This week, in 'Meet Our Marketing Experts', meet Malcolm Johnston, a chartered marketer who works as a part-time Marketing Director, runs a region for The Marketing Centre and also teaches a CIM post-graduate course!
1. Who are you?
Malcolm Johnston – a Chartered Marketer and Chartered Manager.
2. What are you a specialist in?
Most of my pre-consultancy experience was gained in technology based and industrial MNCs and so I am most at home in that B2B international environment. I have run both sales and marketing functions in the past and so I am equally comfortable designing and delivering marketing and sales strategies. In marketing terms I help business owners to identify what the customer values are, then create, deliver and communicate that value. Basically I help to set the direction for and integrate business functions so that they are all focussed on delivering customer value.
3. Tell me about a "typical day" in the office
No such thing – fortunately. I look after a region for the Marketing Centre so some parts of some days are about helping my team of marketing directors to find and win new business. This is usually by referral and sometimes through networking events. Some parts of my day are about checking in with companies using our services to make sure everyone is happy and the customer is getting what they need. I am also a part-time marketing director myself so I help businesses to solve problems and grow as well as running a team in Essex/ Suffolk and Norfolk.
4. What do you like most about your job?
The varied nature of the role and, mostly, the extraordinary businesses I come across who become my clients. To work with a medium sized business on a small industrial estate and to see it grow having implemented a strategy that you’ve helped to create, gives me and all of my team a real buzz.
5. What approach do you take to help your clients?
Asking questions (sometimes pretty basic and fundamental ones) and testing to see why certain approaches are being taken when other methods to achieve the same ends are available. With a broad range of industry experience I have often come across similar challenges before and can develop with my client a range of options to overcome these challenges and move the business forward as a team. Fortunately, as I have both sales and marketing experience, my strategic interventions are not ivory tower marketing – they are about how to get a new strategy effectively implemented in the field and not just in the office.
6. Are there any common marketing pitfalls that you see?
Many! The primary one is not being clear about what the proposition is and what problem it solves for your customer. This is not about the product alone but the service and personality aspects of the proposition as well. The second is the misconception that marketing = promotion when, in fact, a chunk of marketing research and analysis needs to be done before one even considers appropriate media for promotion.
7. What interesting developments have you witnessed so far in 2015?
I think there is a greater focus on being effective first and efficient second. The UK problem with productivity has become a regular topic for commentators and I sense that the old attitude of squeezing more from less may be receding and a more enlightened approach – based on type 2 and type 3 thinking – is coming to the fore.
8. What excites you most about the latest trends approaching 2016?
A significant boost in business confidence and a growing understanding in the businesses with which I work that their supply chain needs to be re-engineered as a value chain.
9. Are there any brands or organisations that you think are marketing particularly well?
If by this you mean promoting themselves well (which usually is a reflection of a marketing approach aligned with their business strategy) I’d say John Lewis and Pret a Manger stand out for consistency, co-creation and congruence.
10. Are there any websites, books, or training sessions you'd recommend that have been helpful to you and why?
Hollensen’s works on global marketing are an easy read, very well researched and provide a truly international perspective on marketing. Anything by Nigel Piercy is entertaining and worth reading – particularly Market-Led Strategic Change and his co-operation with Hooley and Nicoulaud – Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning.
Dave Chaffey is the king of digital media knowledge and its application for business and I am currently teaching on a CIM postgraduate course entitle Driving Innovation, the set text for which is very good (Tidd & Bessant – Managing Innovation). All business owners and Directors should subscribe to McKinsey Quarterly. It is a very good way of stimulating thought and getting a handle on new ideas.
Feel free to get in touch with Malcolm if you wish to have a discussion or you can learn more about our other marketing experts in your area.