Which of the Three Types of Industrial Marketing Professionals Are You?

Taking a look in the mirror to see the type of industrial marketing professional you are can be a call to action.

I’ve encountered a number of interesting clients and colleagues throughout my industrial marketing career, and they tend to fit into three categories (with a little shoehorning).

Below is a little more detail on each one:

The “Model Student:” Looks at everything and speaks with advisors regularly

This marketing professional category is the one you want to fall into. The model student might be in the “nerd” clique, always peering over data or finding new ways to measure things.

But at the end of the day, he is most successful, and not by dumb luck. The model student measures the return on his investment to see what’s working and what isn’t.

This is the type of professional who we love to work with. The ones who pay attention and are committed to their marketing plans for the long haul. You should be striving to be the model student (or employ one!).

“Mr. Average:” Takes a look every now and then, or when something is amiss

Here we find the type of marketing professional who is doing a decent job. It could be an executive carrying out in-house marketing, or it could be an executive who is overseeing a marketing consultant.

Maybe he wants to take more of an active role, but something else is always cropping up, or maybe he just doesn’t know what he’s doing. Mr. Average is probably the most common type of marketing professional I encounter.

The good news for Mr. Average is that  he can easily become the model student with a little bit of help.

“The Bat:” Sees Nothing

This is the guy you don’t want to be. The most unfortunate thing about this guy isn’t that he doesn’t see what’s going on, it’s that he might not want to see what’s going on. Perhaps things are so bad that he simply wants to bury his head in the sand.

Either way, the bat is blind to what’s going on with his marketing efforts, and that needs to change. There is no tracking of where marketing dollars are going, no measuring of marketing ROI and no accountability. This likely means that, even when revenue is pouring in, marketing dollars could still be better spent.

The good news for the bat? A little knowledge goes a long way, and by picking the low hanging fruit, even the most struggling marketers can see marked improvement.

Take the time to recognize which group you fall into. Is that where you want to be? If not, ask yourself what you can do to improve your industrial marketing efforts so that you can become the model student.

Photo credit: onkel_wart (thomas lieser) via photopin cc