We’ve talked about Product Marketing — the first of the Big-M marketing functions — as the person or group that “manages” the product lines.  They worry about the gross margin dollars their line is bringing in, what it takes to “complete the product” in terms of complementary parts and software, the literature and promotional lineup, sales training, customer adoption rates, and so forth.  If this sounds all inclusive, it’s not, mainly because of the personality of the type of person who takes on this job.  These people are managers and, as such, they tend to be locked up in meetings working over the line forecasts, new product launches, customer presentations, and so on.  In short, they can be a little hard to get hold of.

Tactical marketing takes on the job of “making the market” for the products.  If you picture the Product Marketing Manager in a conference room going through a PowerPoint presentation to the company management, then the picture of the Tactical Manager is the person at a desk with two phones to his ears working with the sales force to close deals, or in the commodity pits trading oil futures with frenzied gestures.  This is someone who always has to be available.  And if the sales force isn’t calling him, then he’s calling the sales force… “What’s happening out there???  Let’s get something going!”

As large customers work with the sales force to get quotes on the company products, those requests for quote are relayed into Tactical Marketing where the pricing is assembled and passed back to the appropriate sales person.  Prices are never given to customers directly — they are always passed through the sales force.  We’ll have a lot more to say about this process in future posts.

Now you may be asking, “if the Product Marketing group is responsible for the success of the product line, how does that work if it’s Tactical Marketing that is working the sales force and generating the price quotes?”  Well, usually Tactical Marketing works for Product Marketing.  For instance at Zilog, we had three major product lines, each driven by a Product Marketing group.  Each of those three groups had their own Tactical Marketing function that handled the minute-by-minute sales activity, worked the sales force, drove the quote process, and helped build the sales forecast.  Newer product lines that had not yet been adopted by many customers only had one tactical marketing person.  The biggest line had three.  Since Zilog was a silicon valley company, it was three hours out of sync with the east coast.  The tactical marketing people were assigned geographic areas, and that meant the one handling the east coast came in earlier so she could work the sales people there when they were most likely to be at their offices.

One of the benefits of organizing Tactical Marketing like this is that the individual sales people always talk to the same tactical person, at least for any given product line.  That means they build up a working relationship and a level of trust that is critical for the success of the line (and the sales person).  It also means that when the monthly sales forcast is being judged by Product Marketing, there are essentially in-house specialists for that product line and that sales territory intimately familiar with the deals in progress, their liklihood of closing, and where the prices will ultimately end up.

Obviously the type of person that thrives in tactical marketing is totally different than the person who gravitates towards product marketing.  For one thing, product marketing people tend to be more technical, so they can understand and weigh the various technical product features against the competition.  For another, they are comfortable presenting to management groups, and taking responsibility for the line forecast the company will build to.  Tactical people tend to have what is sometimes called “street-smarts” and could sell any kinds of product, technical or not.  They excel at reading people and understanding when buyers are fibbing about their delivery requirements, quantities, competitors’ pricing, and so forth.

By assigning these two functions — product and tactical — to different people, you take advantage of the differing personality types to get the optimum results.  And an active product line definitely requires this amount of attention!  Having a set of really sharp tactical people will improve your gross margins faster than anything else you can do!