I've been there. I know. As a strategic marketing manager, you're constantly faced with the onslaught of requests from sales, or maybe higher up, to produce new materials. "We need this and that....and soon!" It's so important to be supportive of your company's sales efforts. It's even more important to know why you're supporting them. Sometimes in the rush to make them happy, you can take action that is wasteful and even harmful to your organization.

We all have watched with despair as ill-conceived and ill-prepared direct marketing campaigns, advertising, brochures, and trade show promotional flops unfolded. In the rush to make something, the end result was nothing.

The remedy is hidden in the ever-secret "Big Three" business objectives - the "What must happen this year" objectives. If these haven't been communicated to you as the primary marketing mind in the company, then, your first project is to extract that from your company's visionaries.

Truth be told, marketing activity should never be seeded in what the sales manager "needs." It should always spring forth from those key business objectives. If it doesn't, then it is probably a sign that the company will not meet those objectives, or doesn't need the "costly" marketing department to achieve them (anything to derail this perception is good practice).

So, get those business objectives; communicate them to your team; determine what marketing initiatives can support sales and other stakeholders efforts to meet those objectives; and, finally, execute precisely. Oh, and measure and report on your success! It's always a good strategy. I know. I've been there.