There is a classic episode of The Office when Andy Bernard (played by Ed Helms) is trying to get in the good graces of Michael Scott. He uses annoying habits like personality mirroring, repeating what Michael says, and following him everywhere, to get Michael to like him.
At first Michael enjoys the attention, but then he starts to get annoyed. Eventually he snaps at Andy and screams at him.
What did I learn from this? Don’t annoy your boss.
So, how does a marketer annoy his/her boss?
According to research published in BtoB, the ability to prove ROI is the number one thing executives demand from modern marketers. CMOs and CEOs need to see ROI, and marketers need to prove ROI.
If you can’t prove ROI to your boss, you will eventually not have a boss…because you will be unemployed. The inability to prove, or the failure to prove ROI, is the most critical element of marketing. It is the fastest way to annoy your boss.
And proving ROI is so easy! Web analytics solutions, CRMs, lead management solutions, and call tracking platforms provide simple ways to gather ROI data and demonstrate data to your boss.
2) Failure to understand social media
Every week we have marketing experts join us for the LogMyCalls Marketing Webinar Series. A favorite topic for these experts lately has been social SEO. Nothing will annoy your boss faster than a failure to understand the new world of social SEO.
No longer is it enough to post to a corporate Facebook page and just assume you’ll get traffic.
That. Doesn’t. Work.
Today marketers have to actually engage via social media. This takes time, effort, and significant human capital. If you don’t understand this new world of socially engaged SEO, your boss will be annoyed.
3) Failure to understand SEO
See above and read this blog on content marketing, and this blog on content marketing.
You should understand this stuff, or again, your boss will very likely be annoyed.
4) Inability to sell
In days of yore, marketers could generate leads, hand those leads to sales, and forget they ever existed. Those days are gone.
Increasingly executives are demanding a seemless transition from marketing to sales. The lines between marketing and sales are becoming blurry.
How so? Here are a couple of examples:
Example the First – A marketer engages with someone on Twitter. This person is interested in your product or service. You plan to send the lead over to sales, but as you prepare to do so, the lead says, “Just call me real quick.” The marketer makes the call instead of the sales rep. THE LINE IS BLURRED!
Example the Second – Sales reps are targeting specific industries, consumers, or groups. The best way to target these groups is online via social media. The sales rep starts engaging in these groups and finding prospects via social media. THE LINE IS BLURRED.
If marketers can’t deal with this blurry line, marketing executives will get annoyed.
5) Inability to work with sales
Because of this blurry line, marketing and sales alignment is more critical than ever. If marketers can’t effectively communicate with or work with sales, bosses will get annoyed.
6) Inability to understand call tracking metrics, web metrics, and automation metrics
Successful marketers know how to gather data to prove ROI. They know how to extrapolate information from disparate sources and marry that data together in a usable way. Marketing used to be art, it is now science. Analytics gathered from call tracking and web analytics solutions should guide decision making, campaign spend, and general marketing strategy. Marketers that don’t understand this will annoy their boss.
7) Staying silent
Marketers are okay with being wrong. They’re okay with being challenged. If they weren’t okay with being challenged, they wouldn’t be marketers at all. Marketers have their assumptions and their efforts challenged by data all the the time. Their expertise is challenged by analytics tools, call tracking metrics and the constant flow of social data.
Marketers are used to being argued with…their data argues with them all day.
Thus, it should come as no surprise that marketing executives love to hear good arguments. They want their assumptions to be challenged by their subordinates.
Your boss will get annoyed with you when you refuse to challenge his/her assumptions. Don’t stay silent. Speak!
