Top four signs of a good marketer

Spot the green flags early, and spot the red flags before it’s too late.

1. Honestly telling it like it is – even at their own expense.

You’ll be shocked to know how many bite their tongues. Between a pay cheque and having the company’s best interests at heart, the former tends to win quite often.

Marketers will hate me for saying this, but I’ve seen this happen time and again.

False promises of how leads can be generated overnight, or surpassing a certain sales number that is quite frankly unrealistic. Claiming to achieve Olympic-level long jumps before even being able to crawl. You get the idea.

“But that’s what the client is insisting!”

Sure, clients may have their demands and expectations, but it’s a marketer’s duty to manage these. Not sheepishly agree to every goal on the list.

If the goal is too steep, a truly competent marketer will first educate their clients on what needs to be done before expecting such a goal to materialise.

Or bolder yet – pinpoint gaps and silos which if not addressed, will never enable a marketing campaign to succeed.

As a matter of fact, many clients are genuinely unaware about the flawed logic surrounding their expectations. But simply educating them is all that is needed. And you know what? These clients actually appreciate the candour, and recalibrate the way they approach marketing to meet outcomes that are more realistic, impactful and valuable for their customers.

Is your marketer candid and courageous enough to share bad news – even if it makes for a tough conversation?

That’s a marketer green flag right there, and a sign you’ve got someone on your team you can rely on.

2. Always keeping the product and the customer at the fore.

Picture this: the company asks for record statistics, and the marketer follows. Blindly. No questions asked, no challenges posed.

But worse yet, your marketer has near-zero curiosity about your product/service, and how it works.

Not who it caters to, but how it works (for many marketers anyway focus on ICPs to determine who to sell to, and how).

Of course, marketers aren’t obliged to know the technical workings of the product they are selling.

But understanding certain nuances surrounding features and capabilities can help generate the insight needed to sell to certain audiences – by promoting those very same nuances.

Here’s an example of this:

A SaaS company selling CX software is looking to conduct a lead gen campaign, by running Google ads.

For those who aren’t aware: CX software is never just one holistic solution. It can be a combination of various tools, such as CX analytics, CDPs, digital experience management and even basic survey platforms.

So your marketer, in this case, should know that the keywords they need to bid on shouldn’t focus on ‘CX’ alone; depending on what the software vendor specifically provides, keywords need to be oriented towards capabilities, rather than generic, macro-level product terms.

Also read: The obsession with marketing – before doing any product development

3. Coordinating closely with sales.

Anirban Dasgupta’s standup comedy on corporate jobs and motivation mentions how sales is out on the field hustling it out, while marketing stays inside and watches YouTube videos – to much applause.

Ouch.

But ask any sales team, and they’ll agree (even if it’s through a whisper under the table).

Marketing teams have been notorious for the fancy boardroom speak and press limelight – while sales confronts the daily gruelling battle of meeting targets or else being served a dreaded notice.

It gets worse. Many marketers turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the feedback and suggestions that sales has(!) all the while continuing to daydream about some questionable promotional idea vaguely expressed by some influencer on a podcast.

So let me reiterate here:

If your marketer/marketing team isn’t collaborating with your salespeople, by asking them what their daily pain points are, where they see potential, and what needs revival (and then aligning all marketing efforts with these in mind) – it’s time for an intervention.

The best marketers work FOR sales – not burn budgets on internet fads that are out of touch with reality.

Every single effort your marketer makes should clear obstacles from your sales teams’ paths, and give them the nudge they deserve to win new business, while retaining existing ones.

4. Being open to new recommendations and ideas.

This one goes without saying, but resistance to perspectives from other team members and external consultants by in-house/existing marketers can practically be the only thing that’s holding your brand from being perceptive, customer-oriented and simply elegant.

I’ve witnessed first-hand, the dire situations that many businesses are in, simply because their marketing team is so averse to new ideas – including nailing foundational elements that render ease and simplicity for those who interact with their brands everyday.

On one end, there’s empathy, and doing your best to highlight an alternate (yet insightful and highly necessary) perspective. One that can create the breakthrough for progress to finally take flight. And on the other end, there’s steadfast stubbornness, and the staunch willingness to simply not budge – only because one feels foolish or threatened by someone else’s fresh new perspective.

Also read: Even if brands know what to do – not all of them follow through

If your marketer is:

a) Adopting new ideas and delivering progress that can be both seen and measured. While also:

b) Pushing back on new ideas that are otherwise questionable, WITH solid proof,

You’ve got someone trustworthy on your team, right there!

There’s no fixing stubborn. Or stupid.

If your marketers are getting defensive over new entrants delivering new perspectives, it’s a worrying sign.

Disagreements are perfectly healthy, but every point of view requires sufficient evidence to back things up.

So ask yourself: where does your marketing team really stand?

Your intuition will never lie.

If you would like to share your opinions regarding the content on our blog, please email us on media@sunshinestrategic.com.

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