The Marketing Manager: Jack of All Trades

If you thought marketing managers were people who took long lunches, think again. In the IT industry, says Annie Gurton, the marketing role is more important than ever

There is an old school stereotype which sees marketing as a gentle job which requires little more than a vague understanding of advertising and direct mail, the ability to come up with the occasional good slogan or promotional idea, combined with the capacity to take long lunches.

Not any more. If IT marketing was ever a backwater in a reseller business, that business will have fallen by the wayside. The successful reseller businesses are those which take marketing extremely seriously.

Yet David Angwin, European marketing manager of Insignia Solutions, says that too often marketing is seen as a handy promotion route and the marketing function treated lightly. ?Actually, there are a lot of very good marketers out there, but they are not encouraged to take their talents seriously or develop them with formal marketing training. There is still the view that marketing costs too much and shows little tangible return on investment. In some reseller organisations, the marketing voice is still hardly heard,? he says.

Yet the educated, astute and eloquent marketing manager can be an enormous asset to a reseller organisation. A capable marketing manager can go on to the client?s site and help with the sales process, and work with the R&D team to make sure that product and portfolio development is meeting customer requirements.

A good marketing manager is a Jack of all trades who will keep popping up all over the business, making sure that it achieves its targets. It is hardly surprising that in the US it is common for chief executive officers (CEOs) to be marketing managers, because they are so used to working with all the different departments.

To be a successful IT marketer in a successful reseller business requires such a sophisticated command of a broad range of topics that they will soon be sought after and able to command high salaries.

Mike Copland, managing director of high-tech communications agency APlus, believes that IT marketing is now so complex and vital that it is a first-rate training ground for marketing managers to move into the marketing role in other industries. He says: ?There is no doubt that marketing is a science and there is no room for the old school types. It is certainly not just a fancy title, it is a very real function which is increasingly critical.?

Copland has seen the function of the IT marketing manager change dramatically, and says that these days a different type of personality is required. He explains: ?They have to be people who thrive on change and have an inherent flexibility. They also have to be people who look for the unexpected and know that the future is probably the exact opposite of what happened before.? In fact, says Copland, by looking at what succeeded in the past you can see exactly what not to do in the future, yet most marketing managers take the past as a model for the future.

Guy Tweedale, European marketing manager of TDK, agrees that there was a time when IT marketing was a gentleman?s profession, but says that some of the things which characterised it still apply. ?There is no doubt that experience, intuition and common sense have a big role to play in IT marketing,? he says. ?But there is also the need to be familiar with the disciplines of product development, packaging, and corporate strategic development as well as promotion, direct mail and PR.?

Neil Marshall, European channel and communications manager of Texas Instruments agrees. He says: ?The IT marketing manager has to understand the end user, the chan- nel, channel dynamics and research, which are all separate disciplines in FMCG [fast moving consumer goods] marketing.? But Marshall adds that the key issue that IT marketing managers have to understand is that the brand is all. ?In a reseller environment, that means that they have to develop the brand of the business,? he says, and cites Computacenter as an example.

Marshall and Tweedale agree that IT marketing is an excellent training ground for a career move into marketing in other industries. ?The IT industry is so fast moving and the marketing has to be so responsive and flexible, that those are first-rate skills to move into other sectors. Also, having a good understanding of the implications of IT and how IT can be used within the marketing role can be extremely helpful.?

There is a new requirement for IT marketing managers to be familiar with the retail channels and marketing techniques, even if their products are to be delivered through third parties. Marshall says: ?Retail merchandising is an important extra string to the IT marketing manager?s bow these days, whereas previously they could have avoided it if they preferred not to become involved with it.?

Opinions are divided over whether the traditional route for a marketing manager ? that is, from the sales force, is still the best. Tweedale believes that it is more necessary today to have a technical background. ?It is also necessary to have a fairly good understanding of business,? he says. But many marketing managers still come from sales, which, understandably, leads them to produce marketing strategies which are sales led.

?Many marketing campaigns are short term because they are conceived by people with sales experience,? says Copland. ?The whole focus is on achieving the sale, not on the longer- term brand development.?

Copland adds that many IT marketing managers would benefit from a course in translating specifications to business advantages so that they can appeal to the business buyers.

?Too many are fixated by the aim to devise a short-term campaign and then see how it works. They need training which explains the dynamics of markets and how to use the analytical models and tools available to them.? Most of this, says Copland, can be learned from textbooks.

?There is no doubt that IT marketing is becoming a sub-set of general marketing,? says Copland. ?Already we have specific textbooks like the Geoffrey Moore series which relate very definitely to the peculiarities of the IT market.?

Moore says: ?You have to be counter-intuitive and at each stage reverse the things that they trained you to do in marketing school.?

Tweedale says that the growing IT literacy of users and customers is also having an impact on the profile of the marketing managers in reseller businesses. ?The campaigns which marketing managers must devise and manage these days have to appeal to a sophisticated user,? he says. ?You can neither stun them with specifications nor talk to them too simply.?

Most campaigns these days start from two points; the product and the need of the user, and the marketing managers must be capable of a shrewd grasp of the technical and business benefits of the product, their own company and the customer?s business. Copland observes that today?s world of IT marketing is characterised by a higher degree of commoditisation and increasing globalisation.

?Today?s marketing has to be applicable to a worldwide market as well as to a local customer base,? he says. ?And that is not always an easy trick to pull. Also, there has been a shift of products from the esoteric to the user and business function related, and that needs a different marketing approach.?

Angwin believes resellers are often afraid of using agencies, but says: ?Agencies can be very valuable for specific marketing projects, and there is often a legacy of skills which they leave behind as a bonus.?

But ideally, each reseller business should have a manager allocated to the marketing function because they have a better overall grasp of the business and its objectives than an agency ever can. ?IT marketing is not rocket science,? he says. ?But an agency can do a lot to help develop the in-house marketing person, and help them think laterally.?

Copland is convinced that lateral thinking is the key to successful IT marketing. He says: ?There is also a need for executives to be more prepared to measure and analyse their strategies as they unfold. They have to set up a feedback loop, which unfortunately many of the older school are not prepared to do. There is great pressure these days to be able to demonstrate and measure the benefits of marketing, and in the same way that the PR industry is now finalising a methodology for measuring their work, the IT manager has to do the same.?

In the final analysis, IT marketing can only reach the status it deserves if it is given respect by other members of the reseller business. Copland thinks that things are changing and marketing is increasingly seen as vital, almost as vital as sales. ?These days it is often the marketing person who knows more about using the internet, more about the development of competitor?s technologies and customer?s buying trends. The marketing function has changed and for the better. All that remains now is for businesses to capitalise on what is often a hidden jewel in their staff.?