If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that the old ways of working have vanished. Remote work, flexible hours and news ways to meet have become a new normal. Taking this into account the same should apply to how companies silo departments in a typical company structure.
Look at most companies with sales, HR or recruitment and marketing teams and you’ll see that departments are often siloed and have their own distinct area to play. Post-Covid this is going to require re-imagining by companies, especially larger ones that don’t actively encourage teams to collaborate.
The departments that should all be playing in the same sandpit together …. Sales, Marketing and Talent Managers (HR & recruitment) are all marketing channels. (That is, they’re marketing to people internally and externally and shouldn’t be siloed!)
They all have the same goals in mind:
- Communicate marketing messages to attract the right clients and employees
- Showcase brand culture to attract the right clients and employees
- Hire & look after the right people who can attract the right clients and employees.
They’re all focused on people!
So how do they intersect?
Talent Managers market your organisation’s message to the right people. They should be liaising with your marketing team and hiring managers to define the culture you want to build (or maintain), the type of people you want to attract and the types of people you want working for your organisation. Marketing content should be included in onboarding and employee inductions
Talent managers also have a vested interest in the marketing game.
Marketing can generate prospect leads based on information from the sales team (more sales, more money for everyone). They can provide highly relevant content to educate prospects and help support the sales team during the sales process.
Sales can assist marketing to understand clients’ pain points, aspirations, and help them build client personas. They can work with marketing teams to better understand the client. One cannot work effectively without the other. Marketing without sales is like flying blind and hoping you get to your destination.
Based on what salespeople provide to marketing, they can personalise and customise content that talks directly to a certain client or segment, meaning it will cut through and get seen instead of being ignored.
The intersection of these three departments largely untapped by many organisations. It what I call Social Amplification – the collision of people, brand culture and communication! The focus is on leveraging every piece of your digital marketing – via sales, talent, and marketing teams. Then extending this further to include those people in your company that play in the social media bubble.
They all have influence in the process and therefore should all have input. They should all be playing in the same sandpit.
Tanya Williams is the pink-loving, sparkly Chief of Everything at Digital Conversations. She wears many hats; entrepreneur, best-selling author, digital trainer, and she is a Social Amplification Specialist with over 20 years’ marketing experience. She works with recruiters to uncover the hidden gold in their existing assets, find ways to leverage every moment of your digital marketing without increasing your marketing budget and amplify your internal champions to increase your visibility. Her goal is to make the hero in your industry sector. She has a simple, no-tech-talk approach and thrives working with established recruitment companies to tap into the opportunities they might miss, using practical & relevant tactics to drive business outcomes.