Rebuild Your Database Marketing Department: Part 6

Hit The Road, Jack!

Now that you have a strategic plan in place for year two, you need to tell EVERYBODY about it!

If you work for a retailer, this means you visit stores if necessary, to communicate your catalog, e-mail, and paid search marketing strategy.

If you work for a cataloger, this means you visit the call center and distribution center. You tell every employee why you are doing what you are doing, you share with them how these strategies will benefit them. If you are an e-mail marketer, when is the last time you went outside your department, and clearly explained to all of your co-workers what you do or what your strategic direction is? How about those of you who are paid search marketers?

If you work for an online pure-play, you meet with every functional department in your company, explaining how customers behave, explaining why you have to make the changes you are making.

You meet with all the folks who you put a firewall between nearly a year ago, explaining why the information you learned shapes the direction you're taking your department in.

You visit your vendors. You communicate with them how their input in the "conferences" you held early in the year shaped this strategy. You remind them that they are an important part of your team.

And you LISTEN. Listen to what people have to say. Their input could influence changes in your strategic plan.

Hit the road, Jack!