As 2006 ends, many business owners immerse themselves in planning marketing strategies and tactics for the new year.  Maybe they are planning to enter a new market segment, develop new corporate branding, or improve customer relations.

Many of these plans are doomed to failure. Why? Because many owners will forget two elements crucial for marketing success: company culture and employee attitudes.

“Marketing can’t exist in a vacuum,” says April Gregory, president of Westfield-based AG Consulting Group. “You have to create an organizational culture that services the customer. Every department in the company has to be on board and working together. You need the support and trust of employees, and their attitudes need to be aligned with company goals.”

April recently consulted with the administrative team of a private K-8 school that faced the challenge of increasing student enrollment. “The team was new, and saw that they didn’t have the support or trust of the teachers that they needed to move forward in marketing the school. Companies in many industries face similar problems,” April notes.

Rather than just slam a new marketing program in place, April began with a formal assessment to gauge teachers’ attitudes and learning styles. Then the administrators and teachers participated in a workshop to build communications and trust.

“We built a really good energy,” says April. “The teachers began to understand the reasons for the new program, and even volunteered to do extra projects that supported its goals.” The school implemented its marketing program and achieved its enrollment goals. As an added benefit, teacher retention increased.

How can you make this work for your company? Here’s what April suggests:

Share your goals and expectations.  As the starting point for the marketing process, take an active role in communicating your marketing goals to your entire company team. Let your team know that you expect them to play an active role in serving the customer.

Conduct an assessment. Get all employees, not just your marketers, involved in talking openly about how they see the company and the new marketing goals. Having an outside, unbiased facilitator conduct surveys or guided chat sessions will help you get objective feedback. “This step helps you see who’s on board and what the attitudes are,” says April.

Choose the right training materials. Your goal is to get your employees communicating and working together more constructively and in line with the new marketing goals.  There are many pre-packaged training programs that can be adapted to your needs.

Create the right internal processes. April, for example, worked with the private school’s administrative team to develop a new sales process that built on the trust and communications that they’d created with the teachers during the training sessions.

Launch when ready.  Once your people are on board and the right processes in place, you’ll have a much better shot at achieving your marketing goals.

This column will appear in the December 2006 edition of Union County Voice Magazine.

Ms. Kasprzak, principal of Advantage Marketing & Associates, is a certified management consultant.  Advantage Marketing works with up-and-coming businesses that lack focus in their marketing and are struggling to reach their target markets. Clients get creative and practical marketing solutions that attract prospects and turn them into customers.   Loraine can be reached at LKasprzak@advantage-marketing.com or 908.233.6265.

Interested in republishing The Marketing Advantage?