Know-How Exchange : Branding

When you (ilan) say "The hierarchy of this soon to be born department suggests to me that the people behind it do not give much value to on line marketing."

你是对的——他们不。不是他们不know that the Internet is hugely important, and growing in importance everyday, but they lack the basic understanding of how to use it to engage consumers and grow their category. They are far more comfortable with traditional methods. Their current Internet tactics primarily consist of online sweepstakes, sporadic email blasts (with no database management), and static web sites.

Given all this, what hierarchy do you feel would be more in line with best practice, or, just make better sense?

Hi Bill,

hope you're having a great day but more importantly a wonderful life. Having fun is a part of that experience.

It appears someone has missed a couple of points. More than likely unless funding is a problem you should have a director for the online part of your company. Having your online development team report to promotions is not congruent with the long term mission of the organization. These two groups not only function differently within the company but they also function differently culturally. So my suggestion is to try and figure out how to have a very productive conversation that helps to clairfy the points above. REMEMBER... our only real problem in life is our failure to be "MORE Creative" than we’ve ever been. If you “Invent” your opportunity YOU WILL most definitely create your future. I'm only an email away from you if you need further guidance, direction or you'd just like to talk more about it. You see I love it when my customers are happy. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant,

Lovingly Deremiah *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)

I would not "split the camp" in the early stages and emergence of the new online marketing department for a few reasons.

1. The current Director of Promotions, overseeing all promotions, while may not have experience in online marketing and promotions, does have experience in promotions and is in a position to review all marketing efforts, as a whole, and determine the performance of each, across the board.

2. Severing an entirely new department into it's own mini-company separate and apart from the Director of Promotions will not serve the company's overall interests (at inception). If the department proves itself to be profitable, then yes, consider a promote from within the department a Director of Online Marketing. You'll also have a better feel for who is performing within the new department and who has the necessary leadership qualities and performance.

3. The current Director is onboard with the goals of the entire firm and can assist in developing this new department with a "shared vision" of the overall goals of the firm. Placing a new director in place, I feel, will put the new Director in a position of "proving" themselves rather than proving whether (or not) this new department will be profitable and meet the overall goals of the firm. That would be wasted energy and $$ and not within the TRUE goals of the effort.

As others have suggested - keep the groups as peers. The VP of marketing will want to see ROI of each division. The online marketing group will be able to clearly report this. Furthermore, online reporting to marketing will produce a better interaction among the various departments - clearer responsibilities and tactics.

Good morning,

I don't even know if this point has been brought up because I haven't read everyone's comments completely. Is there a problem with the Online Manager providing the required insight to report to the Promotions Director? If the Online Manager does not have enough experience or know-how to run that part of the department than I would say yes - hire an Online Director with extensive experience and working alongside the Promotions Director they can both report to the VP of Marketing. Make sure everyone is aware of how they need to work together for the common goal. (You have to bear with me...I'm currently working under a Director that does not have marketing experience who reports to a VP with even less).

Anyway, although you may think that the Promotions Director is limited in his/her scope you could really be way off base with what he or she really knows about Marketing as a whole. What is his/her background? It may not be online marketing but I would hope they could offer insight and direction about Marketing your company's products/services with the assistance of the current Online Manager. I've learned quickly that titles don't necessarily account for knowledge or experience.

The department's priority should be about the best way(s) to reach customers. Again -- if the Online Manager has the experience, marketing knowledge etc. to work with the Promotions Director -- keep it simple and let them do their jobs. And don't judge a book by its title *smile*.