When Mars and Venus Collide

From the Desk of Drew Dinkelacker

CMO: Two Decades of Fractional Chief Marketing Officer Service  
Author: You Can't Lead What You Don't Understand
Host: The Marketing Accelerator Podcast

The Mars-Venus Collision

In a lot of businesses, there's a growing gap between what leadership and the marketing team  are trying to do. It is a classic Mars - Venus relationship. They are two different worlds that don't  understand each other which leads to confusion, lack of confidence and lost opportunity. The Mars folks like metrics and bottom-line results. But creative marketing strategy often don't reflect well on spreadsheets.  At times, leadership thinks the marketing team's creative ideas are sometimes too creative and not direct enough. This is where the Mars-Venus collision begins which undermines team confidence and puts people on edge.  This mismatch can slow down the company's growth and waste time and money because the two sides aren't aligned with each other.  There is a clear marketing gap.   It's super important to close this gap. When Mars and Venus work together well, the company excels and moves forward faster with less effort. 

3 Indicators of a Gap

A Marketing Gap may be forming when business leadership starts asking questions like:

• I don’t understand why we are doing what we are doing in marketing.
• WHAT am I getting for my marketing expense?
• WHATEVER marketing is doing, it doesn't seem to move the needle! 

3 Responses By Leadership

Business leaders experiencing symptoms of a Marketing Gap tend to respond on this continuum: 

1. Change the Marketing Budget – Leadership chooses first to Increase the marketing spend to find out if more investment will make an impact.  If it doesn't, they cut the budget because the funds required outweigh the risk.
2. Hire a Consultant - Leadership hopes that bringing in expertise from outside of the organization  will improve the situation.
3. Replace the Marketing Leader – Leadership feels that they have done everything possible and has decided that it is time for fresh blood in the hopes that the situation will improve. 

 "In my experience, leadership's responses are expensive, time consuming and don't address the core issues of the Marketing Gap. "

Drew Dinkelacker, The Marketing Accelerator

A Path Forward

For the last 20 years, Drew Dinkelacker has quietly helped business leaders to better understand their marketing efforts, gain a better handle on marketing ROI and eliminate their Marketing Gap.

His Bridge The Marketing Gap Assessment will identify how wide and how deep your Marketing Gap runs. A visual representation of The Marketing Gap brings the structure and content necessary to have the honest conversation that will close your company’s Marketing Gap.