The Ides of March(eting)

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Hello Spark reader,

From cobblers to the cobblestones of ancient Rome: the indefatigable Rohan Shams is so full of inspiration at the moment that we’re lucky to have another of his keenly observed essays and the chance glean yet more of his wisdom from his many years as a Marketing Director and Manager.

The Ideas of March have probably brought tension and sales pressure to many a business boardroom in these past few weeks, but Rohan’s sage advice is here to save marketing leaders and their teams from needing to take the Q1 fall (again). So hold onto your carefully laid marketing plans and veni, vidi, vici!

And, as Ryan told you about in our last edition, we were delighted to host our first client workshop in our new office in Saint Paul last week, welcoming the Thomson Reuters brand team for a brand workshop that we all thoroughly enjoyed! More here.

-joel

The Ideas of March(eting)

Guest essay by Rohan Shams

It’s about that time of the year.

A leader stands to present strategies and plans for the future. Little do they know, many of the other leaders they face will soon turn against them under the pressure of their own agendas—led by the ones they least expect.

Now, if you’re picturing the Roman Senate, with Caesar standing to deliver his big speech, only to be brought down by his own peers—well, the Ides of March bring a similar fate to marketing leaders in leadership meetings around the world.

The regular January “how long can you say Happy New Year” jokes have long dried up. The mid-February love in the air has truly faded. Mid-March brings that panic-stricken realization: Q1 is almost over, and we’re behind on marketing execution.

So, the usual reviews play out, where product leaders cynically ask why the innovative and unique 93,000 products they launched this quarter failed to make an impact—despite having just two and a half marketing associates assigned to the area. And the sales leads chime in, claiming lead quality and numbers have dropped due to marketing’s slow start to the year.

Yes, Marketing leaders are often the ones fending off questions about why the quarterly numbers aren’t looking good enough in the Q1 review.