Marketing Champions

Marketing is the engine of every enterprise, responsible for communicating with consumers and connecting them with the products they need. Yet in many organizations, marketing is underutilized, underfunded, and unable to make its full contribution to the company. This is due to a fundamental lack of communication—not between marketers and customers, but between marketing and corporate leadership.

Too often, top executives fail to comprehend the true value of marketing and the contribution marketing makes to the bottom line. And without proper metrics for measuring effectiveness, marketers have trouble demonstrating how valuable they truly are. As a result, when a company struggles and the corporate belt tightens, it's the marketing department that bears the brunt. But this just makes marketing less effective and companies less profitable.

In every business, the marketing department should be an influential, powerful, and critical part of the operation. Marketing Champions will show you how to break out of this cycle and make marketing the center of your organization.

Marketing Champions will show you how to debunk common myths about marketing, translate the language of marketing into the language of business, and make marketing matter to corporate leadership. Most important, you'll learn how to define the metrics of marketing success and establish repeatable, transparent processes that show the reasoning behind—and the potential payoff of—every marketing decision you make. With these tools at hand, you can prove your importance to top leadership and wield more influence than ever before.

If you're a marketer dedicated to helping your company succeed—and boosting your career in the process—you must learn to connect what you do with your company's bottom line. And you must learn how to communicate that value to corporate leadership. If you do, you'll be a Marketing Champion.

• Preface: Are You A Marketing Champion?
• Why This Book?
• The Marketing Champion’s Imperative.
• The Marketing Compass.
• About Our Research.
• PART ONE: Understand the Landscape.
  1. Defy Marketing Myths.
     • Myths about Marketing.
     • Myths and Consequences: Marketing’s Confused Role.
     • Four Distorted Views.
     • Transforming the Marketing Landscape in Your Organization: What You’ll Learn in This Book.
  2. Clean Up Your Language.
     • Clarifying the Language of Marketing.
     • Say What You Mean, and Mean What You Say.
     • Standardize Your Professional Processes.
     • Translate Marketing into the Language of Business.
     • Tips for Talking Business.
• PART TWO: Manage North.
  3. Make Marketing Matter to Your CEO.
     • Sleepless in the C Suite.
     • Marketing to the Rescue.
     • A Word about the Board and Wall Street.
     • Your CEO SWOT Analysis.
  4. Forge a Friendship with Your CFO.
     • Understand Your CFO’s Needs.
     • Give Your CFO Something of Value.
     • Marketing: The Wellspring of Profit.
     • Marketing: A Growth Driver.
     • Let’s Talk: Communicating Regularly with Your CFO.
     • CFOs under Pressure: A Note about Sarbanes-Oxley.
     • Your CFO SWOT Analysis.
  5. Define Metrics for What Matters.
     • Your Marketing Metrics Audit Process.
     • Tips for Selecting and Using Marketing Metrics.
• PART THREE: Manage East.
  6. Bust Silos and Build Bridges.
     • A Closer Look at Silos.
     • Silos and You.
     • Busting Silos: Five Tactics.
  7. Scratch Sales's Back.
     • Help Sales Boost Velocity.
     • Define Qualified Leads.
     • Manage the Lead Pipeline.
     • Quantify the Lead Pipeline’s Financial Value.
     • Overcome Price Resistance.
     • Accelerate Sales Funnel Flow.
     • Your Sales Partnership SWOT Analysis.
  8. 8. Dream with the  R&D Team.
     • Marketing and R&D: A Crucial Partnership.
     • Conduct an Innovation Review.
     • Reduce R&D’s Risk.
     • Craft Compelling Product Stories.
     • Your R&D Partnership SWOT Analysis.
• PART FOUR: Manage South.
  9. Build a Brand for Marketing.
     • Perception Becomes Reality.
     • Two Little Words.
     • Reshaping Perceptions of Marketing.
     • Your Brand-Building SWOT Analysis.
  10. Deliver on Marketing's Brand Promise.
      • Leverage the Power of Persuasion.
      • Establish Transparent, Repeatable Processes.
      • Forge Productive Working Relationships with Agencies.
      • Make Smart Marketing Decisions.
      • Your Brand-Delivery SWOT Analysis.
• PART FIVE: Manage West.
  11. Leverage Fresh Opportunities on the Business Frontier.
      • Evaluating New Opportunities.
      • Reclaiming Marketing’s Lost Heritage.
      • Act on Your Assessments of Opportunities.
      • Your New Opportunities SWOT Analysis.
  12. Lead the Way in the Cash-Flow Frontier.
      • Market Yourself.
      • Get a Reputation.
      • Conquer the Time Crunch.
      • Find a Mentor.
      • Your Leadership Future SWOT Analysis.

If you are a marketer and believe that you mostly is doing Promotion, then this book is for you. On the other hand, if you understand that marketing and sales are not opposites or even understand why R&D usually is under marketing (i.e. is reasonable well-educated), then this book seems to be a waste of time…

For all amateur-marketers out there, I'll give this one an OK mark, but for the rest, you ain't missing anything.