When my passion for marketing first began, it didn’t occur to me that someday I would have to play construction worker and bulldoze silos. The kind of silos I am speaking of typically occur in larger organizations where functional departments can become impenetrable. Even within larger marketing and sales groups, there can be a divide; marketing and sales are not always BFF's.
I was reminded of how dysfunctional marketing departments can become after reading a recent Quirk’s article by Michael Carlon, Rethinking the Role of Shopper Insights. His article was on the changing the culture of shopper insights and spoke to the silos which can prevent strategic and tactical information from reaching the right hands at the right time.
This is where we need to step up and actively seek out internal constituents who can benefit from our brand of primary research. We are marketers; and research collectors. Our product in part is data and insights that come from the surveys, focus groups and transactional analyses we conduct. As stewards of strategic information, we cannot sit in an ivory tower, we must get into the trenches.
Creating a regularly updated summary of research findings and distributing those learning's to senior management as well as those in day to day contact with the customer is one way we can work around the silos departments create.
Another option is to connect with working groups and provide presentations customized for their specific needs. It takes only little additional time to re-analyze the data through the filter of the group you are presenting to.
So fellow marketers, be not afraid to go forth and spread the feedback you have collected, you have developed. You may just find that it creates greater demand for your services and increases your personal customer satisfaction rating.
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