Starting a new marketing coordinator position?

Starting a new marketing coordinator or management position can be nerve racking right from the start. This is especially true if you are new to B2B marketing and have a limited amount of experience creating marketing material. It’s tough to get going. The products are technical and you need get a good grasp of what they do and the audience for each each one of them. To complicate matters even more, you will discover that there’s a wide variety of decision makers that you need to reach.

Unlike consumers, where one person makes the bulk of the buying decisions, B2B decision makers are often several people. In fact, any single person may not have the authority close the deal. Normally, a committee makes most buying decisions. According to research by CEB, an average of 5.4 decision makers are involved in B2B purchases. (https://hbr.org/2015/03/making-the-consensus-sale)

All will want to hear about the product’s features and benefits and have access to product specifications and safety data. They will want to learn if the product will help them save time, money and/or resources. Your literature, direct mailer and web page will most likely need to convince all of them before the final decision is made to buy your firm’s product.

For B2B, most of the products are technical. There’s a ton of jargon to learn. You will probably be getting direction from superiors with limited marketing experience and have a fear of trying something new. But, it’s not all bad. A good B2B marketing coordinator or manager job can be a rewarding experience. With the right attitude, passion and determination you can make a difference. So, get ready for days filled with discovery, demands and some disillusionment.

Where do you start?
If you are new to the job, you’re excited to get going and make a positive impression. But, where do you start? What are your priorities? Who do you talk to first? You might want to start with setting up individual meetings with all of the product marketing managers. Regardless of the size of their product line or respective budget, treat each one of them as equal. They are depending on you to help them better market their products.

Meet with product managers
When you meet with product managers, let them explain their products and where they stand in the marketplace. Find out what digital and print sales tools are they currently using. How effective are they? Do they use any data analytics to determine their effectiveness. Are they pleased with the strategies and tactics currently in place? Finish off the meeting with this question: If they had an unlimited budget, what marketing materials would they want to use to generate more qualified leads for the sales force. That’s a good first meeting. You don’t want to be overwhelmed; you just want to get the basics of their product line and marketing communications issues that need to be resolved. Make sure you tell them that you want to get together again soon.

Meet with Research & Development
Then meet with the head of R&D. They will let you know what products are in the pipeline and when they might be ready the product launch. Unfortunately, too many times marketing communications overlooks R&D until they need them. So, get connected early and learn as much as you can about what they are working on and when it might be ready to launch something new or replace an existing product. Make sure there’s not a disconnect between the marketing and R&D departments. If there is, try to fix it by being supportive of their needs. Maybe you can help with presentations or edit a white paper. Let them know that your are there when they need you.

When Marketing and R&D work together and focus on understanding and responding to customer needs, it makes both of their jobs easier and more productive. Unfortunately, most times R&D doesn’t involve marketing early enough in the product development process. And the marketing team does not back their product requests with solid data and dependable research on what the customer needs and is willing to pay.

Companies that bring R&D and Marketing together around what really matters to their customers will build a strong competitive company. So, if you can help bridge the gap, it can make a big difference.

Chat with customer service team
Next, you want to talk to people in customer service. The customer service and the marketing departments are usually two distinct departments in most organizations. However, with social media and online reviews, customer service and marketing need to synchronize their efforts more than ever before. If your firm is using a CRM program and is an advocate for inbound marketing, all the more reason to know what they do and determine how you can help them reach their goals. Each department can make the other’s job easier and more efficient by communicating on a regular basis. When marketing and customer service teams work together, everyone is aware of the special promotions before they are launched. If you help instill the value of customer service, lead nurturing and inbound marketing to your colleagues, everyone wins and the company as a whole succeeds. So, make time to meet with the customer service supervisor and spend time to know each of the CSRs.

After meeting the inside team, spend some valuable time with the top outside sales representatives and a few new ones too. It’s best to meet on a one-on-one basis. If possible, spend a few days with a sales person or two. Ask to go out and shadow someone from the sales team. If you can go out with one of the high-raising reps all the better. After you get back, set up a follow-up meeting with the customer service/inside sales group and go over what you learned from the sales reps.

Take notes AND record the meeting
Take a lot of notes and try to tape the meetings (highly recommended). Then create a TO-DO list of what you feel needs to be done to promote each product line. Make a separate list for tactics to tackle that will help your firm reach its marketing goals.

Often times, the product managers have a technical background rather than marketing. So you need to educate them on good marketing communications tactics while they educate you on their products and where they fit in the market place. If you can meet with them and others in the first few weeks of starting your job, you will be in a good position to get things done.

If you have any questions or concerns about succeeding in your new position, email me at len@feehan.com. I’ll answer your questions and guide you the best I can at no charge to you. Good luck!