What are the leadership challenges for bank marketers?

We're currently in the "Effective Marketing Leadership" class taught by Sara Watkins. She shared with us some findings from Forrester Research showing three top marketing challenges:

1. Follows lead of other departments (more reactive than proactive)
2. Lacks authority
3. Disconnected from peers

Other challenges identified by some of us include:

• Executive management overriding marketing decisions
• Department heads not in agreement with marketing plan
• Matrix overload: Multiple regional presidents with different marketing requests
• Lack of understanding for what marketing can achieve
• Marketing not viewed as an investment
• Lack of communication to perform work (sales disconnected)
• Marketing disconnected because role is specialized

Some ways to establish better expectations and accountability:

1. Establish contract and expectations with CEO

2. Build a dashboard for tracking marketing ROI

3. Join ALCO (Asset/Liability Committee)

"Our tests proved that budget was sustained and increased by adding transparency and accurate metrics." Financial Services CMO: Forrester Research.

These ideas play well off of yesterday's speaker, Jeff Marsico, who also posted this today on his blog: http://jeff-for-banks.blogspot.com/2010/05/open-letter-to-bank-marketers.html

Great information and food for thought, Sara and Jeff! - mz