How does marketing contribute to shareholder value? Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 01:14, in Labels: job interview, marketing, marketing accountability, shareholder value, tomi heikkinen

A superb question to any marketer's job interview. Why?

By answering "correctly" (a vague term in real life I know), you..

1) show to the interviewer you understand the strategic, dual value purpose of marketing: Creating value both to the customer and the shareholder.

2) point out you fathom the importance of relationships in marketing and business as drivers of long-term value

3) can bring forth your understanding that marketing is not a one silo thing - but rather cross-functional, where the marketer (you) acts as a facilitator of customer orientation within the firm and an advocate of the customer to the other functions of the company

4) indicate that you are financially literate and understand the purpose of predicting and measuring financial, hard outputs - VERY important!

5) also show you grasp the role of marketing as the company's vanguard element whose task is to acquire critical market intelligence, both customer insight and external information about the environment around the company, and disseminate this intelligence across the firm and to the value chain participants.

6) prove you comprehend what brand equity is about and how brands create shareholder value

7) point out your appreciation of strategic marketing as a tool of resource allocation decision making

The list is hardly complete. But are you asking your prospective marketers this question?