A New Year Salute to the Unsung Heroes of Marketing – the Small-to Medium Sized Business Marketing Leaders

In my holiday catch up reading frenzy I’ve found a number of articles about big brand marketers that seem to have found themselves behind the 8-ball navigating the new marketing landscape – aka the shift we’ve all felt with the proliferation of the Internet as both a measurable and boundless marketing venue.  I’ve found a certain sick pleasure in reading about this topic because I feel like those of us working in smaller companies and perhaps even in second tier markets saw this coming and are vastly more prepared to take on the new economy than many of the superstars who formerly filled the pages of AdWeek and AdAge just a couple of years ago.

As an example, take Business Week’s December 10 article entitled “The Short Life of the Chief Marketing Officer” which points to the increasing scrutiny CMOs face in the wake of increasing corporate governance across the organization.  They refer to the “strange new world” CMOs are increasingly being asked to manage which involves taking the brand message across a large and rocky landscape that includes not only managing the agencies of the past, but also managing web sites, overseeing SEO and pay-per-click programs, considering VOC issues as played out publicly in social networking sites, and even keeping abreast of emerging technologies such as Web TV.   The writer quotes Geico’s CMO Ted Ward as saying it is hard to choose marketing options “when the sands keep shifting.” 

On one hand I say to this, halleluiah, this guy faces the same things I
do every day! And yet on the other hand, I say CRY ME A RIVER!  Welcome
to my world!

For a lot less compensation, resources and definitely less glory, this
is exactly what I have been facing for the last five years. And so I
started to see, for the first time in a while, that what I do every day
is a) not unique to me or even to small business (I’m talking start-up
to $40M) and b) that I probably know a lot more about today’s complex
world of marketing and maybe even do a heck of a lot more than many of
these big name, big company CMOs. 

Lets be honest, small business marketing is a tough and sometimes
lonely world.  And it started me thinking, if I feel isolated and
confused, I am not alone.  In fact, there are hundreds if not thousands
of us unsung marketing heroes inside every SMB today managing all of
these things and more – often without any agencies at all to support
them and most likely with a management team that looks at them like
they are from another planet.

And so.. here is my salute to you Small Business Marketing Heroes

To those of you who know that “hiring a research firm” means you and
your fingers and Google, who bargain for the 15% agency media buy
discount with advertisers because you ARE the agency, who are just as
comfortable picking up the phone to call a customer to conduct a
satisfaction survey as you are the editor of the local trade mag to
pitch a story, and who struggle every day with managing your brand up
and down inside an organization that thinks all you do is fluff… cheers
to you! 

You are fighting the good fight!  What you do is important to your
company and its future.  So don’t feel like you are alone out there.
Just keep learning every day, embrace all that new media is and what it
can do for your brand, spend the time you need to get your arms around
the new world of marketing, read about it… attend webinars, lobby to
attend conferences and do everything you can to stay abreast.  What you
are learning today is going to be extremely valuable to every company
you work for in the coming years. 

And most of all, feel grounded in
knowing that there are hundreds of others just like you out there –
smart, driven, underappreciated Masters of Multi-Tasking.  Cheers to
you and best wishes for a most excellent 2008!