Let's meet at 10: is it a good idea to set up regular, formal meetings with employees from other departments in order to get feedback on your marketing plans or operations? The pros and cons of using so-called 'marketing committees.'.

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Imagine that your CEO assigns you the task of organizing a marketing committee to meet monthly. The committee will provide guidance and suggestions concerning ongoing marketing plans and campaigns. He explains further that he wants the committee made up of employees from various departments, the majority of them to be operational types.

You might say to yourself: "Oh great, what could possibly be beneficial about such meetings? These types of get-togethers probably never accomplish anything; after all, what do operations people know about marketing?"

Don't be quick to write off marketing committees. If organized and operated correctly, they can help you do a better job.

Marketing committees are usually designed to heighten awareness of marketing throughout the bank by involving employees from various departments in marketing issues. Although these committees are usually composed of employees, they sometimes include members of the bank's board of directors. The most common reason for forming marketing committees is to assist in the development of new products.

When asked if a marketing department can benefit from having a marketing committee, Jeff Stephens, president and brand director for Creative Brand Communications in Portland, Ore., says, "I think that it can be a great tool, but it needs to be kept in perspective. There is a danger in deferring responsibility. You need to make sure that the committee serves a specific purpose, and then you need to make sure that it maintains that." He adds, "For example, the committee might take feedback and kill an idea. Sometimes a committee can take a suggestion too far. In my opinion, the committee can serve as a good sounding board but not as the final decision maker."

There is a benefit to having representatives from other departments sitting on a marketing committee. For one thing, people from outside marketing can be helpful in thinking through the operational side of product development. Even though these meetings might seem time consuming on the front end, they can save valuable time on the back end, helping to avoid costly mistakes. Stephens adds, "If the brand strategy of your bank is to become ultra, ultra simple-to-do-business-with, one of your tactics may be to revise your statements to make them easy to use. Marketing will need to have someone from the operational side of the bank involved; it makes it more doable to execute."

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Be willing to adjust

When developing a marketing committee, the management culture of a bank needs to be considered. For example, a bottom-up or a top-down decision-making organization will impact the type of marketing committee structure that is best suited for your bank. Tamara Bredeson, CFMP, marketing officer of Border State Bank, Baudette, Minn., (asset size $311 million with seven locations) says, "We are more of a bottom-up organization where bank presidents (branch managers) have lots of responsibility and expectations for growth." At one time, she invited each president to attend a marketing team meeting; however, she discovered since each of their markets had distinct differences, the time together did not always help achieve the desired goal of meeting the presidents' marketing needs. She decided to disband the meetings and talk with each one individually.

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Bredeson is a part of many of the bank's existing teams, such as asset-liability committee (ALCO), training and real estate lending. In these meetings, she is able to listen and participate, which stimulates marketing and sales ideas. Once an idea pops up, she may utilize a special one-time project marketing committee to further develop the idea into a product, service or sales promotion. A successful idea that originated from the attendance of a real estate mortgage team meeting was the bank's MortgageSWEET promotion. The real estate lending team discussed the difficulty customers were having in trying to apply for an online mortgage loan. Bredeson understood the vision they had of the solution and worked with a marketing committee--including the bank's senior real estate lender, real estate processing supervisor, senior retail lender, loan operations officer, compliance officer and IT officer--that developed a strategy to help customers overcome their difficulty with the bank's online product. Bredeson agrees with Stephens, "It is important to have as many operational type of employees on the committee as possible so that issues can be addressed in the delivery of the product to the customer."

Defining roles

When utilizing marketing committees, it is important that everyone understand their roles upfront. Part of the problem with ongoing marketing committees can be that roles become blurred when there is not an established expectation. This lack of specifics places the person in charge in a difficult situation--where they are trying to keep the unfocused group on task. When this scenario happens, meetings become more of a battle for control, versus an enjoyable, productive event. The meetings end up becoming an anxiety producer for everyone involved.

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Amy Minash, vice president, marketing, at Colorado Capital Bank, Denver (asset size $380 million with six locations in Denver and the surrounding area) believes that it should not be left up to a marketing committee to decide strategic marketing decisions. She believes that the marketing committee's key responsibility is to get everyone on board.

Minash's committee members am made up of what she calls, "marketing ambassadors." These ambassadors are selected by each president within their organization. "The president chooses an officer at each location to be their marketing representative. It could be anyone that has decisionmaking capabilities" states Minash. In order to help establish expectations of each committee member, she has created a "marketing ambassador" job description, which explains the ambassador's role on the committee. The description states, "The primary function of the marketing ambassador is to provide guidance on company marketing initiatives and disseminate important marketing information to location/department staff via internal communications efforts."

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When asked what advice she offers marketers in establishing and running marketing committees, Minash suggests, "That it is important to make sure that the items you bring to the marketing committee are worth their time being there. We spent three months in a row talking about the pens that we were ordering. That is not worth four meetings of time." After that incident, she evaluated the role of her marketing committee and developed a plan to review its yearly marketing plan every month and discuss the results. Minash adds, "Don't hold marketing too close to the chest. Don't be personal about it. If you are going to ask the committee members for their opinions, you have to be willing to acknowledge their opinions. You have to show that their feedback is valuable. If you don't listen and take some suggestions and feedback, then people will disconnect very quickly."

The buy-in factor

Meredith Lee, president of MCL Marketing, is an independent marketing consultant with a sole client, Los Padres Bank, a $1.5 billion asset bank in Sovang, Calif. Lee believes her marketing committee experience has been beneficial to both her and the bank. "The marketing committee helps to establish the credibility of the marketer and the marketing plan. It has also prevented a lot of ongoing overhauls of the budget. We, as a team, built the budget from the ground up. Everyone is on the same page. That is because we have ongoing communications throughout the entire year.'

The availability of the marketing committee has helped Lee to inform and educate the internal audience about the media approaches chosen by marketing. "It answers a lot of questions at the outset," she says. "That has been very valuable."

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Everyone seems to agree that it is important to include others in the marketing process. By doing so, you gain buy-in from other employees. That buy-in helps you to be successful in the execution of your marketing plans. Lee states, "By nature of including other team members ... people have a stake in what you are doing. It is not like overlaying a plan onto another department's plan. They are a part of the plan. Without a marketing committee that wouldn't happen." Lee goes on to say, "It is sometimes easier to do it on your own, but you won't be as successful."

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A view from the top

When Joseph Beaulieu, CFMP, senior vice president, marketing, of Venture Bank, Lacey, Wash., currently a $1 billion financial organization, joined the bank's team over 10 years ago, marketing wasn't then what he has made it to be today. Back then, everyone was an expert in the area of marketing. At that time, Beaulieu did not bring with him experience as a banker, but that of a marketer. "My credibility wasn't probably as a strong as if I had been a banker," stated Beaulieu. The bank's marketing committee was born out of the board of directors desire to send a strong statement about how they viewed marketing--as something that was very important. "Ours is a board marketing committee as opposed to an employee marketing committee. It is made up of three board members, who own their own companies and are very entrepreneurial, the president/CEO, the chairman of the holding company, Venture Financial Group, the executive vice president of retail banking and myself" stated Beaulieu. He added, "The board of the bank and the holding company drew up a strategic plan and part of that plan was to have a marketing director. In order to give marketing a chance to breathe, they developed this committee so that the bank knew that this was the direction from the board, which provided credibility to the overall marketing plan and direction of the bank."

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Most will agree there are many ways to structure a marketing committee, but it is important to make it work for you and your organization. At the end of the day, marketing committees can help save you time if they are structured properly.

Marketing "Ambassador"

The following job description for a "marketing ambassador" (member of the bank's marketing committee) was developed by Colorado Capital Bank, Denver.

1. Assists in developing and coordinating marketing plans and budgets.

2. Attends monthly marketing committee meetings.

3. Assists in monitoring branch inventory of all specialty items.

4. Assists marketing with RSVP's and other arrangements for social events and special events such as branch openings, special promotions and anniversary events.

5. Coordinates community support efforts. Provides marketing with copies of all pertinent information related to a donation and/or sponsorship. Processes and tracks all donation requests.

6. Acts as an informational source to personnel by providing information and follow-up to a variety of marketing and promotional activities. Participates in monthly location/department staff meetings; soliciting ideas, comments on various issues, answers questions on the monthly marketing update as well as providing status updates on various marketing projects.

7. Receives and distributes the monthly birthday and bank anniversary reports. Coordinates the customer appreciation program and gift item selection for their location/department.

8. Maintains biography sheet on all bank officers for location/department use.

9. Reviews monthly marketing budget and shares information with appropriate staff including location president or department manager.

by Brenda Marlin, CFMP

Brenda Marlin, CFMP, is a former bank marketer and the former associate director of the ABA Marketing Network, Washington, D.C. She currently resides in Colorado Springs, CoLo. E-mail: [e-mail]