of Marketing Strategy and Planning — Who is the Queen Bee?
- Ownership of overall marketing strategy based on market research, data analysis, past experiences, relevant partners, and corporate business plans.
- Plans and oversee the execution of all marketing strategy with authority over execution resources
Instituting an Office of Campaign Execution for centralized campaigning – Worker Bees Unite!
- Creates economies of scale and increased throughput efficiencies across all channels
- Enforces contact governance with optimal targeting techniques and targeting models
Developing a champion of marketing performance measurements to insure process, credibility, connect and alignment across the enterprise – How much Honey did the Hive produce?
- Exercises due diligence on marketing investments but has the ability to compare marketing metrics across the entire customer lifecycle
So, to be a true successful Marketing Apiary you need to:
- Map and confirm organizational roles – with ownership, centralization and champions defined
- Identify audiences, key messages and the most appropriate communication vehicles to appraise and engage the enterprise in organizational change, and
- Ensure those impacted by the change have all of the training and resources they need to be successful
I’ll let you know how much honey my hive produces come Fall, if you let me know how you’ve re-aligned your organization to produce customer value!
