Photo credit: Vaughan Williams

Effectively monitoring the wider business environment to continually support strategic goals is not an unfamiliar concept however for marketers who design effective short, mid and long term plans they will now face their toughest professional changes in the months and years ahead. Recent reports from sources such as the Financial Times and the Economist have shown that even the most senior analysts are not able to accurately predict the business reactions within the current economic crisis.

The fact that there are currently many business variables globally will mean that any fast paced planning should be much more considered as this will likely effect the marketing plan. Traditionally these highly effective analytical economists have been the benchmark when predicting business and will demonstrate to marketers that they will not only need the ability to create and design robust plans but will have to ensure that a reactive mechanism and a fast radar sensing factor built within  plans in order to account for fluctuations within the business world.

Having a strong ability to react well to fluctuating market changes which influence the commercial ability of businesses will be of great importance to marketers as identified in Marketing Week August 11, 2011; 19 ‘How Marketers can climb to CEO level’. Building corporate empathy and having a broad and detailed understanding of where marketing actually fits in to the corporate platform will likely win respect from the commercial or sales director.

The commercial team will have the most influence and decision power towards the board of directors in turbulent times of order to recommend how best to manage financial fluctuations in order to remain top of the business game. By demonstrating that marketing not only understands and reacts well to the sensitive economic environment but also to find effective solutions, (‘Fix’) and advise on business challenges through their own marketing expertise.

Through concise and regular monitoring of the market (constant analysis/research and radar sensing) marketers will be able to assess both traditional and digital platforms in order to make flexible informed decisions that can then be demonstrated within marketing plans. It’s time for marketers to fully reach out to commercial teams in order to grow to assist the business in order to grow this to a new strategic level so that finally marketing gain total corporate recognition and credibility.

Consumer trends, slower and erratic market growth and the threat of a double dip recession will at the very least provide justification for marketing professionals to be even more meticulous to detail and look even wider than ‘out of the box’ in order to identify and close possible gaps and then have a contingency plan to suit. The difficulty then will then not be with the currently designed strong plan that does reflect quality marketing messages but the economic and analytical front line now ‘blurred’ by the current dimensions of the disruptive business world.

As always the 999 call must be for marketers to ‘Fix’ and cope with the challenging corporate terrain in order to retrospectively demonstrate that the marketing function is much more than sales, corporate events and a catchy campaign or tag word. From here on marketing will provide total clarity, strong leadership and a brighter futuristic understanding for the corporate world to embrace.

More from Kevin

Hear more from Kevin by reading his other articles; Leadership Verses Micro Management, and The New Leaders of Marketing.

Zoe Gell

The social media scene in Brisbane is rife with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter groups to join and get involved with and jobs are also advertised this way. In fact I read when I first arrived into Brisbane that it is the Facebook capital of Australia, and more recently a survey by Scientific American Mind revealed that Australians rank 17^th in a worldwide study of top social networking users. 

Digital Marketing in Australia

Australia is really embracing the digital age especially where marketing is concerned, with many companies now expecting to see digital resumes with examples of work in the marketing arena as well as candidates with their own websites and wacky ideas about how to get themselves noticed. I haven’t had to send my CV out on a baked bean can yet but it did cross my mind when I was searching for work … how can I be more creative than all the other people looking. How can I get my CV noticed?

Changing economy, changing demand

I was chatting to Tim McNamara who works for Aquent – an international creative, marketing and digital recruitment company and he believes it’s now more important than ever to stand out from the crowd when applying for positions, particularly when competition is so fierce.He can validate my remarks about the employment market and said that the employment market in Brisbane – and indeed Australia wide – has changed remarkably over the last 12 months. He also said that ‘between 2002 and 2007, Australia experienced chronic skills shortages in a number of industries, but particularly within marketing and creative. The current economic downturn, however, has seen demand for marketing and creative professionals drop significantly, and fast. For the first time in recent memory, these professionals find themselves in ample supply but relatively modest demand.’

I have heard the same from my marketing chums in the UK.

Depressing! But he did have something optimistic to say- .. ‘that the lull will not last forever; indeed, we are seeing some encouraging signs emerge as we head into 2010 and our recent Aquent Market Eye Survey indicates permanent hiring intentions are on the way up now, but in the current environment it is imperative to shine through a polished application.’Refining your strategy

He gave some advice to anyone currently looking for a job whether it is in the UK or in Australia ; ‘Emailing a generic cover letter and resume and expecting the job offers to flood in is not going to prove effective in this market; those who succeed are the ones who go that extra mile, do research on and show an interest in the company they are applying to.’

Things are starting to pick up here though with an interest rate rise predicted shortly and I am noticing  that more and more marketing jobs are starting to pop up which was not the case earlier in the year.  So all is not lost and there is a mood of optimism out here at the moment.

If you are interested in how to stand out above the rest when applying for a new job, I found a recent article that Tim wrote really useful so here is the link if you would like to read it for yourself..

 Bye for now

 Z

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Katharine Wilson looks at mentoring.

Talking about your ‘career’ always makes it sound terribly grown-up; like you’ve thought everything through and have a long term plan about what you want to do and where you want to go.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a career plan. I couldn’t say that it was my explicit intention to work in marketing when I left university with a degree in American Studies. Like many people, it was more luck than judgement that I fell into marketing as a result of a natural evolution of roles; starting with my first job working for a publishing and events company.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed the challenges and variety that marketing in the voluntary and public sector provides and would consider myself to have built a career in marketing. Yet I’d reached a point where I felt that I needed to change and progress but didn’t know how. All I knew was that I wasn’t immediately seeking a new job.

Getting to grip with the issue

So when I heard about GLR’s mentoring scheme it seemed a great opportunity to get some insight and constructive advice from a more senior and experienced colleague. Also, I may have had a ten-year career in marketing; in practice, I have only worked for a small number of organisations (well two really!) and getting a fresh perspective would be beneficial.

Getting started

My first step was to get in contact with GLR’s mentoring scheme. They sent me a list (anonymised) of potential mentors and I selected two or three suitable candidates. The scheme contacted my first choice. Luckily they were happy to oblige.

After a brief flurry of emails we arranged to meet at my mentor’s office on the university campus where he lectures. It was bright sunny day so I chose to walk from the station and arrived feeling rather hot and bothered. The university campus looked lovely glorious in the sunshine though so we started the visit with a little tour. This was interesting and meant we had something to talk about straightaway.

After the tour, we headed for the coffee shop where we talked about our current roles and in particular marketing in the NHS. It was very much a ‘getting to know one another’ meeting and I felt quite comfortable. It was interesting to hear about my mentor’s background and he was already able to provide some useful tips about MBAs as I was about to embark on my own. After about an hour and an half, I had to head back to the office so we agreed to email about arranging another potential meeting and that this time he would come to me.

Next steps

It’s early days but I feel quite positive about the mentoring scheme. I envision it being a great support to me as I seek to develop my career and complete an MBA. Plus, at the outset, I expressed an interest in potentially becoming a mentor myself one day so I am also going to be watching and learning in the hope that one day I will feel able to offer the same level of support to another marketer.

The GLR has plans to put together a new speed mentoring initiative. Watch this blog for updates.

From Zoe Gell

I’m in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. How on earth did that happen?

I was very happy living and and working in London. Then I met my blonde-haired blue-eyed, sweep-me-off-my feet guy! He just happened to be Australian and he took me to Norway and proposed with a nice sparkly ring. We’ve been married for nearly three years!

I left my nice job as Head of Marketing for a property company and travelled all the way to Brisbane where my husband assured me that we were going to paradise and it would be really easy to fit in, find a new marketing job and live a fabulous life down under! He even agreed to travel for six months on the way as a sweetener – so I got to see most of south east Asia, Russia and Europe!

OK so now I am here. Is it the same as the UK? No. It’s actually very different.

Just subtle things really like having to pay to see the doctor, not being able to buy alcohol in the supermarket(!!) – in Queensland – I think you can in other states, having to show ID to send a parcel overseas – going to the local hotel which is not a traditional hotel here, they are hotels i.e. a place with a bar but no bedrooms! (Confused? Yes I was too!)

And trying to find a job in Australia has had its ups and downs. The marketing industry is quite similar yet very different. More on that in my next post.

I’ll be back in touch soon.

Andrew Whalley

A good mentor can make a great difference in someone’s life. A good mentor helps, guides, shares knowledge, and enjoys doing it. Mentoring, when done right, benefits both the mentor and the mentee. If you have the chance to mentor someone, congratulations, and read on to see how you can mentor effectively. So states one website I looked at when I was deciding to become a CIM mentor, nothing like a little pressure then! Little did I know I’d then be asked to write about it too!

Where to start? A question that hits all of us who ever sit down to write anything. You’d have thought that having had a career in marketing, especially one that covered a lot of public relations, advertising copy writing, product reviews, and the odd few books that sitting down to write a blog would be easy. Not a bit of it, is it the subject – being a mentor? Maybe, or is it that for the first time I have to write from a personal perspective – much more likely. I’m writing this blog for the Institute to record my thoughts, feelings and experiences on being a mentor for members of the CIM who feel the need. With the fragmentation of media and markets, the globalisation of value chains and the politicisation of the business environment, especially in public services in the UK, it is no surprise to me that marketers feel the need to seek help and advice from those like myself who’ve been at the sharp end themselves. Indeed it surprises me is that many professions don’t actually insist on this as a rite of passage for the newly qualified.

From the above you might well be able to guess at my motivations for agreeing to be a mentor;

• I wanted to help share skills, knowledge and expertise – given I’m a Teaching Fellow in Marketing that’s perhaps not surprising. 
•  I wanted to be able to be a positive role model by demonstrating my firm belief that a positive attitude goes a long way towards success
• I wanted to be a sounding board, to provide considered advice, to be able to help evaluate alternative options for my mentee 
•  I wanted to able to provide constructive, career building guidance, form an impartial but informed perspective
• I wanted to be enthusiastic about helping and to try and instil my belief that learning is a lifelong commitment – especially within marketing.

In short I wanted to give something back into a profession that been good to me, by helping it be good for others, it’s the same reason I chose to go into teaching, nothing compares to the look on a student’s face when the light goes on inside their head and you know you’ve helped make a difference for them and for everyone who’ll ever associate with them.

I had lots of good reasons to become a member, so I made a start. At a first meeting I was pretty sure we would spend most of the time talking and getting comfortable with each other and so it was. I met my mentee for the first time, inviting her along to my university – a nice safe public venue for a first meeting. I think both of us were a little nervous but after initial introductions I felt we got on quite well. As a first meeting this was very much about establishing rapport, so I took the initial lead and basically went through my career history what I’d done with whom. How I’d changed career to go full time into Higher Education teaching and how much I enjoyed it. My mentee reciprocated – we both added detail and anecdotes about where we’d worked and this served as a very basis for a more general discussion on the challenges she’s facing with the NHS which are not inconsiderable. We chatted for a good 90 minutes over coffee and getting blinded by the sun in the process. At the end I think we had both found a good level of rapport and were more than comfortable to progress onto deeper issues. After a further thirty minutes of discussion my mentee had to leave to go back to work, but I think we’ve established a very good basis to continue the relationship.

I’m looking forward to seeing my mentee again, perhaps this time I’ll go and see her; it’ll be a first to venture into a hospital in rude health for me!

To see another side of Andrew’s work, have a look at one of his latest articles.