Marketing Management For Non-Marketing Managers

13STAFFING THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT

Have you ever been asked to do something, either at home or at work, that you just didn’t have the time available to do? What happened?

Maybe you decided it wasn’t all that important, and it didn’t get done. Or, maybe you did it, but you didn’t do the job well. You did the very least you could do to check the task off the list. Or, perhaps you did the task, but something else got put on the back burner.

As I mentioned in chapter 12, ‘Why Do Good Plans Fail?’ when this happens within the marketing function, it can cause a plan to be abandoned involuntarily. This frequently happens because

• the plans are insufficiently staffed;

• the staff or marketing department does not understand or accept the responsibility for executing on the plan; and/or

• the staff or marketing department has the wrong mix of skills available for execution.

As I will discuss in this chapter, staffing is crucial to the success of a marketing plan and, therefore, the marketing function. Without an adequate team to carry out the tasks within a plan, all the work the company does aligning its plan with market needs and mitigating risks to assure success will be lost.

ESTIMATING HUMAN RESOURCES REQUIREMENTS

When I develop marketing plans on behalf of clients, I work with them to break down marketing activities into steps, estimating both the skills and the time required at each level. I also assess the impact of activities that are abandoned or reassigned as a result of the planning ...