Half clinical and half creative, marketing advisory boards let you work both sides of your brain in exciting ways. They key is to have members who can do both well. The three things you should be looking for in a marketing advisor are marketing experience of their own, an active life outside of work, and experience working as part of a team.
Three Things to Look for in Your Marketing Advisors:
Marketing Experience
You want marketing advisors who have successfully marketed their products and services before. Maybe they have a regular blog that drives people to their website? Maybe they’re a regular on talk shows and the speaking circuit? Maybe you’ve seen their ads in magazines and on billboards and you really like them?
Bottom line is this: if they’ve successfully marketed themselves, they can add valuable insights into how to market what you have. And even if their approach may not be in line with what you’re doing, the fact that they understand how to connect with consumers will help you connect with yours.
An Active Life Outside Work
Marketing isn’t about selling. It’s about relating. And the more life experience someone has, the easier it is for them to relate to more people. You want marketing advisors who’ve traveled. You want people who have kids. You want people with diverse hobbies and it doesn’t matter much what they are.
If you recruit people who have work in their lives but nothing else, you’ll get a myopic view of your product or service. You want a broad view that only life experience can create.
Teamwork Experience
No one in marketing works alone. Go into any agency and you see people working in teams to come up with solutions because they know that creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
The same is true with marketing advisory boards. You want people who want to work with other people and have a proven record of knowing how to do it. You want marketing advisors who can listen, add value to the conversation, and understand how to “yes, and…”
We Can Help Identify Marketing Advisors!
Part of Impetus Digital‘s value is our huge network of people with experience serving on boards. If you’re thinking of putting an advisory board together and you need marketing advisors, drop Janice a note at janice@impetusdigital.com and she can help you get the recruiting process started.