# 1.

Listening to customer needs

To establish a marketing strategy, it’s necessary to get closer to the
clients and listen in order to find out what their needs are. It’s a
marketing department task, to plan the necessary means for
receiving customer feedback:

Company Internal Channels: Create surveys or capture

information of the sales team and customer support (departments
closest to the customer) that may be relevant to enhancing or
redirecting the marketing strategies in the future.

Channels outside the company: Perform searches and create

actions in social networks that help to better understand the
needs of users, in order to convert them into customers.

# 2. Track trends and monitor competition

Similar to the previous point, it’s important to know the position
of the company reggarding the market and the competition. That's
why from marketing, you must watch the competition to learn
what they do best or to identify their mistakes in order to avoid
falling into them.

# 3. Work and transmit brand values

Conceptually, a brand is a representation of the feelings that the
products, services and company shares show. The marketing
department is responsible for creating and disseminating images,
messages and ideas that best communicate the brand values.

Additionally, you must ensure that all company departments

convey these messages in a consistent and unified way.

# 4. Coordinate efforts with those of the

marketing partners of the company
Around the business’s marketing there are lots of contributors:
publishers, designers, journalists, consultants... The work of these
contributors must be aligned with the objectives of the company,
and is the department itself who should control it to do so.

# 5. Innovate
Customers need to be surprised, and every day, given the higher
offer, they are more demanding with this. The marketing
department should work on new promotions, affiliate programs,
customer retention techniques, improvements in the conversion
of their messages and actions...

It’s not a matter of inventing entirely different disruptive actions;

you’ll find innovation in the small details and in the continuous
improvement.
# 6. Communicate with the rest of the
company
A company is a chain of members pursuing a common goal: to
fulfil its mission and maximize its profits, while respecting the
principles of business ethics.

A chain is as weak as its weakest link. It doesn’t matter that the

commercial or production department are doing an impeccable
job, if the marketing department fails, the entire company will fail
and the efforts of other departments will be in vain. That is why
the marketing department must ensure that their actions are
aligned with the overall objectives of the company and that they
report the work they are doing.

# 7. Help improve sales processes and

customer
As mentioned above, it’s the responsibility of the marketing
department to know the users and especially the customers’
feelings.

A good way for better knowing the customer is that all

departments that have more direct contact with the customer
shall be working with the empathy maps.
# 8. Manage marketing budgets
Like any other department, the marketing department should be
able to plan its budget for the next year’s activities, stretching it in
order to make the most of it.

# 9. Calculate the ROI (Return Of

Investment) of the company’s actions
Marketing activities are an investment of time, money and effort.
As an investment, every action should be measured in order to
check whether they meet the intended objectives and in order to
compare a certain action with others. Faced with questions as
'should I invest in telemarketing, social media, traditional
media...?' The answer is unique: measure them all and choose
based on the numbers.

# 10. Define strategic marketing plans

The most cost-effective strategies are those that are planned for
the long term. To do so, you must draft a document setting out the
objectives to be achieved in the following months; the actions that
are to be undertaken; the strengths of the company; the
competition; the target markets... In addition, these strategic
plans must also be aligned both with the strategic plan of the
company and with other departments’ plans.
At the end of the day, planning is the only way to achieve the set
objectives.

The reality

By reading these 10 obligations, you’ll be thinking “how can I find

time for that?”.

If you glance at what takes more time in your business, surely

you’ll find that repetitive tasks with little added value occupy the
most. For this reason it’s important that you remove these tasks
from roots, otherwise you’ll fail to accomplish the tasks that a
marketing department should really dedicate it’s time to: reach,
attract and retain customers.

Get rid of repetitive tasks

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