Want a Great Marketing Team? Teach 'Em How to Cook

One of my favorite dishes is Shepherd’s Pie. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s actually a very common dish dating back to the late 1700s and is a staple in European cuisine. It generally consists of some kind of mixture of meat, potatoes, sauce, and vegetables, with a recipe that has been reinvented thousands of times over the years. As it made its way around the world, various cultures added their own unique flavors and spices to the dish. It’s still clearly Shepherd’s pie, but it tastes differently at nearly every restaurant where I try the dish, and that’s one of things that makes it great. It’s a mix of what’s expected and what is new that makes it a truly unique and delicious concoction.

Think about your favorite dish. No matter what it is, the dish is created from a recipe, and a recipe is made up of ingredients. Each ingredient has a job to do to make the result amazing. Many ingredients simply don’t belong in the dish – the recipe tells you exactly what to put into the dish and how much to add to maximize the end result. And how were these recipes originally crafted? Lots of trial and error to understand what ingredients to use, how to use them, and what each ingredient could bring to the table. Does your brownie need texture? Add walnuts. Walnuts create a crunchy texture for your brownies, and we know from research that multiple textures in a dish tend to make the dish more desirable. A great recipe understands the ingredients as well as the quantities of those ingredients to create that perfect dish, and a great chef knows how to bring it all together.

What separates a great chef from an average chef? A great chef knows what each ingredient does and how it can affect an overall recipe. An average chef can only follow the recipe and doesn’t yet understand the effect of each ingredient, or what could happen if an ingredient is left out or a new one is added or substituted. Now, extrapolate that to an entire menu. A chef’s menu is crafted from a specific set of courses utilizing flavors that complement each other to achieve an amazing overall dining experience. A great head chef creates a menu, made up of courses, made up of dishes, made up of ingredients, and he or she understands how they all flow together to maximize your experience. A marketing team is no different.

All too often, marketers simply check the boxes to ensure their ingredient is in the mixing bowl.

Is the creative spot on? Check.

Did we alert the social media team to promote the product launch? Check.

Are our brand partners on board? Check.

Is the Press Release ready? Check.

But does everyone know what we’re trying to accomplish besides the obvious – the sale of a product? Many times, marketing effectiveness is hidden because multiple tactics are being thrown together all at once to sell whatever it is we are trying to sell. Similarly, you may know all the ingredients to bake a great cake, but each ingredient needs to be used effectively and efficiently to ensure the best result. Will you successfully achieve your goal of baking a cake using that method? Yes, but could that cake have tasted and looked better if you thoughtfully adjusted the ingredients based upon their impact to the overall result?

The ingredients in your marketing plan also have a job to do, and all your chefs should know how the ingredients should work together to create exceptional marketing. Your entire marketing team needs to know their own success metrics and how and where they fit into your marketing plan. Are they driving awareness, intent, or linkage? If they don’t know, you’re really just throwing all your ingredients into the recipe and hoping for the best.

To take the analogy one step further, let’s pretend your marketing team is a collection of chefs, all ready to produce the ultimate dish – your marketing plan. How do you all work together to create a truly exceptional dish?

Each chef should know the recipe and how his or her ingredient contributes to the dish.

The team kneading the dough may have a great idea to work the floral notes into the process. Or the finishing team may decide that decorative flowers should be present on the final plating to provide a visual cue. If they don’t know what each ingredient is meant to do, they are limited in their contributions.

Communicate the expectations of the result, not just the recipe.

If you want your dish to have certain floral notes, don’t forget to cue the team that specializes in lavender, rose, and orange blossom to contribute to the evolution of the recipe. Similarly, if your marketing calls for shock and awe, bring the social, experiential, and stunt marketing teams to the table early in the process and let them ideate with you. The recipe falls short without the floral note, and this marketing launch fails without shock and awe, so bring in the experts early and build the recipe around them.

Don’t be afraid to hire a chef that’s better than you.

The best kitchens have experts in each area from a pastry chef to the grill master. As the head chef, you may know how to run a kitchen, and how each area of the kitchen should operate, but you’re also likely not an expert in every area of the kitchen. Bring chefs on board who can collectively raise the performance of the entire kitchen and don’t let your ego get in the way of what could become a truly amazing team.

Collectively decide how much of each ingredient to use.

If you want your recipe to have a hit of orange blossom, you don’t need a massive amount. From a marketing perspective, if awareness of your product is heavily dependent upon motion and interaction, then radio and billboards may not be your best vehicle to use to promote your product - use a few here and there to build brand awareness, but focus the majority of your campaign on digital and social.

After you serve your dish, review the results and adjust as necessary.

Was the dish too bland? Add some salt.

Was it too sweet? Adjust the amount of sugar.

All great recipes and great marketing are ever evolving. Don’t forget to test, learn, and adjust your recipe quickly and efficiently to produce the best dish possible.

And you thought being a marketer had nothing in common with being a chef! What other parallels are there between great marketing teams and great kitchens or between great recipes and great marketing plans? I’d love to hear and share your thoughts!

Until next time, here’s to all my fellow marketing chefs out there! Keep on creating those amazing dishes for your customers!