In our last post where we asked if marketing mayhem got you down, we noted that, in many organizations, Marketing is still one of those sacred cow categories that Procurement has (very) little influence over (but yet often accounts for [up to] 20% of spend).
And since it needs to have a substantial impact on sales and revenue at that spend volume, it’s important that the spend be effective as well as efficient. This means that not only does the organization have to make the spend that is most likely to lead to a return, but it can’t overspend in the double digit percentages on a significant percentage of spend if it wants to get the maximum ROI. But when a considerable portion of the spend is on consumables (like print) or commodity services (like website design, social media marketing, or production overhead costs), that spend has to be efficient. But when its managed by Marketing, it typically isn’t.
But as a Procurement professional, whom Marketing often sees as the enemy who only wants to help Finance cut their budget as Procurement cuts their spend, chances are you won’t ever get to lay a hand on this spend unless you can change the status quo, which starts with changing the way Marketing sees you. In order to do this, you have to look like someone who is their friend, and not their foe, and this will involve mastering the marketing way — walking the walk, talking the talk, understanding, and working towards their viewpoint (spend money to make money, even if they can’t measure it). (Except that you will work with Marketing to take action to make sure that spend is accompanied by measurements and metrics that will help Marketing gage which spend is most successful with respect to a particular goal.)
Only once the walk, talk, and focus is mastered can Procurement get to the message, which has to revolve around Agency (Lifecycle) Management, as discussed in a recent six-part series over on Spend Matters Plus on Mastering the Marketing Way by the anarchist and the doctor. As of our last post, only the first three articles were available. Now the entire series is available. And in the last three articles you get a deep dive into agency management support, intelligence, training, and how to create a great RFX. If you want good results, you need a good RFX — and creating a marketing RFX is not like creating an RFX for commodity goods.
the doctor recommends that you check out the rest of the series, which is the most in-depth series on mastering marketing spend for Procurement that has ever hit the Procurement bit stream.
Enjoy.