Marketing Service Providers

Apr 20
2009
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I’m wary of businesses that call themselves marketing service providers.  Just calling yourself something doesn’t make it so.  But at one of the earliest breakout sessions at this year’s NAPL Top Management Conference, I stood corrected. Two companies,  BOPI in Illinois and COT Media Group in the Bahamas have made the transition and serve as models for others to follow.

Keys to the transition include but are not limited to:

  • Time.  It’s not something that happens overnight. It takes a plan, strategy and commitment. But it doesn’t take forever. It can be done in a year with foresight and dedication.
  • Teamwork. Both organizations use a team approach that involves all many talents including IT, marketing and frequently the top guy in the organization as part of the sales team.
  • Identity. They’ve renamed their organizations and printing is not in the name.
  • Structure. The organization has to be fundamentally different.  Same old same old sales tactics won’t work, and same old same old compensation structures have to change as well.
  • Help.  Both companies availed themselves of outside consulting services to help them pave the way and create change within their respective organizations.  They knew change would not just come from within.

    • A complex issue is how to change customer’s perceptions of the organization.  Change doesn’t happen by accident. Just saying you’re a marketing service department doesn’t make it so. Both BOPI and COT are great examples of making it so.

    * adapted with permission from original post on InsideMarketing.org, 4/20/09, Rhona Bronson, NAPL

    Written by Rhona Bronson in: Integrated Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Service Provider | Tags: ,

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