Marketable World Podcast
At Marketable, we understand that the best way to learn marketing isn't through textbooks. It's by engaging with people. Throughs, strategies, and career shifts, we share the voices that drive the industry forward. real experience
From boardrooms to startups, we share unfiltered journeys, celebrate wins, and learn from missteps through podcasts, features, and events.
WE’RE CREATING A SPACE WHERE MARKETERS GROW TOGETHER
A Podcast spotlighting the marketers behind powerful campaigns. Discover the journeys, struggles, and wins of those shaping the industry.
A Marketable World.
Marketable World Podcast
The danger of having marketing leadership stuck with operations
Marketing teams are losing their way. Across businesses both large and small, a dangerous pattern has emerged where marketing leadership becomes entangled in operational quicksand, buried under approvals paperwork, chasing supply chain updates, and managing inventory problems instead of building brands and creating customer demand.
When your marketing team focuses more on tracking how many cartons made it to the warehouse than telling consumers why they should care about your product, your brand is actively losing ground to competitors who understand the true power of marketing.
The solution requires both organizational clarity and personal discipline. Operations must own operational challenges while marketing supports without being consumed by them.
Marketing leaders need freedom to focus on demand generation, consumer insights, and brand building. They must be empowered to think strategically rather than merely react to the latest crisis.
The most powerful KPI for any marketing professional isn't operational efficiency - it's demand generation.
When brands fail at creating demand, they become overly dependent on distribution as their only competitive advantage.
The danger of having marketing leadership stuck with operations. This is an interesting topic. Alright, picture this. You're at a company where marketing team is always buried in approvals paperwork. They're drowned in paperwork. They're spending more time chasing supply chain, getting updates for procurement, rather than doing marketing. That sounds familiar. Yes, that, my friend, is what happens when marketing leadership gets stuck in operations and, trust me, it's a one-way ticket to nowhere. Let's talk about why this happens, why it's dangerous and maybe any solution that is possible, because if marketing is spending all his energy just making sure that things exist instead of making people want them, the brand is in big trouble.
Speaker 1:Marketable world podcast. How does a marketing team creep into this space? Usually, it just starts off very easy, right? Oh, let marketing join this meeting. They're involved in logistics updates, supply chain meeting, procurement meeting, before you know what's going on. The marketing team and the marketing lead. They're knee-deep in pricing, approval issues oh, distributor, that edX and then, of course, out of stock issues. Suddenly it's rather communicating or crafting killer communications. They are babysitting inventory problems, and I get it if I'm in Nigeria, where distribution is so wild. You need marketing to have a say in availability and pricing, I hear you.
Speaker 1:But when marketing becomes just another extension of operation, guess what happens? There's no one actually doing marketing anymore. No actual marketing has been done. So the brand is now in trouble because marketing is supposed to be about demand creation, brand love, getting customers to care. But guess what's going on? Your marketing team and lead is now more focused on how many cartons of products made it to kano instead of telling people to why they should buy it. Your brand is losing. The brands that win are the brands that tell people why they should buy it. Your brand is losing. The brands that win are the brands that tell people why they should buy.
Speaker 1:When marketing is consumed by operation, fires out of stock issues, delivery issues, distributor complain, they stop thinking ahead. They don't innovate. There are no strategic communications anymore, no fresh ideas, just a circle of reaction to problem. In today's community market, reactives don't win. Consumer Focus gets lost. The most important part in any business is the customer. But if marketing is too focused on fixing operational gaps, who then is paying attention to customer Insights? Who is tracking Trends? Who is studying Behavior? Who is making sure that the brand stays relevant? Exactly no one.
Speaker 1:Here's how I think we can fix this. Let operations do operations. Marketing should support operations. Yes, I hear you, but not get swallowed by it. A strong collaboration is great, but marketing needs the space to focus on building demand generation, not just managing supply. Marketing needs to be empowered to be strategic.
Speaker 1:Marketing is always on survival mode, just hopping from one meeting to the other. They can't think big. Give them the freedom to focus on demand generation, the growth of the brand, consumer engagement and even market expansion. Marketing needs to bring in data and insight. The best marketing decisions are not made in supply chain meetings. They come from real consumer data.
Speaker 1:Marketing is already stuck in one meeting of operations. They lose touch with the people they are actually trying to sell with or sell to rather bottom line. A marketing team that is buried in operation is in marketing and in a world where brands need to stand out just to survive. That's a huge risk for your brand. And if you're a marketing leader a marketing leader, as its case might be and you're drowning in operation chaos, hang in there, brother, hang in there, sister. I totally feel your pain. Demand generation is the most powerful KPI for any sales and marketing professional KPI for any sales and marketing professional. Where a brand is lacking demand generation, the brand will depend on product distribution, meaning your brand is going what Down, save it, share it with someone who needs to hear it and catch you on the next one, on Maketebo.