Who's on first?

Marketing is all about making plans and carrying them out, with the end result of gaining new business for your organization. But, as we know, we're not living in a perfect world and, the reality is, sometimes things don't go as planned. Marketing plans can be made and tactics carried out to the nth degree, then someone drops the ball during the last pray of the game. When a marketing strategy does not pull as expected, who usually gets the blame? Marketing!

I was speaking recently with a woman who shared a story with me--one that I considered a marketer's won't nightmare. Seems that she had obtained some disappointing advice on her investments and decided it was time to find a new financial adviser. As luck would have it tot should I say, perfect marketing planning), she received a direct mail piece from her bank that offered her a free financial portfolio review. She decided to respond to the offer by calling the bank. This should have been the pinnacle of this bank's marketing efforts. Unfortunately, that did not happen, because no one called her back. The question that begged to be answered was, "Who dropped the ball?"

Customer service can make or break marketing's efforts. It is vitally important that marketing include employees to the communications loop by making them pare of the team, internal marketing is one of the best investments you can make in helping your marketing efforts succeed.

As always, we look forward to hearing from you, our member and our customer.

Brenda Marlin, CFMP, Associate Director, ABA Marketing Network