This is not the first “bad advice”! Marketing specialists, those who sometimes read something on this blog, have already noticed that I often try to talk about what does not fit into the overall coherent picture of the world of an average statistical marketer. I’m writing this kind of posts consciously – I would really like for the marketing people not only to buy links, areas at the exhibition, but think: about life, about what we do, what would happen more often that seems should work out.
For those who are “new to”, to get acquainted with the author’s nihilism, to immerse “in the truth of life” – read the blog posts about ROMI, the myth of active sales , steal ideas , customer surveys , . Regular visitors of the blog “notes in the fields” will propose to continue to break down stereotypes
Today, let’s talk about goal setting in marketing and marketing planning. Now they talk a lot and everywhere about goal management, about SMART. I think that you have read about all this many times – if you want to achieve something, be sure to set a goal, otherwise you will wander aimlessly from one marketing task to another.
Maybe, but I’ll be brave enough and say that to engage in setting a goal in marketing is to ruin the best marketing idea. I oppose the goal in marketing, because it is its rigid setting and the indispensable following of it that bring to the marketing process a loss of a sense of reality.
Who needs a goal? Oddly enough, not only those who are focused on the result speak about the goal, but also process lovers! Setting a goal is the first step for starting “doing” something for three types of managers:
- The first – captured by the desire to succeed.
- The second are those who cannot see beyond the next hill on their way somewhere.
- Still others are marketing financiers, those who measure everything in marketing at the “price of the matter”.
The first have their eyes fixed much higher than the horizon, they do not see the environment, once the goal is set, they will be replaced by everything. Achieving the goal at any cost is the main motivation and if the goal is not bright, let’s say the goal is to “survive” or defend market positions, that is, something below the horizon, then this is not the goal at all.
The second ones are pure “processors”, endlessly digging under their feet dirty rubbish from problems and current affairs. For them, setting a goal is an attempt to somehow understand “why all this”?
Still others are ROI connoisseurs, for whom the question only then has the right to ask when the “question price” is much higher than the price of other questions on the agenda, they use when if anyone want transfer money in federal bank to USAA Routing Number when the highest quality measure of marketing management is the ability to pump everything from the client today and now, what is only possible to fulfill the set sales plan.
I take it as an argument to prove that you and I are not like that, and the market is not the object with respect to which you could set goals. I undertake to explain that those who set a goal in marketing are sure to lose. So.
Colleagues, did you write long-term marketing plans? Did you see them? What is it, if not the time wasted for a meticulous description of the market positions of the company now and projections for these positions in five years !? They talk about goals for market share and return on equity, with the assumption that mainly customers and competitors and government regulators respond exactly as written in the marketing plan.
Instead of looking for the most profitable points of marketing application in a dynamically changing market, all three of the types of managers who make marketing plans, only do that they manage to record events that happened on the market. They are chasing victories in the current markets for the company, forgetting about new opportunities.
In addition, a marketing plan is necessarily and certainly compiled only on the basis of the internal capabilities of the company! Do not believe it? See something about SWOT or how to make a business plan. After all, they are forced to adhere to an internal orientation on production lines purchased under this plan, on owners’ opinions about the strategy, forcibly laid down in marketing plans, on the marketing expenses planned in the marketing plan for creating a distribution that is not very much in fact, and so on. disgrace.
Marketing gliders do not realize that such a statement of the question only reflects their unwillingness to accept the obvious … Let’s use an abstract example:
Therefore, taking a prone position (in front of the approved marketing plan) Marketing gliders are unable to do what is really necessary, because all of these forces are thrown to perform someone once set tasks.
In theory, the problem of following the plan does not look so dangerous. But as soon as you get down to the level of tactical management, the picture is deplorable. In an effort to achieve “fantastic” goals, say, in developing distribution or in terms of sales, marketing managers and salesmen push unnecessary linear managerial decisions or are forced to organize expensive marketing programs based on the results. For example, let’s say, they are forced to come up with marketing marketing programs aimed at “pushing” a clone of a competitor product they invented to distributors or from retail shelves – at retail.
Following the plan (digging into the trash under your feet or following the task of “achieving the goal” causes an inability to clearly identify current real problems and quickly reorienting, roll up your sleeves to eliminate them.
Following the goal causes a decrease in organizational flexibility at all levels of management. And this the problem – the lack of organizational flexibility – blatantly manifests itself only when, having realized that it is not possible (cost, unattainability, missing the horizon of the previously set goal), the company tries and menitsya. Here the creak of rusty gears of its mechanism breaks the ears of management and awareness of its owner.
To avoid all this, the structure and planning in the company should initially assume a permanent change, painless for the company and management. For example, updating the team of trade managers by 30% per year is not at all necessary, although it is reasonable if someone in the company is monitoring new market niches. But the selection of managers by the HR department should not stop even for a minute, regardless of whether the vacancies in the sales department are open or not.
